Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket tests in Texas are emitting so much methane you can see it from space::So much you can see it from the ISS in space.
When burned, methane produces water and carbon dioxide, which are less harmful to the environment. The issue here is not with rocket testing, but with improper storage of methane
It’s embarrassing because it sounds that all blue origin had to do was burn the excess methane to mitigate the impact.
I’m sure rockets testing is a issue on its own, especially when we are facing a climate and social crisis and it’s being used for rich people entertainment or for aid authoritarian governments in shipping weapons into orbit
Results of space exploration in everyday life: https://spinoff.nasa.gov/
Return on investment: https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/3721375-how-much-does-nasa-return-to-the-american-economy/
billionaires existing should be illegal
If BO is being that careless with methane emissions then they are breaking laws. Report them
Fun notes from America’s other privately owned, publicly funded space program. Even if you think that privatization of space is a good thing (you’re wrong, it’s not, but let’s just assume for the sake of argument that it is) how do you justify the fact that the public takes on huge swaths of the development cost, then has to pay to use the service, then has to pay to clean up externalities like an ocean of methane in the atmosphere?
I would say purely “because it works”. SpaceX has received a ton of funding, for sure. But they’ve delivered incredible advancements in reusable rocketry, methalox fuel cycles, cost to orbit and much more, while SLS was literally a flying scrap pile that was late and over budget despite being reused 1980s tech.
Let’s not pretend that NASA rockets were really public work either, with most of the development and construction done by contractors like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Aerojet Rocketdyne and more… But these old guard companies were happy to keep turning out the same old product with incremental improvements.
SpaceX could have been a tremendous failure or success with the risks they’ve taken, and we’re all lucky it turned out to be a success (so far…). It says it all when they are going to launch Orion on SLS but Starship is going to be waiting there at the moon for them. Well, if it doesn’t blow up on the pad.
Eating the billionaires sounds more and more attractive every day.
