Blue Origin switching from a think tank with a worse DC-X to a legacy prime with a big Vulcan makes the start dates hard to compare.
There are a lot of arbitrary cherry-picked stats going around, like “first orbital semi-reusable aluminum-framed Methalox rocket built in Florida by Capricorns” or whatever they’re on about. Not counting Ring Pathfinder because it doesn’t separate is in the spirit of whatever weird “um ackchyually” firsts we’re tracking now.
I could argue that Starship is already commercial because of the HLS development milestones that have been paid out for test flights.
Blue Origin switching from a think tank with a worse DC-X to a legacy prime with a big Vulcan makes the start dates hard to compare.
There are a lot of arbitrary cherry-picked stats going around, like “first orbital semi-reusable aluminum-framed Methalox rocket built in Florida by Capricorns” or whatever they’re on about. Not counting Ring Pathfinder because it doesn’t separate is in the spirit of whatever weird “um ackchyually” firsts we’re tracking now.
I could argue that Starship is already commercial because of the HLS development milestones that have been paid out for test flights.