Don’t Believe The Hype, The Billionaire Space Race Is Killing Earth
Rockets will never be environmentally friendly
We know we must be living through a revolutionary time in history when billionaires are the ones pushing the frontiers of space rather than the government. For the most part, these billionaires seem to be doing an incredible job. Access to space has never been so cheap and widely available, allowing for blue sky ideas like space tourism, Mars missions, NASA moon bases, and the development of copious numbers of satellites to become viable. Moreover, these new-age rockets can be powered by carbon-neutral fuel, meaning we are now capable of exploring the heavens without damaging the Earth. Right? Well, a recent study has shown that even these revolutionary “do-gooder” rockets are harming our precious planet. But how? And how will this affect the space race?
Let’s get something out of the way first; to develop an understanding of the environmental harm posed by the space race, we need to know which rockets use which fuel, and how much carbon they emit.
Firstly, SpaceX (Elon Musk’s company). Their Falcon 9 rocket uses kerosene fuel and emits around 425 tonnes of carbon dioxide per launch, along with water vapour, soot, carbon monoxide, and nitrous oxides (NOx). Their upcoming Starship also runs off methane…
