# Blue Origin New Glenn

28 Hacker News commenters recommended Blue Origin New Glenn and 17 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Heavy-lift rocket that has flown successfully and recovered its booster, adding launch capacity; critics doubt cost claims and point to delays and failures.

## Why people recommend it

- Impressive engineering and hard feat (4 comments): "New Glenn production is a lot more classical aerospace in terms of a high tech cleanroom factory being built from the start" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45999958)) "Insane that it took a decade for another company to do it, but better late than never." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45921259)) "the teams there pulled off one of the hardest feats in all of spaceflight" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45925321))
- Higher payload capacity than Falcon (3 comments): "The New Glenn 9x4 has a higher targeted payload capacity that an expended Falcon Heavy." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45999820)) "New Glenn significantly increases the capacity to Low Earth Orbit" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45923127)) "Their payload fairing volume is a new capability." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45956789))
- Strong second launch provider (3 comments): "think having a strong second launch provider is a good thing. Hope Blue Origin catches up even more" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45942496)) "new glenn will only make the space industry as a whole better" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45922119)) "Blue Origin has now destroyed SpaceX's cost advantage." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45927119))
- Successful early orbital launches (2 comments): "I'm more impressed by them being (probably...) 2-for-2 on their very first couple orbital launch attempts." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45920925)) "Really super glad to see they have hardware that has successfully done all the things." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45921246))

## What people warn about

- Frequent delays and slow development (4 comments): "Blue Origin's tortoise slow-and-steady approach to development ia increasingly looking stupid." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48320163)) "Now they're looking at significant delays to a network that's already years behind Starlink." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48318930)) "The longer it takes for Blue Origin to work out the flaws in their system" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48325596))
- Failures damage launch infrastructure (2 comments): "High profile failures that take out launch infrastructure are undesirable because the cost to that is much much higher than just losing the rocket." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48320364)) "If you don't have high profile failures like this, you aren't taking enough R&D risk." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48319843))
- Performance and cost claims unproven (3 comments): "That New Glenn is more economical then Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy is a huge assumption and I will only believe it when I see it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48382357)) "it doesn't even have the same payload capacity that Falcon Heavy had eight years ago" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48319108)) "New Glenn's engines are quite a bit less efficient than those at SpaceX." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48118869))
- Relies on Bezos funding (2 comments): "They are hobby project for the richest man on the planet and they don't compete for investment $ with other companies like RocketLab." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48382338)) "They remain a complete nonplayer that exists only through the good fortune of endless and clearly unconditional Bezos bucks." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46002388))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Falcon Heavy](https://hackerapproved.com/p/falcon-heavy.md): 16 recommend
- [SpaceX Falcon rockets](https://hackerapproved.com/p/falcon-rockets.md): 13 recommend
- [Rocket Lab launch services](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rocket-lab.md): 11 recommend
- [Ariane 6](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ariane-6.md): 11 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Blue Origin New Glenn", https://hackerapproved.com/p/new-glenn/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).