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Agreed. "Q: What is the difference between a million and a billion. A: About a billion" (don't remember the source). Space travel carbon costs are as close to 0

• bmitc 3y ago
  The parent commenter edited their comments several times, so the argument there now is different than it was. My original comment above does not say that rockets should be the top focus on reducing climate change. It says they are a contributor to climate change, which they are. I don't see why we're wanting to send humans to Mars and doing so will thus needlessly increase the impact of rockets on the environment. Yes, there are worse things than rockets, but the impact is definitely not zero, and more and more rockets are going off, so the impact will only increase. The rockets required for human flight are much, much larger than those for unmanned missions. Further, the negative affect of rockets on the local environment, that is local to the launch sites, is very underrated. As noted in the linked article from the NOAA, the impact of rockets needs more study, and the impact is different than airplanes and is estimated to increase the temperature of the stratosphere by degrees, and not a fraction of degrees. This has downstream effects that are not good and is again different than airplanes. Lastly, yes, planes are bad, too, and we should absolutely reconsider plane fuel and flight use.
  • matthewfelgate 3y ago
    The impact of rockets on climate change is about 0%.