While Jeff Bezos has spent $14 billion to achieve his first space launch, his billionaire rival has built a thriving business, mostly with other people’s money.

Going forward, SpaceX is likely to offer its gigantic Starship rocket as a competitor to New Glenn, and here, the advantage shifts back to SpaceX. Bigger than New Glenn (120 meters tall versus 98) and with a wider faring to encapsulate cargo (9 meters versus 7), SpaceX's Starship will boast a massive payload advantage over Blue Origin's new rocket.

The Federal Aviation Administration is requiring Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin to investigate what went wrong on their respective

Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin joined the billionaire’s space race in earnest when its New Glenn rocket roared from a launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in the early morning hours of Jan. 16. The second stage with the Blue Ring payload successfully reached orbit. However, an attempt to land the first stage on a drone ship failed.

One of the key questions about Blue Origin is whether it will push toward full reusability with New Glenn. In 2021, Ars first reported on an effort codenamed "Project Jarvis" to develop a stainless steel upper stage that could be reused. The company even built a test tank, although the effort was eventually shelved.

Blue Origin and SpaceX both launched rockets on 16 January, but while Jeff Bezos's company saw a launch success with New Glenn, Elon Musk's Starship exploded. What does this mean for the future of the space industry?

Blue Origin is key to Amazon's ability to compete with SpaceX Starlink. Jeff Bezos has finally done it. He's finally reached space with an honest-to-goodness orbital-class rocket. Ten years ago, Bezos ignited a feud with SpaceX founder Elon Musk when his Blue Origin rocket company launched a suborbital New Shepard rocket to the edge of space and then landed it back on Earth.

Jeff Bezos, the second richest man in the world, successfully blasted off a 320-foot-tall rocket ship made by his Blue Origin company from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in the early hours of the morning. It made the company the first to successfully reach orbit on its first launch of an orbital-class rocket.

Elon Musk took to X to share GIFs from the movie "Step Brothers," comparing himself and fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos to the film's two main characters after Bezos's space company, Blue Origin, successfully launched its first rocket into orbit.

Elon Musk likened his apparent reunion with Jeff Bezos to the enemy-to-brother storyline in the Will Ferrell film “Step Brothers.”

Elon Musk reposted a photo taken of him and Jeff Bezos at dinner together over twenty years ago. "Wow, a lot has happened in 21 years!" he wrote while reacting to the picture.