21
[Berger] Blue Origin reaches orbit on first flight of its titanic New Glenn rocket
(arstechnica.com)
Props for making orbit on the first launch. The industry has been plagued by second stage issues, so it's impressive to see a clean first launch.
I'm conflicted on this:
Blue Origin deserves credit for making the attempt, rather than criticism for failing to stick the landing.
Yes, they deserve credit for trying, but also some criticism. In the last few months, their tone changed from it going to work to "So you're telling me there's a chance?". Their design process isn't supposed to be SpaceX's crazy iterative "move fast and break things" one. These boosters are expensive. On to the next one.