CONGRATULATIONS! Blue Origin’s Giant New Glenn Rocket Reaches Orbit on Its First Try. “Blue Origin now stands as the first private space-launch company in the West to reach orbit on its first attempt with a rocket of its own design. SpaceX needed four tries with its Falcon 1 rocket, Rocket Lab needed two for its Electron, and other, smaller, US space startups have seen their would-be debuts end with one anomaly or another. . . . The second job for New Glenn’s first stage—landing on a barge named Jacklyn after Bezos’s mother—did not go as well. Telemetry from the booster froze after it began its reentry burn, with the last figures putting it at 4,285mph and an 84,226-foot altitude.”

Nobody’s perfect. I wish them many happy repeats, and an advance to bigger and better rockets.