Why SpaceX Isn’t Celebrating the Blue Origin Explosion

By now, you’ve probably seen the unbelievable video of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploding on its launchpad in Florida on Thursday night. On its face, Blue Origin’s pain would seem to be Elon Musk’s gain, further cementing SpaceX’s already significant lead in the space business just weeks before it goes public. While the explosion is obviously terrible news for Jeff Bezos’ space ambitions, Musk and his SpaceX colleagues have been sending their condolences instead of celebrating Blue Origin’s misfortune—for good reason. 

To be sure, SpaceX will benefit from the disaster in the immediate term. The explosion, which occurred during a rocket engine test, obliterated Blue Origin's only launch site for New Glenn, which will probably take around a year and many tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild. It’s unlikely Blue Origin will be able to launch New Glenn again until at least next spring.