Re: Yowzers!
I've been considering Blue Origin as the poor cousin between them and SpaceX. After all, Blue Origin have been doing hops, whilst SpaceX have been orbital for years. This ups the ante rather a lot though.
If you thought that, then you've not been paying attention. Blue Origin have taken a different path than SpaceX, but don't let that fool you -- they have a lot of momentum. They may not be launching satellites every few weeks, but they are making very good progress on some pretty impressive hardware. They have a steady income stream (Bezos is pouring money into them, plus they're getting well paid by ULA for working on this engine), so they don't need to be launching to earn the money to keep developing.
I honestly think that there's plenty of room for both SpaceX and Blue Origin. They've got different goals and different hardware with different capabilities. They may end up competing a bit on some launch contracts, but realistically they're going to be taking customers away from the other providers rather than each other.
And once they're both up and running with their next generation vehicles, they're both going to start putting some serious effort into their real agendas, which will take time and resources away from their presence in the traditional launch market. Plus they're both going to be wanting to expand the market by moving into space tourism.
So yes, assuming the hardware works as planned, I think they're both going to do just fine.
One thing is certain -- the near future is going to be very exciting for space enthusiasts; there will be an unprecedented quantity of launches, and a lot of new achievements to celebrate.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
