About three years ago, Blue Origin officials knew they were behind, failing to deliver on their founder’s grandiose vision.
With Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos had long talked about building a world-class space transportation company and had even gone so far as to trademark “Build a Road to Space. ” But despite being nearly two decades old, Blue Origin had not built a road to space, nor even launched an orbital rocket.
Meanwhile, the skyrocket company founded by Bezos’ rival, Elon Musk, had establishing itself as the most dominant launch company} in the world. By the fall of 2018, SpaceX was well on its way to launching a record 21 rockets in the single year, had debuted the Falcon Heavy, and was starting to seriously reuse first stage boosters.