[Ozark Tom]

There is a difference between a sight seeing excursion and putting payload in orbit. Any graphic artist can draw rockets for illustration purposes. Show us the hardware making delivery to orbit.

[Vince Ferrer]

Blue Origin is a pretty secretive company, much more so than SpaceX. But that does not mean they don't have any hardware. For example, their BE-4 engine was announced publicly in 2014, yet was in development since 2011. If they have been developing the engine since 2011, they have been developing the rest of the rocket since 2011 too. They will begin static firing of the engine this year.

ULA is impressed enough by their hardware that they have chosen the BE-4 for their new Vulcan rocket, to replace their Russian engines. So I think ULA have looked at the engines and their manufacturing capabilities.

They announced the New Shephard as a suborbital tourist vehicle, and they have flown it several times. But it was always just a stepping stone to this new rocket. They made that plain. But if you think about it, they have launched the vehicle four times successfully, but they never have seemed to taken the step to offer tourist rides. Was that ever their intention, or were they just hiding in plain sight?