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Space tourism - we may have a problem...
wombat140
Member Posts: 971 Arc User
Commercial space projects - SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, everyone - seem to be constantly in the news lately. I recently came across this article, from the usually reliable SGR:
Flights from Sense
I'd recommend reading the article, but the gist is that, while Virgin Galactic's claim that their space flights don't give off that much CO2 seems to be true, there's a potentially much worse problem: "black carbon particles" (soot, essentially) getting into the stratosphere. All combustion engines give out black carbon and it's one of the factors included in climate models, because since it's black it absorbs sunlight, but normally it's removed by rain within weeks. But in the stratosphere, there's no rain and next to no exchange of air with other levels of the atmosphere - so if black carbon gets there, it's there for years, not weeks - which means it would just keep building up. According to the only modelling study that's been done so far, 1000 launches a year (the level the industry itself is eventually hoping for) would have as much effect on global warming as the ENTIRE aviation industry. As one of the professors who worked on the study puts it: “there’s one issue and it’s simple: you don’t want to put black carbon in the stratosphere. Period.”
Bit worrying. What's especially worrying is I haven't heard of anyone else particularly looking into this further, nor mentioning doing anything about it if it is true. What's everyone make of this?
That reminds me, does anyone know what's the latest about the "space elevator"? I haven't heard any news for a while. That would solve this particular special problem neatly, because you could just winch your spacecraft through the stratosphere and past the danger level. You'd still need a power source for the winch, but at least that would be on the ground - and anyway, that could potentially be run off (renewable) electricity, which a spacecraft engine currently can't. Also, what you'd be doing, if you think about it, is building a railway into space... and that is, slice it how you like, amazing, isn't it?
Flights from Sense
I'd recommend reading the article, but the gist is that, while Virgin Galactic's claim that their space flights don't give off that much CO2 seems to be true, there's a potentially much worse problem: "black carbon particles" (soot, essentially) getting into the stratosphere. All combustion engines give out black carbon and it's one of the factors included in climate models, because since it's black it absorbs sunlight, but normally it's removed by rain within weeks. But in the stratosphere, there's no rain and next to no exchange of air with other levels of the atmosphere - so if black carbon gets there, it's there for years, not weeks - which means it would just keep building up. According to the only modelling study that's been done so far, 1000 launches a year (the level the industry itself is eventually hoping for) would have as much effect on global warming as the ENTIRE aviation industry. As one of the professors who worked on the study puts it: “there’s one issue and it’s simple: you don’t want to put black carbon in the stratosphere. Period.”
Bit worrying. What's especially worrying is I haven't heard of anyone else particularly looking into this further, nor mentioning doing anything about it if it is true. What's everyone make of this?
That reminds me, does anyone know what's the latest about the "space elevator"? I haven't heard any news for a while. That would solve this particular special problem neatly, because you could just winch your spacecraft through the stratosphere and past the danger level. You'd still need a power source for the winch, but at least that would be on the ground - and anyway, that could potentially be run off (renewable) electricity, which a spacecraft engine currently can't. Also, what you'd be doing, if you think about it, is building a railway into space... and that is, slice it how you like, amazing, isn't it?
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Or isn't a much bigger part of CO2 coming from coal and oil plants as well as a regular ground traffic?
Is the current thought that carbon nanotubules won't do the trick once we learn how to make them in the necessary quantities? Or is that (not being able to make carbon nanotubules that well) the hangup?
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Oh no its to dangerous to go , well thats what they said in the age of sail when people like columbus went to find the orient and discoverd cuba.
at somepoint we need to stop biching and complaining procrastinating and just nut up and do it or just shut up and drop the whole space exploration idea.
Preferably the former.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
JoranTomalak and Dalolorn: The difference is, Columbus and his fellow explorers were only risking their own lives (and frequently losing them), and that was their look-out. Whereas this is risking the lives of people everywhere who have no say in the matter. Do we have a right to do that? Anyway, from all I've heard, most of this has nothing to do with "space exploration", it's just taking rich people on day trips up to 110km (definitely not unexplored territory, not even as high as the ISS or a communications satellite) and down again. I know the argument is that it's good practice for rocket-builders, but it seems a pretty drastic cost just for practice...
As a species, it won't kill us to wait to explore more of space until we can do it without jeopardising our own planet - whereas if we muck up our atmosphere any worse than we have to, that really will kill people. I'm sure if Aliens-of-the-Week were doing that in a Star Trek episode, the Enterprise crew would be tearing their hair out
As Clari says, better rocket fuels - or more exotic kinds of propulsion, ion engines and so forth - would be the theoretical solution. The Apollo rockets burned kerosene, which still means CO2 but less black carbon - dunno how much. Wonder if anyone's done better yet?
Liquid hydrogen/oxygen fueled rockets are a mature technology (e.g. the second and third stages of the Saturn V rocket used it, as did the Space Shuttle), and that's about as non-polluting as you can get with rockets, the only exhaust being superheated water vapor and a few ions thereof. The main issues with using it is 1) that liquid hydrogen needs to be kept supercold (20 degrees above absolute zero), which means that the tanks must have a lot of bulky and heavy insulation and can only be fueled within a matter of hours before launch, and 2) that hydrogen, being the least dense element, takes up eight times as much tank space per mass as hydrocarbon fuel, so you need really BIG fuel tanks.
