Comment by laughing_man
5 hours ago
New Glenn's engines are quite a bit less efficient than those at SpaceX. Lower chamber pressures, lower thrust:weight ratio, and they're partial flow staged combustion.
I assume BO will increase their performance over time, but for now they company is about a decade behind SpaceX.
That doesn't make the BE-4 not impressive. It isn't a full flow staged combustion engine like Raptor, but it's still a highly efficient, high thrust, relightable and deeply throttleable rocket engine. These things don't often come in the same package when it comes to rocket engines.
Spacex's work is out there ( and I am grateful for the excitement that generates ) but BO work in the shadows, surprising us sometimes with major advances.
I suspect BO not as far behind as you think.
They'll remain behind as long as they keep copying SpaceX's concepts since they need to wait and see before they can copy.