Space tourism found to be a considerable risk to climate

New study found that space tourism industry may translate into significant global warming and destruction of our planet’s protective ozone layer.

The findings were recently published in Earth’s Future, as researchers raise concerns about the current “space race” funded by world’s billionaires. Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos are the main players in the industry, whose rockets are considered to be a climate threat of different degrees.

The research focused on studying emissions of black carbon, the fuel that releases thermal energy and is a climate warming agent that persists into the atmosphere for weeks and up to four years into the stratosphere. With the latest developments of the space tourism industry, scientists worry about the future increasing of the black carbon emissions generated by space flights.

“A big ramp up in the number of space launches, which is hoped for by the space tourism industry, poses a risk to the climate by adding black carbon particles to the upper atmosphere and as a result, we should think very carefully about regulating this industry before it gets out of hand. It would be a real shame for humanity to look back in 50 or 100 years when we’ve got thousands of rocket launches a year and think, ‘If only we’d done something”, explained lead author Robert Ryan, researcher at University College London.

According to the study, space tourism is expected to soon account for 6 percent of global warming due to black carbon emissions despite accounting for only 0.02 percent of all black carbon emissions. Moreover, the rockets considerably impact and destroy the atmospheric ozone layer by releasing chlorine upon launch and nitrogen oxides emissions upon re-entry.

Moreover, a second study recently published in JGR Atmospheres reached similar conclusions.

Stephen Andersen, research director for the Washington-based Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, said:

“Over the last 45 years, they came to the same conclusion. Current emissions are not a significant source, but they would be incredibly significant if the projections of space flights prove true.”

“They need to think before they act and they ought to consider all the options of minimizing the impact. Then the final decision over whether it’s worthwhile to society to allow this enterprise should be made in some kind of a governance way”, added Andersen while highlighting that commercial space flights should become subject to strict international regulations curbing climate-chance, reducing carbon emissions and promoting the protection of the ozone layer.

 

 

source: insideclimatenews.org