[mannykannot]

"[100Km altitude] is the equivalent of the starting line of a race. The race itself is the kinetic energy."

Did you get that, Jeff?

The truth is, they have both achieved an astonishing amount.

[mikeash]

Blue Origin is cool but it's certainly not astonishing to me that a billionaire is able to send a rocket on a suborbital trajectory and recover it. It's certainly more than I've ever done by a long shot, but it's not a very interesting achievement unless you're interested in five-minute space tourism. I don't think BO's achievement here has many implications for space travel.

[fixermark]

I wonder its implications for terrestrial travel, though? We are in a post-Concord era, after all, but suborbital flight could get you to any point on the planet pretty quickly if the price is right.

[thomashabets2]

This may be interesting to you: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/01/why-were...

[erikpukinskis]

It's amazing in 10 years we've gone from an X-prize to do exactly that to "not interesting".

[andys627]

Comparing apples (going up then down) to oranges (getting into orbit). Pretty awesome to see these guys putting their cash towards this! Hope a rivalry heats up and I can goto Mars for $3.50.

[lotyrin]

3.50? But then you'll get ancient cryptids asking you for rocket fare.

[alerkay]

You're right, both achievements are huge.

That said, I'm not too sure I understand the line "the kinetic energy transfer at a 100 km reference altitude is what matters"...

What is the "kinetic energy transfer at 100km" ? Why not say that what matters is the "kinetic energy transfer", period? It doesn't make any sense to me to put it the former way.