I keep wondering if Blue Origin has something up their sleeve. New Shepard has a great track record but only for sub-orbital hops so far and hasn't yet carried human passengers after 12 successful flights. The New Glen concept looks interesting but it has been in the works for a long time with nothing visible yet. They do also have a great engine in development with customers for it. Several years back Blue Origin used to friendly troll SpaceX on who was leading who but now it's not even talked about. I'll be curious to see how complete New Glen is when they roll it out as more competition, more better.
BO was founded before SpaceX, has spent far more than SpaceX and has accomplished squat.
The BE-4 has been “sold” to customers but started development before Raptor, and is far behind it in technology and accomplishments. We won’t see a BE-4 flight before next year, if even that soon.
Accomplished squat? They're building rockets and engines, mostly out of the public eye, with private money. How is that nothing? Because it isn't the exact path SpaceX is taking?
BO wants to land on the moon by 2024. Let's see what happens.
I'm not a BO hater by any means but I find that timeline to be virtually impossible. On the most basic level the craft they would need to use hasn't even seen the light of day, let alone accomplished any orbital flights.
Something like the moon is a very iterative process. You need orbital flight capabilities, second and perhaps third stage capabilities, life support, launch abort systems, landing and take off from the moon, EVA gear and provable safe earth re-entry... just to name the few key ones off the top of my head. All are huge challenges and you have to solve them step by step with multiple test at each level.
The year 2024 is 4 years away. At BO's current test rate of 2-3 flights a year, and with a rocket that hasn't come out of the factory yet I can't possibly see how it could happen. I look forward to what they will accomplish but they have a very very long way to go.
Edit: adding that BO did recently win a contract to develop a lander only for the Moon and this is much more feasable. But it would still be docking with NASA's Orion for the actual trip there and back.
> mostly out of the public eye, with private money.
While I agree with the sentiment of your comment, BO is also developing with public money. It's true that their funding has largely been private, it's not exclusively so however.
"Blue Origin will receive up to $500 million from the United States Air Force over the period 2019 - 2024 if they are a finalist in the Launch Services Agreement competition, of which they have received at least $181 million so far."
"Blue Origin has also completed work for NASA on several small development contracts, receiving total funding of US$25.7 million by 2013"
