In fairness, Blue Origin has had only a tenth to a half of the funding that SpaceX has had (depending on which sources you trust; figures vary widely). Yet they are hardly doing badly by any measure: they have an almost fully reusable sub-orbital spacecraft which has consistently and safely carried passengers, and they have a orbital rocket ready for testing next month. SpaceX are clearly the market leader, but this is partially because they are into the category of companies who can now convey profitable payloads for NASA/DoD, with the public funding which goes along with that.

Technologically, SpaceX are miles (per second!) ahead of Blue Origin, but in business terms there is perhaps not a great difference between them. First-mover's advantage doesn't often translate into return-on-investment!

> Elon has absolutely earned his reputation.

I think you will find that is exactly what the Royal Society have concluded!

Does it? My conservative hypothesis is: it requires a good nose for good thinkers.

a bunch of frontend developers are about to tell you you're wrong and Musk is actually an idiot