Blue Origin Lands a Booster: So What?
Alright, alright, alright... Blue Origin finally did the thing. New Glenn, up it goes, NASA's ESCAPADE satellites hitching a ride to Mars, blah, blah, blah. Landed the booster. Big deal.
So They Didn't Blow It Up This Time
Let's be real, the bar was subterranean. After the first attempt ended with "rapid unscheduled disassembly" (which is PR-speak for "kaboom"), they managed to not screw up the landing. Employees cheered. Fine. Denise got her view blocked by a cruise ship. Serves her right for going to Florida. Look, SpaceX has been sticking these landings for, what, a decade now? Blue Origin is playing catch-up, and they want a parade for doing something that should have been table stakes years ago?
The launch was delayed four days due to weather and a solar storm. Of course it was. Everything with these guys seems to be a struggle. 3.8 million pounds of thrust, seven methane-burning engines... sounds impressive, I guess. But numbers are just numbers. Where's the innovation? Where's the vision, beyond Bezos wanting a vanity project to rival Musk's?
And ESCAPADE? A hundred-odd million to study the Martian atmosphere? Okay, cool. Important science and all that. But isn't this, like, the third or fourth mission to Mars specifically designed to figure out why it's a desolate wasteland now? Didn't we already learn that the solar wind is slowly stripping away the atmosphere? What new revelations are we expecting here? Are we just throwing money at space because we don't know what else to do with it? Blue Origin successfully launched the twin Mars probes for NASA as New Glenn made its first landing Blue Origin launches twin Mars probes for NASA as New Glenn makes first landing - Spaceflight Now.
The "Never Tell Me The Odds" Booster: Cute, But...
Seriously, "Never Tell Me The Odds?" Is that the best they could come up with? It's a Star Wars reference. How original. It's like naming your company "The Force Awakens Corporation" and expecting people to take you seriously.
They had to upgrade the first stage to improve performance. Well, no sh*t. It's almost like the first design wasn't good enough! I'm not an engineer, offcourse, but it seems like getting the booster to land reliably should have been priority number one from the start.
The ESCAPADE probes are going to loiter around Earth for 11 months before heading to Mars. Eleven months! What are they doing, sightseeing? My conspiracy-addled brain can't help but wonder if it's some deep state operation using the "mission" as cover. Then again, maybe I'm just the crazy one here.
So, What's the Point?
Let's be real, Blue Origin is perpetually playing second fiddle. They're the Pepsi to SpaceX's Coke. They're the Zune to Apple's iPod (remember that?). They're... well, you get the point. They're always a step behind, always trying to catch up, and always seeming to lack that spark of genuine innovation that makes you say, "Wow, that's the future."
Maybe New Glenn will become a reliable workhorse. Maybe it'll ferry tons of cargo and people into space. Maybe it'll even contribute to some amazing scientific discoveries. But right now? It just feels like another rich guy's expensive hobby.