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They're not comparable. Blue Origin's work is commendable, but landing a sub-orbital rocket, even re-using one, is not on the same scale as what SpaceX has done
by InclinedPlane 10y ago
They're not comparable. Blue Origin's work is commendable, but landing a sub-orbital rocket, even re-using one, is not on the same scale as what SpaceX has done, the engineering is just on a different level. The X-15 program was landing sub-orbital vehicles, and re-using them, that had gone above 100km decades ago. The difference between Blue Origin's efforts and the X-15 is primarily the landing.
- mikeash 10y agoIn addition to the enormous difference in difficulty, there's a correspondingly enormous difference in utility. Suborbital is good for some light tourism and brief science experiments, but not a whole lot. Orbital is extremely useful for things like communications satellites, to the point that a lot of people will willingly pay hundreds of millions of dollars just to put something up. Blue Origin's vehicle is basically a fancy toy, while SpaceX is opening up space. Of course, Blue Origin is working on opening up space too, they just haven't got there yet. Once they start putting things into orbit, I'll be tremendously excited for them too.