Space tourism will add to carbon footprint
Space tourism will add to carbon footprint
By Robert Clark | Nov 5, 2010
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Emissions from space tourism rockets in the upper atmosphere would disrupt the Earth’s climate and result in a net increase in temperatures, a scientific study has warned.
The report, to be published Geophysical Research Letters, predicts that rocket soot would cool areas by up to 0.7 degrees Celsius and raise temperatures in others by as much as 0.8 degrees.
Funded by NASA and The Aerospace Corporation, the report also warns that the increased number of rocket flights will also impact the ozone layer - equatorial regions will lose about 1% of ozone cover and the poles will gain about 10%.
It concluded that "the globally integrated effect of these changes is, as for carbon dioxide, to increase the amount of solar energy absorbed by the earth’s atmosphere".
Martin Ross, the study's chief author who works for The Aerospace Corporation, said the emerging space tourism industry needed to better understand the environmental impacts of their planned flights.
The study assumes that the industry will achieve its target of up to 1,000 suborbital rocket flights a year by the end of the decade.
“Rockets are the only direct source of human-produced compounds above about 14 miles [22.5 kilometers] and so it is important to understand how their exhaust affects the atmosphere,” Ross said in a statement.
“Climate impact assessments of suborbital and orbital rockets must consider black carbon emissions, or else they ignore the most significant part of the total climate impact from rockets. This includes existing assessments that may need to be brought up to date.”
Release of the study follows the first successful flight of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Spaceship Two over the Mojave desert two weeks ago.
Boeing plans to begin space tourism flights by 2015.
I don't know exactly how
I don't know exactly how far away space tourism really is. I mean the shuttle is supposed to be grounded so actually getting people up there to tour may never happen. These findings do make sense though.
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