If Blue Origin really thinks that orbital refueling is too difficult, then it thinks that we are limited in our ability to use space.

What also isn’t compared by Blue Origin is reusability, because it loses on that score, too, and without orbital refueling then there is no reusability at all in Blue Origin’s plan.

Bezos has expressed interest in going back to the Moon, but what his company should do is what SpaceX is doing to go to Mars: just do it. SpaceX is bypassing NASA, and Blue Origin should do the same. Blue Origin is still considering NASA as the only customer, the monopsony. This is a limiting paradigm. We have already seen an increase in customers for Falcon 9 and Electron, and Crew Dragon’s success has even brought additional tourism customers for itself and Soyuz. The reduction in launch costs has opened up the market for low Earth orbit constellations and allows them to do better than Iridium and Globalstar. Blue Origin should likewise find customers for any Earth to Moon system that they create.

Robert wrote: “Meanwhile, SpaceX keeps barrelling along, focused not on petty managment issues or whiny complaints, but on actually building rockets that fly.”

This is the point. Blue Origin is not keeping its eye on the ball but is being distracted by thinking constantly about the call on the last pitch. Blue Origin cannot win them all. Even SpaceX can’t, but they don’t mind so much when they don’t win. When Blue Origin landed its booster just days before SpaceX did, SpaceX continued on and now has recovered boosters almost a hundred more times than Blue Origin has. When Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin both announced then beat SpaceX to commercial space tourism, SpaceX continued on unfazed.

Blue Origin flew its capsule to space four years before SpaceX did, but SpaceX was able to fly theirs manned a year before Blue Origin did. What took Blue Origin so long? Distractions.

They are only in it for the government development cash.

They will never get up to the development style and speed of Space X.