And calling them sub-orbital is being generous. Mercury suborbital flights flew much higher and faster, and actually covered hundreds of miles in a parabolic arc. By comparison New Shepherd is a toy, a very expensive trampoline.
That being said, I agree with you that their progress has been pretty damn slow. They do 1-2 test flights per year...
As for demand, doesn’t Virgin Galactic, who will offer something very similar, have a customer list with hundreds of people who have prepaid? Demand might be much higher than you are suggesting.
You aren't going "to" some place unless you can actually stay there for a period of time. But that is just my personal view.
Another way of looking at it -- if the earth didn't have an atmosphere, would you be going "to space" by jumping on a trampoline? (ignoring the fact that we evolved to live in an atmosphere, of course).
The exiting of the atmosphere is part of the view [1], but it works in concert with the altitude. Trampolines, as far as I am aware, are incapable of propelling one to an altitude that provides such incredible views :)
[1] https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1...
They've been making a lot of progress. The BE-4 engine is under development. And their orbital rocket and lunar lander were announced within the last few years.
It's a slow-and-steady approach, sure, but they're making tangible progress.
Work on the New Glenn started in 2012. It was publicly announced in 2016. It’s still at least a year from flight.
Work on the BE-4 started in 2011. It’s first public planned release date was 2017, it’s at least 4 years late.
BE-4 is the #1 project at BO, which is funding R&D at $1B a year.
The BE-4 has been “sold” to customers but started development before Raptor, and is far behind it in technology and accomplishments. We won’t see a BE-4 flight before next year, if even that soon.
Oh, that's not true. They've filed a lot of litigation in that timeline!
Accomplished squat? They're building rockets and engines, mostly out of the public eye, with private money. How is that nothing? Because it isn't the exact path SpaceX is taking?
BO wants to land on the moon by 2024. Let's see what happens.
Something like the moon is a very iterative process. You need orbital flight capabilities, second and perhaps third stage capabilities, life support, launch abort systems, landing and take off from the moon, EVA gear and provable safe earth re-entry... just to name the few key ones off the top of my head. All are huge challenges and you have to solve them step by step with multiple test at each level.
The year 2024 is 4 years away. At BO's current test rate of 2-3 flights a year, and with a rocket that hasn't come out of the factory yet I can't possibly see how it could happen. I look forward to what they will accomplish but they have a very very long way to go.
Edit: adding that BO did recently win a contract to develop a lander only for the Moon and this is much more feasable. But it would still be docking with NASA's Orion for the actual trip there and back.
While I agree with the sentiment of your comment, BO is also developing with public money. It's true that their funding has largely been private, it's not exclusively so however.
"Blue Origin will receive up to $500 million from the United States Air Force over the period 2019 - 2024 if they are a finalist in the Launch Services Agreement competition, of which they have received at least $181 million so far."
"Blue Origin has also completed work for NASA on several small development contracts, receiving total funding of US$25.7 million by 2013"
Why is it that Elon Musk fans claim to be about these overarching, prohumanity missions ("Accelerating the transition to renewable energy! Enabling people to live on other planets!"), but then spend half their time hating on competitors with common goals?
In my opinion, we should see crewed sub-orbital flights from them within the year, and possibly crewed orbital flights in the 4-8 year time frame... where those crewed orbital flights may have capacity to go all the way to the moon.