Burgeoning Space Tourism Industry Could Become Big Emitter
by Natasha Lasky (Our Daily Planet) … While space-bound rockets emit less than the aircraft industry, their emissions have been increasing at nearly 5.6% a year.
Why This Matters:
When rockets launch into space, they require a vast amount of propellants to make it out, and these fuels excrete carbon dioxide, water, chlorine and other chemicals into the atmosphere. These emissions go right into the upper atmosphere, and could stay there for years. Even water injected into the upper atmosphere – where it can form clouds – can have warming impacts. Most distressingly, the ozone layer can be destroyed by the combination of elements from burning fuels.
“For one long-haul plane flight it’s one to three tons of carbon dioxide [per passenger],” Eloise Marais, an associate professor of physical geography at University College London, told the Guardian, “For one rocket launch it’s 200-300 tonnes of carbon dioxide carrying 4 or so passengers – close on two orders of magnitude more,” according to Marais.
New figures estimate that the space tourism market is estimated to reach $2.58bn in 2031, growing 17.15% each year of the next decade. This makes curbing the industry’s environmental impacts especially crucial.
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Some find it dispiriting that billionaires have been pursuing private space travel — and pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in the process — when they could be funneling this money into improving life here on Earth.
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Eloise Marais told the Guardian that it’s possible to have new developments in space technology without sacrificing environmental responsibility. She suggested that the space tourism industry should proceed with caution, even though there are currently no international rules around the kinds of fuels used and their impact on the environment.
“We have no regulations currently around rocket emissions,” she said. “The time to act is now – while the billionaires are still buying their tickets.” READ MORE
As Bezos completes Blue Origin mission, many ask what’s the climate-change impact? (Market Watch)
SpaceX Launch Damages Nearby Ecosystems (Our Daily Planet)
Excerpt from Our Daily Planet: Why this Matters: The plethora of private companies venturing into space has already raised red flags: environmentalists worry that the fuel needed to propel these rockets emits harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But these ventures have even more immediate effects, especially on ecosystems nearby.
Elon Musk selected Boca Chica for SpaceX’s launch site because, “We’ve got a lot of land with nobody around, so if it blows up, it’s cool,” as he put it at a press conference in 2018. But this land isn’t actually unoccupied — it’s home to a variety of vulnerable species from seabirds to ocelots. This is especially concerning because Boca Chica is federally protected.
“It’s really been shocking to witness the way the federal government has allowed this to happen,” Bryan Bird, of the national environmental nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife, told the Guardian. “Elon Musk is building a space complex in one of the most environmentally diverse and inappropriate places in the world.” READ MORE