Hast thou not felt ashamed of thy words and deeds
Hast thou not lacked vigor
Hast thou exerted all possible efforts
Hast thou not become slothful
(I got most of this off Wikipedia, more information there https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_fuel , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket . Turns out to be an interesting topic. )
I'm more worried about the carbon polluting the rest of the world after making its way down from the upper atmosphere (if it's not eaten by some sort of microbe first)
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
Interesting random fact that's turned up (same website): black carbon in the stratosphere is the same mechanism that would cause the notorious "nuclear winter" phenomenon. http://www.sgr.org.uk/resources/uk-nuclear-weapons-catastrophe-making#Nuclear_winter Not really clear how they make out that it would cause warming in one scenario (by trapping heat) and cooling in the other (by blocking it out). Am a member so will ask on the e-mail list.
Off-topic, I like your Sylviana character sheet (and the character). I'm trying to write a superhero adventure story and that's given me ideas - not copied, I don't mean, but from it being a good demonstration of how you put a character together and what ingredients you need to build a good one.
Basically on space elevators, it seems nanotubes have the tensile strength required for a cable long enough, but we can't grow them nearly long enough. Yet. Materials tech is crazy
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My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
That's the point. Science changes its position when new evidence becomes available. It's not a problem, it's its greatest strength.
The other thing you missed in you points against short term change is mitigation. Humans actively working to undo anthropogenic change. We may not be able to stop it, but we can delay certain effects for a few hundred years.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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On the other tentacle, global climate shift is visible now. I grew up in a neighborhood in the Pacific Northwest that was called "Cedarview", pushing the large numbers of cedars growing wild there. There aren't any cedars growing there now - the climate's too dry for them. Even the firs are thinning out, being replaced by more drought-tolerate pines. And this is in an area that's long been famous for its rainfall!
A few years back, the Australian weather maps had to add a color to describe the heat in the Outback, because their old scale just didn't go far enough.
Last winter, for the second time ever, the starting point of the Iditarod dogsled race in Alaska had to be moved, because the official starting point didn't have any snow. The last time this happened? 2005. Currently there are over 300 separate wildfires burning in Alaska, because it's been so dry for the past few years.
Sinkholes in New York, droughts in the Northwest (just the West, for our Canadian friends), heavy rains and flooding in Texas and Arizona, the navies of several nations planning for an ice-free Arctic Ocean in a few years, the collapse of the Greenland glaciers, oceanic acidification - the data are all there, for anyone who wants to examine them. And no, these phenomena are not coupled with solar output, nor with sunspots, but they do correlate nicely with atmospheric CO2 levels, which have been dramatically raised over the past two hundred years by humans. Some of the curves are slowing, because we're actually trying as a species not to ruin our ecosystem just yet, but there's still a lot of work left to be done.
Yes it is, and? You suggesting we should't try stop it? The evidence strongly suggests we are responsible for the period of rapid change since the European Industrial Revolution. Are you somehow suggesting moving to new fuel sources or building more wind farms is somehow a bad idea? Or are you of an opinion that the science is a global conspiracy to get you to pay more taxes?
The Moon has no climate, changing their orbit will not give it a climate.
Jonsills-how long have we kept records on temps in Alaska? I'm betting less than 200 years. The Iditarod is certainly less than 200 years old.
You want to give examples or just cry 'conspiracy' again?
Can we do anything about the water vapour? No. Can we do something about the carbon dioxide? Yes.
What scare stories? That the Earth is warming overall or that sea levels are rising? Or that we're running out of resources? Scare stories they may be but true none the less.
Or maybe because it's both. Unless you think there's a limitless supply of oil or that it's somehow not harmful getting it out?
Yeah, the maths fails on that one. One less house on the National Grid is one less house they need to supply, multiply that by all the houses in an area, that could be shutting down a power station.
Really? I do. You might not but I do.
Well we try, but people cry conspiracy and try stop funding the people who are actually trying to find out.
Who claimed that? Hurting sure, not killing. I could't care less about ego as long as it gives people the kick up the TRIBBLE they need to try help.
Nope. Because if you notated it's the expected output that has changed. Global cooling - global warming - climate change. You said it yourself earlier on.
Do do you have a suggestion about the rapid change data dating from the European Industrial Revolution suggesting anthropogenic climate change? It's not sunspots is it, that one makes me laugh.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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Carbon issues aside, we do need to rein in dumping of toxic materials, if only because stuff that is carelessly dumped finds its way into the water we drink and the food we eat, and thus into our own bodies. I'm far more worried about sulfates and other toxins in coal and oil than I am about the carbon.
I am not sure the millions of people who had no choice and died due to the risks Columbus took would agree with that. Columbus was hardly only risking his own life. His risks killed into the countless millions.
Examples or forever hold your peace. And it makes perfect sense for the solutions to be the same - because the causes they're supposed to be addressing are the same, even if views have changed about what the outcome of those causes was supposed to be. (Which, as Jonsills pointed out, ain't really so.)
On the original topic... No, it's not about "one trip in two years" - if it was, it'd be less worrying. The article's talking about what happens if the space tourism companies manage to do what they themselves say they aim to do, and run 1,000 flights a year. And I can't honestly see what "real problem" that would be solving. The problem of rich kids not knowing what to spend all that money on?
Perhaps a compromise between your standpoints would be viable, though. Don't do anything to discourage this sort of thing, but rather encourage better methods of getting into orbit.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
The scary thing is that this might come to pass in a slightly more limited manner. We could find ourselves a century from now having 12 billion people to feed but only capable of producing enough food to feed 10 billion. Somebody will have to starve, and it will probably be the world's most powerless people getting the short straw.