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The short answer is yes. Airplanes account for 2.5% of CO2 emissions and rockets use massively more fuel than airplanes per flight (falcon 9 is ~10x fuel capac
by terminalshort 1y ago
The short answer is yes. Airplanes account for 2.5% of CO2 emissions and rockets use massively more fuel than airplanes per flight (falcon 9 is ~10x fuel capacity of a 737).
But this is an insane scenario because there are about 100,000 commercial flights per day in the world. In all of 2024 there were ~250 orbital launches. So to hit the same rate as airplanes it would require a ~150,000x increase in the launch rate (or a ~15,000x increase to equal the CO2 emissions of airplanes).
- bryanlarsen 1y agoMost of the falcon9 fuel is liquid oxygen. A Falcon9 holds less kerosene than a 737 ER.
- phire 1y agoYou are thinking of the 777 ER, which holds more kerosene than the first stage of Falcon 9 (and slightly less fuel than both stages combined) The 737 is a much smaller plane, and its fuel capacity is near the ballpark of 10x smaller.