When Legacy Thinking Grounds You: What the Space Race Teaches Enterprise Architecture and Business Architecture
Blue Origin flew New Glenn - their massive, orbital-class rocket - for the third time. And they flew it on a booster they already landed and refurbished. The same first stage. Flying again.
There is a profound lesson being written across the night sky right now - and most enterprise architects and business architects are missing it entirely.
On April 19, 2026, Blue Origin launched New Glenn for its third mission, using a previously flown first-stage booster it landed just five months ago. The same rocket. The same hardware. Flying again. Blue Origin has become only the second organization in history to propulsively land an orbital-class rocket and refly it - a feat that just a decade ago was considered engineering fantasy.
Meanwhile, United Launch Alliance - for decades, the undisputed king of American launch services, the company that held a near-monopoly on national security missions, the organization born of the combined might of Boeing and Lockheed Martin - is for sale. With few buyers willing to take it at almost any price.
That contrast is not a space story. It is a legacy story. And it has everything to do with what is happening to enterprise architecture and business architecture right now.
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