As a "serious rocket", New Shepard falls well short of Falcon 1, which made orbit 13 years ago. Blue Origin still hasn't put anything into space.
Of New Shepard development, wikipedia tells me "Prototype engine and vehicle flights began in 2006, while full-scale engine development started in the early 2010s and was complete by 2015.[5] Uncrewed flight testing of the complete New Shepard vehicle (propulsion module and space capsule) began in 2015."
Well SpaceX was founded in 2002, giving them what, a 4 year head start on New Shepard? That 4 year gap has grown much wider since then.. SpaceX got to orbit 6 years after they were founded, while Blue Origin is at 21 years and counting.
Didn't Blue Origin, as a company, start 2 years before Space X did? This is the strange part to me. Blue Origin started sooner, has a billion dollars a year of cash from Bezos, and still seems pretty far behind. I'm hoping New Glenn is everything it is planned to be, and arrives soon. More competition would be great.
I do like Space-X's test and manufacturing iteration process though, and think it gives them an edge. Not to mention the shear amount of experience they've gained with so many actual launches.
I'm not sure if I agree that New Shepard isn't a "serious rocket".
Falcon 1 has a low payload (small satellite) with medium energy (LEO).
New Shepard has a medium payload (crew capsule) with low energy (suborbital).
As far as "similar to a large orbital launch vehicle", you can rank them as:
New Shepard < Falcon 1 < Falcon 9 < New Glenn
BO is definitely trying to "skip steps", but I think that the US space industry as a whole is certainly better off for Blue Origin existing.
As far as the BE-4, the single largest technical risk for a launch vehicle is the engine, and using an engine which will already be in use (for Vulcan) looks smart to me. Yes there are delays, but aren't there always?
Manned suborbital launches are little more than glorified pogo-stick rides. This has been true ever since America tossed Alan Shepard into the air as desperate PR damage control after the Soviets put Yuri Gagarin into orbit.
If nothing else, "New Shepard" is appropriately named.
*In propellant terms, for an equal payload, for a SSTO
These are important qualifiers. Realistically if you tightened up the mass fraction on New Shepard, abandoned reuse, and added a second stage, the technology could probably put a small payload into orbit just fine. I'm not sure what the point would be, since it would ruin all the useful things New Shepard is doing as a pathfinder.
Falcon Heavy technically has a little more payload to LEO than New Glenn, but it's stuck with an extremely undersized fairing for that job, so really it's better treated as Falcon 9 that's able to go further out. For the bulk of the market, New Glenn is more capable.
Yes, SpaceX moved fast in its early years; Musk threw everything he could afford at the project and raced to the finish line, whereas Blue Origin only really stepped into high gear very recently.
It's true that Blue Origin started early stage work around the time you say, but you should keep in mind the sort of projects they were. Charon was a few Rolls-Royce engines connected by a metal lattice. Goddard was a conical capsule that flew to 85m. This was not anything close to the levels of effort that SpaceX was putting in with Falcon 1 and Falcon 9.
Of New Shepard development, wikipedia tells me "Prototype engine and vehicle flights began in 2006, while full-scale engine development started in the early 2010s and was complete by 2015.[5] Uncrewed flight testing of the complete New Shepard vehicle (propulsion module and space capsule) began in 2015."
Well SpaceX was founded in 2002, giving them what, a 4 year head start on New Shepard? That 4 year gap has grown much wider since then.. SpaceX got to orbit 6 years after they were founded, while Blue Origin is at 21 years and counting.