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Comment by 6d6b73 | Hacker News Reader

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6d6b73·

Looks like SpaceX will have some catching up to do. Bezos seems to be getting ahead of Musk.

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The Dragon Launch Escape System was successfully tested in May last year.

It is Blue Origin who are catching up.

Dragon hasn't done an in-flight test with a firing booster, though. They're each ahead and behind the other in different ways. What SpaceX is doing is for the most part more challenging, but I don't mind some competitiveness if it gets everyone pushing for greatness.

But not on a rocket that flew five times.

This is a much simpler rocket than the Falcon 9. For one, it's suborbital. Its flights are so much simpler than the full orbital injections and hypersonic reentries the Falcon flies.

A quick list of things Blue Origin hasn't done yet:

- Sent anything to orbit (much less paying cargo)

- Sent anything to geosyncronous orbit

- Landed a ship coming back from orbit

- Docked with the ISS

They haven't orbited anything yet, so not exactly. But it looks like the gap is narrower than some thought.

Musk said he hoped to ignite a new space race. He might have one.

I am not sure Musk has ignited anything. Weren't these competing companies already on this track?

Not quite yet, orbital missions are much higher energy than lobbing something to space. Specific energy of New Shepard booster at apogee: ~1000 KJ/kg Specific energy of Falcon 9 booster at MECO: 2500 - 3400 KJ/kg

Yeah, and Falcon 9 is several times the size of New Shepard. There are several nice graphics here that explain the differences between Falcon 9 and New Shepard: http://space.stackexchange.com/a/13188

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