Space tourism became increasingly real, after Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin successfully launched manned missions. But despite all that, space tourism can ruin the climate on Earth.
Not many at the moment, but successful Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin tests will open the door for a large number of flights and launches.
Scientists say the hybrid engine used by Richard Branson’s company, for example, could have a negative impact on the environment.
To bring humans to the suborbital layer, they will use the VSS Unity ship transported by SpaceShipTwo. Well, this plane is powered by a hybrid engine that burns rubber and leaves a cloud of soot.
For the record, soot is a fine, soft grain of charcoal arising from smoke and so on in black. These soot seeds are responsible for 20% of global warming on Earth.
"Hybrid engines can use many different types of fuel, but they always produce a lot of soot. These engines work like wax, the combustion process produces soot," said Filippo Maggi, Professor of Aerospace Engineering at Politecnico Milano. 2021).
According to Dallas Kasaboski, Principal Analyst for Space Consultants of Northern Sky Research, a Virgin Galactic flight lasted about an hour and a half. That could produce pollution as much as a 10 -hour transatlantic flight.
“Actually, if the space tourism market is launched at a launch volume compared to other industries, individual flights have a much higher contribution and that can be a problem,” he said.
Of course, Virgin Galactic is not the only problem. This is because all rockets that burn hydrocarbon fuel produce soot, including the machines of NASA’s former spacecraft founder.
Commemorating the Columbia space shuttle Commemorating the Columbia space shuttle Photo: Getty Images
Blue Origin is also not without its problems. The New Shepard rocket that takes humans into space uses a BE-3 engine that combines liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to produce thrust. Although not a huge pollutant compared to other rockets.
Karen Rosenlof, a Senior Scientist from the Laboratory of Chemical Sciences at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), says the biggest problem is that rockets pollute the higher layers of the atmosphere, namely in the stratosphere starting at an altitude of 10 km.
“You remove pollutants in places where you normally don’t remove them,” he said.
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