The Canary in the Coal Mine - Why the
Stratosphere is Still Relevant
Prof. Toohey's
Jefferson
Science Fellow Lecture at the Department of State (watch here)
Emissions of Black Carbon by Rockets - Suborbital Industry
to "inform the black carbon debate"
"...fuel which
provides none of the toxins that are present in the solid rockets used
by the Space Shuttle and satellite launches. Less fuel and clean fuel
all adds up to a space launch system which would be completely
unprecedented in its low environmental impact." (Virgin Galactic,
June 11, 2009)
"The Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) Space Systems
Group announces the successful completion of two critical milestones
for NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) Program. On
September 21, 2010, SNC completed three successful test firings of a
single hybrid rocket motor in one day. "
(
SNC
Press Release, Oct. 11, 2010)
"If the space tourism industry matures to the point that
1,000 hybrid-powered suborbital flights depart annually, those trips
would deposit roughly 600 metric tons of soot into the stratosphere
each year. Over decades of launches, those emissions would form a
persistent and asymmetric cloud over the northern hemisphere that could
impact atmospheric circulation and regional temperatures far more than
the greenhouse gases released into the stratosphere by those same
flights."
(
Scientific
American, October 23, 2010)
"[T]he
rocket fuel that most companies plan to use -- a solid synthetic rubber
that is burned with a liquid nitrous oxide -- creates far more soot
than more standard rocket fuels that mix together hydrogen and oxygen."
(
Boulder
Daily Camera, October 25, 2010)
Boulder scientists will reach new
heights
on commercial spaceship.
"The
scientists signed contracts last month with Virgin Galactic and
XCOR Aerospace, two of the five private firms that have begun building
aircraft to carry passengers on suborbital flights....the black smoke
emissions of these vehicles is roughly one million times worse per
kilogram for the stratosphere than the emission of carbon dioxide."
(
Boulder Daily
Camera, April 8, 2011)
"Sierra Nevada Corp. has been awarded $80 million to continue
development of the Dream Chaser space plane by its Louisville-based
space-systems group. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration
announced Monday that Sierra Nevada is one of four companies working on
space transportation concepts to split nearly $270 million. 'This is
a terrific win for us,' said Mark Sirangelo, chairman of Sierra Nevada
Space Systems. 'It validates our approach to not only the industry but
our approach to the vehicle design.' "
(
Denver Post, April 19, 2011)
So who is going to study the
environmental impact...or do we just ignore it?
"The report is from a well respected source and looks at an area of
potential environmental impact which is certainly important to study.
However it is also an early stage, speculative discussion paper by and
for the scientific research community. The lack of any real data and
the many unknowns mean that the range of uncertainty in the models is
enormous."
(
Virgin
Galactic, date of posting unknown, accessed May 31, 2011)
$1-2 million, or less than 1% of this
award, could answer the question "Are hybrid rocket emissions of black
carbon significant?"
Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), is pleased to announce that the
company's Dream Chaser
® Space System has been awarded $212.5
million as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Integrated Capability
(CCiCap) Program... "We are very pleased to have been awarded
this amount of funding as part of NASA's ongoing effort to create a
commercial human transportation system to low Earth orbit. This award
will allow our Program to continue to make great strides in the
development of the Dream Chaser Space System. We want to express our
appreciation to all of those that have provided great support in our
efforts, including everyone within our organization and our terrific
external team partners, the NASA personnel assigned to our efforts and
throughout the NASA Centers and our federal, state, and local
government representatives."
(
Sierra Nevada
Corporation, August 3, 2012)
"Our...contribution to the black
carbon debate will be to provide the means to make it one that is more
informed."
“We are happy that the vehicles we currently have under development
represent a major step forward in cleaning up access to space,” said a
Virgin representative. “We fully expect the vehicles to evolve over
time and improving overall environmental efficiency will certainly be
one of the key drivers in that respect for Virgin Galactic. As
explained above – we think our principle [sp] initial contribution to
the black carbon debate will be to provide the means to make it one
that is more informed. Understanding the issue more fully will help the
whole industry to seek appropriate solutions.”
(RevModo,
September 16, 2012)
Other , less important news
"Increased international space launches and the potential
commercial space travel boom could mean that rockets will soon emerge
as the worst offenders in terms of ozone depletion, according to the
study, published in the March issue of the journal
Astropolitics."
(National Geographic, April 14, 2009)
Low-Altitude Stratospheric
Ozone Losses
"New findings by University of Colorado at
Boulder researchers indicate ozone losses due to the breakdown of
chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, occur much faster than previously
believed at higher latitudes roughly 10 miles above Earth."
(EurekAlert, May 28, 2002)