By akademiotoelektronik, 28/11/2022

Space tourism: who pollutes more than Jeff Bezos or Richard Branson?

Certainly, space tourism is a Lilliputian niche as it will only concern, for the moment, a few fortunate privileged people... But, these very people will open the Pandora's box of mass space tourism and a lucrative business. With what consequences for the atmosphere of our planet? What will be the carbon footprint of this 10-minute adrenaline shoot? Rabelais proclaimed it 500 years ago, “Science without conscience is not the ruin of the soul”.

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Experience the ecstasy of weightlessness, with a view of the Earth, and without thinking about your future: space tourism still accounts for a negligible amount in terms of pollution. But, in the age of climate change, questions are emerging about the carbon footprint of this activity, which could take off quickly.

On July 11, British billionaire Richard Branson successfully took off for a few minutes at the edge of space. Tuesday, it will be the turn of Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, to visit the big void with his Blue Origin capsule. These private "suborbital" flights are undoubtedly a turning point in the advent of space tourism: Richard Branson's company, Virgin Galactic, has already sold 600 tickets, between 200 and 250,000 dollars, and ultimately aims to carry out 400 flights per year. .

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With what impact on the planet? Difficult to assess, as this hobby for the ultra-rich remains ultra-marginal, still far from the radars of defenders of the environment. But the problem will arise if this tourism becomes massive. “If we wanted to send 50,000 tourists a year into space tomorrow, there would be a real environmental issue,” said the CEO on Friday. of the Cnes (the French space agency), Philippe Baptiste, on a French radio. A “quivering of critical discourse, stifled so far by the enthusiasm of the beginnings, begins to rise”, notes Arnaud Saint-Martin, a French sociologist of science.

“At a time of climate change, now is clearly not the time to launch an activity that will increase certain emissions,” adds Finnish researcher Annette Toivonen, author of Sustainable Space Tourism. The American scientist Martin Ross, who compared the technologies of the two billionaires, showed that Jeff Bezos' vehicle uses a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen, considered less polluting.

What carbon footprint for space tourism?

Richard Branson's ship appears, on the other hand, to be particularly polluting because its solid fuel propulsion technique produces CO₂ (the main cause of climate change) and spits out soot as it crosses the stratosphere. "It's like burning a tire" in an area of ​​the atmosphere where the air, which is less dense, recycles less quickly, notes Christophe Bonnal, from the CNES launchers department.

Questioned by AFP, Virgin Galactic assured that it was "committed to a process aimed at reducing the impact on the environment, with a view to sustainable development" of its activity. And indicates that the carbon footprint of one of its flights “was equivalent to that of an individual trip in business class on board a London-New York flight” by plane.

The emissions remain modest "compared to the 915 million tonnes of CO₂ emitted in 2019 by the 4.5 billion passengers on commercial flights", noted several French scientists, on The Conversation site in September 2020. But Virgin Galactic's suborbital trips still represent "4.5 tonnes of CO₂ per passenger, [i.e.] twice the annual individual emission allowing, according to the IPCC (Group of UN Climate Experts, editor's note), to respect the objective of +2 ° C of the Paris agreement "of 2015, according to these scientists.

To these ecological questions are added moral and political considerations, which criticize "luxury rides" for the very rich in search of sensations. “In a context of climate emergency and pandemic – where more sober development models are discussed, in particular the green plane –, one can wonder if these trips are not a superfluous need”, advances Arnaud Saint- Martin from the CNRS.

“In a context of climate emergency and pandemic (…), one can wonder if these trips are not a superfluous need

Mass tourism versus colonization of space

In its beginnings also, aviation was perceived as a "sport for the rich", notes Christophe Bonnal. With the difference that the first flights of Alberto Santos-Dumont or Louis Blériot "allowed the progress leading to today's aeronautics".

"But what shocks me in Richard Branson's flights is that there is no horizon behind them", argues the expert. Jeff Bezos, he, "plays a priori on a different ground than mass tourism: he thinks big, he aims for the Moon, and even further with humanity leaving the Planet".

In the meantime, (wealthy) space fans, concerned about their carbon footprint, will be able to test zero-emission balloon trips that the French company Zephalto will be offering in particular from 2024.

At an altitude of 25 km, propelled by helium -- a neutral gas --, passengers will plunge into the darkness of space to admire the curvature of the blue planet. “We hope the show will make you think, because what the astronauts say is that once you see the atmosphere so thin above the Earth, you realize how fragile it is,” says the director of the start-up, Vincent Farret d'Astiès.

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Related definitionsVirgin Galactic: what is it?What is hydrogen?What is air?What "carbon" meansCNES: the definition