Just imagine what things would look like if SpaceX has a serious failure again. It could drop them back six months, and Blue Origin would get that much closer.
Maybe it's a good motivator for SpaceX, but let's look at the macro picture. Blue Origin has zero commercial flights in its history. It is far behind SpaceX. But if BO displays operational expertise and can execute on its plans, it will be an exciting competitor.
Then again, if BO has some setbacks like SpaceX has had (delays, launch failures, etc) then it might not shake up the industry as much as we hope.
Tortoise and hare. Blue Origin spends more time designing and testing; SpaceX producing and selling. I tend to default to the latter strategy in most markets, but aerospace is different. The results are and will be interesting.
> You can say that about any pair of companies where one has a shipping product and the other does not
Not necessarily. Rabbits move fast and break things; tortoises plod along deliberately and slowly. This applies to Blue Origin because they’re being deliberately slow and thoughtful, versus lazy or incompetent. Theranos or Magic Leap, for instance, are not tortoises.
How is it possible for BO to spend most of their time producing and selling when they don't have a shipping product? How is it possible for SpaceX to spend most of their time designing and testing when they have a shipping product with a lot of market share?
To put it another way, there's nothing in the "most of their time" comparison that you can use to classify either company as a tortoise or a hare: they're just companies at different stages of the company lifecycle.
> they're just companies at different stages of the company lifecycle
Blue Origin is older than SpaceX. It chose to get a lot of basic engineering right before bothering with a product roadmap. They’ve spent years on a big first stage with big engines, all of which were known from the beginning to take longer to develop. Those intermediate goals, none of which are products, were pursued in the hope that they will result in a better end result.
SpaceX, instead, prioritised shortest paths to marketable products. Its intermediate goals are products. SpaceX flew (and collected orders for) its Falcon 1 a few years after being founded; Blue Origin took much longer. SpaceX tries putting paying customers everywhere it reasonably can; Blue Origin avoids the distraction.
These are distinct, deliberarely-chosen strategies. They’re not just similar companies at different points in their respective life cycles.
Why would a Falcon 9 failure set the BFR back six months? The teams working the BFR parts are probably not strongly involved and could just continue working.
It would set them back somewhat, but I don't see why it would be that long.
"Return to flight" activities appear to be a big distraction for the entire company, for example the previous 2 failures caused Falcon Heavy to slip a lot.
Then again, if BO has some setbacks like SpaceX has had (delays, launch failures, etc) then it might not shake up the industry as much as we hope.