Who's on first: New Glenn or Starship?

[dglow]

Poll open for 24 hours only.

[Metalskin]

Feels like right now it's a flip of the coin. I feel that we have more visibility of StarShip launch prospects than New Glenn, but it's still kinda ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Eric Hedman]

I voted New Glenn even though it really doesn't matter.  It's more important that they are steps to getting both rockets operational.

[DanClemmensen]

What's the tie-breaker if they launch at precisely the same time? 

[jongoff]

Tough one. I think it's close to 50/50 probability-wise, but I voted Starship. The odds of a first launch, for a company that's never done an orbital launch, going off smoothly and without a hitch is pretty low. I think the probability distribution function of Blue's launch date has a much longer, fatter tail than Starship flight 7 does. But I'm like 60/40 on this, and wouldn't be shocked if I was wrong.

~Jon

[AmigaClone]

What's the tie-breaker if they launch at precisely the same time? 

Start of payload deployment might be a good one.

[lightleviathan]

I voted Starship, SpaceX has been extremely consistent with launch dates over the past couple SS/SH launches and Blue in general is quite bad at staying within windows (I don't think NS has ever flown without at least one or two holds, and that vehicle has flown almost 30 times) as well as NG being a brand new rocket.

[dglow]

 Bump: 20 minutes left to vote.

[Yggdrasill]

Odds are looking much better for Starship. First launch attempt for New Glenn was a scrub, and it may be several days before they can try again.

[DanClemmensen]

NASA flew a WB-57 in support of the New Glenn launch attempt. They also have flown a WB-57 in support of each Starship IFT. There are only three WB-57s. Is there a potential schedule conflict for the WB-57?

[ugordan]

At this point, I'd say a WB-57 allocated to NG would be more useful than Starship, if there was a conflict.

[StarshipTrooper]

Perhaps it's time to poll, New Glenn Flight 1 vs Starship Flight 8.


(edited typo)

[DanClemmensen]

At this point, I'd say a WB-57 allocated to NG would be more useful than Starship, if there was a conflict.

Someone must think the WB-57 looking at Starship is useful. The question is: is it sufficiently useful that SpaceX would delay its launch by a day to de-conflict the WB-57 schedule if NASA cannot fly two of them at once?

[Yggdrasill]

Starship flight 7 will use a NASA Gulfstream V flight out of Australia to observe the reentry of Starship. I would assume this is the most important observations, and a possible WB-57 flight to image the launch would be more of a nice-to-have. They already have a lot of cameras covering the launch.

[Yggdrasill]

And also, it might be possible for a single WB-57 to cover both launches on the same day, given that their launch windows are separated by a number of hours.

[seb21051]

Perhaps it time to poll, New Glenn Flight 1 vs Starship Flight 8.

If their response to NS problems is any indicator, it could be longer. Also, one could see this was close to an extended WDR. No guarantee when they line up all their ducks in a row the next time, they would not find additional issues. My impression is they are much more likely to scrub than SX would. They have a real hard time dealing with failure, and the more spectacular such a failure could be, the more risk-averse they would be.

Imagine if it blew up on the pad.

[dglow]

Imagine if it blew up on the pad.

Let's not. In this thread at least, please.

[jongoff]

Perhaps it time to poll, New Glenn Flight 1 vs Starship Flight 8.

If their response to NS problems is any indicator, it could be longer. Also, one could see this was close to an extended WDR. No guarantee when they line up all their ducks in a row the next time, they would not find additional issues. My impression is they are much more likely to scrub than SX would. They have a real hard time dealing with failure, and the more spectacular such a failure could be, the more risk-averse they would be.

Imagine if it blew up on the pad.

To be fair to Blue, SpaceX had a ton of scrubs early on with their orbital launches, as has almost everyone who has developed an orbital launch vehicle.

~Jon

[catdlr]

Perhaps it time to poll, New Glenn Flight 1 vs Starship Flight 8.

If their response to NS problems is any indicator, it could be longer. Also, one could see this was close to an extended WDR. No guarantee when they line up all their ducks in a row the next time, they would not find additional issues. My impression is they are much more likely to scrub than SX would. They have a real hard time dealing with failure, and the more spectacular such a failure could be, the more risk-averse they would be.

Imagine if it blew up on the pad.

To be fair to Blue, SpaceX had a ton of scrubs early on with their orbital launches, as has almost everyone who has developed an orbital launch vehicle.

~Jon

If BO and SpaceX keep rescheduling, we may have to add RocketLab's Neutron to the thread title. 

[FutureSpaceTourist]

NG wins