Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is finally on the brink of launching its New Glenn rocket from Cap Canaveral Space Force Station. The maiden flight will kick off a high-stakes bid to compete head-to-head with Elon Musk's SpaceX and its industry dominating Falcon family of rockets.

“The New Glenn rocket is all about significantly reducing the cost of access to space,” Sean O'Keefe, University Professor and former NASA administrator, tells CBS News. “This will give SpaceX some serious competition. ...These are exciting times in the space business.”

In the Florida Today article, “'Incredible piece of machinery': Former NASA chief looks forward to Blue Origin New Glenn launch,” O'Keefe says, “This is a sharp contrast to other commercial space launch variants that have been heavily publicized and hyped and everything else. Blue Origin has really kept to their tending on this one to make sure that they've got everything sorted out, and have done it in a way—it's been not below the radar, but certainly not dominant on the radar—like their arch-competitor has been doing for quite a while here.”