Title : What's the carbon footprint?
link : What's the carbon footprint?
What's the carbon footprint?
I see "Richard Branson completed a daring, barnstorming flight to edge of space Sunday, rocketing through the atmosphere in the spaceplane he’d been yearning to ride for nearly 20 years." That's the Washington Post dribbling enthusiasm like a sci-fi fanboy.
I have no idea what "edge of space" means, but I suspect it should be "the edge of space," and it's sloppy editing.
Anyway, WaPo is normally concerned about global warming and I don't know why the "daring barnstorming" of a billionaire gets a pass. How many home-to-work commutes in an SUV would it take to emit the carbon released in this old man's pleasure trip?
It's a long article, and it includes references to Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post:
By moving up his flight, [Branson] was able to beat Bezos to space by nine days.... Branson has repeatedly denied that he was in a race with Bezos and said in the interview that it was just “an incredible, wonderful coincidence that we’re going up in the same month.” But when asked about a rivalry with Bezos on CNBC, he couldn’t help himself, saying “Jeff who?”
Oh, isn't that darling?
There's nothing about the carbon footprint of this joyride. I wanted to read the comments over there to see if there's any discussion of climate change. But: "Comments are not available on this story."
Looking around at other news sites, I see this from E&E news:
The emissions from a minutes-long Virgin Galactic spaceflight have been compared to a plane ride halfway around the world. While it would take thousands of launches for the emerging industry to have a significant climate impact, some detractors say they are worried about what might happen if space tourism truly takes off.
Blue Origin envisions a "future where millions of people are living and working in space," and Virgin Galactic wants to "open space for everyone." Critics are concerned the U.S. government is doing too little to regulate the environmental impact of commercial space travel.
And they have questioned the climate commitments of Bezos, Branson and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. All three men have raised concern about global warming. And all three have taken steps to accelerate the commercial space industry....
If Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic begin regular spaceflights later this year and in 2022 as expected, the number of space travelers soon could outnumber the roughly 550 trained astronauts who've broken the Kármán line separating Earth's atmosphere from the cosmos.
These pointless pleasure trips for the rich should have been banned long ago. I take it the "Kármán line" is what they mean by the babyish term "the edge of space."
Supporters of the nascent sector say its contribution to climate change will be minimal, in the planetary scale of things. "I know why we focus on these things, because they are exemplary in some sense. And it isn't to say that what they do shouldn't be judged," said Gavin Schmidt, NASA's top climate adviser. "But in terms of the bigger picture, they're not a very big part of the big picture," he said of the growing ranks of wealthy space explorers....
This is how rich people with grossly huge carbon footprints always try to avoid responsibility! It's really all the millions and billions of little people with their tiny, tiptoe-y carbon footprints that really add up. Restrict them, but leave us rich people alone. There are so few of us that nothing we do — insanely extravagant though it may be — amounts to anything worth fussing over.
Schmidt emphasized that he was speaking to E&E News in his personal capacity. That's not to say space tourism is an environmentally friendly endeavor. Branson has estimated that a minutes-long suborbital flight on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo has a similar carbon footprint as a commercial jet flying between London and Singapore. But international flights of that sort generally carry hundreds of passengers at a time to a fixed destination.
SpaceShipTwo's emissions are for a minutes-long roller coaster ride above the Kármán line and back. Researchers have found rocket emissions also can damage the ozone layer, which protects people and wildlife from dangerous levels of ultraviolet radiation. The full extent of the potential environmental harm, however, is an open question....
"Are there equity issues in all of this? Of course there are," said Schmidt, the NASA climate adviser. But he added, "That's a legislative or administrative thing [to resolve]."
Is there any politician making an issue out of banning (or at least restricting) space tourism?
Thus articles What's the carbon footprint?
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