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Outer Space
Outer Space
Space exploration is the exploration of man-made spacecraft to reach beyond the Earth's atmosphere and to use the information obtained from these missions to increase our knowledge about out planet and to benefit humanity. Scientists had been studying and exploring further more about spacecraft since the early 20th century. The reasoning for space exploration is to preserve the future of mankind in our universe.
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October 4th, 1957 was the first time something was sent into outer space. It was launched by the Soviets called Sputnik 1, an artificial satellite used to see if it was possible to place a satellite into orbit (Dickson, 2007). Four years after this launch, the first human orbited Earth on April 12th of 1961. 1981 was when the first space shuttle was launched, and ever since then the evolution of space shuttles, rockets, and other spacecraft have evolved over the years. Decade after decade, the advancement and technology of rockets, satellites and other space objects have rapidly increased.
The first person made it to space on a crewed space flight during the Vostok 1 mission on April 12, 1961, their name was Yuri Gagarin and he was a soviet pilot. A month after, Alan Shepard became the first American man in space on the Mercury-Redstone 3 (Freedom 7) mission. Later that year on July 21, the spacecraft sank during a splashdown after Grissom's exit. Space exploration is extremely expensive and most often too risky for our planet’s and humans health. From the crash of the Soyuz spacecraft in 1967, to the crash of the Columbia spacecraft in 2003, 18 people died during space flight.
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The progress that has been made over the years is quite impressive. The idea of launching something into outer space is incredible, and the research we have discovered from it is fascinating. But, have you ever thought about the underlying effects space launch has on planet earth? The fumes that are released by the rockets, where do they go and what do they affect? Unfortunately, space exploration and rocket launching has a negative impact on the environment, but are there ways to help prevent this?
Background
Background
According to Jeffrey G. Liss, NSS Board of Directors, said why we do and must go into space. The answer to why we go into space is because we must. By estimate, Earth has a time limit so going to space is another way for our future mankind to survive and live on another habitable planet. Space exploration is the goal that will exchange or give the opportunity to future generations to improve health care, protect our planet and our environment, create scientific and technical work, improve our daily lives, promote Earth safety, make scientific discoveries, encourage young people to take an interest in science, and to cooperate with countries around the world.
Environmental Effects
Environmental Effects
One of the most glaring problems with the rising interest in space tourism would be the planet effects. As of today, there is not a lot of environmental regulation placed on rockets. Eloise Marais, an associate professor of physical geography at University College London, told The Guardian “We have no regulations currently around rocket emissions… The time to act is now — while the billionaires are still buying their tickets” (Tangerminn, 2021).
People with tons of money are carelessly spending it on going into outer space, not thinking about the consequences and effects it has on the environment. Elon Musk, one of the founders of SpaceX is putting millions and millions of dollars into space exploration, but the effects are not being heard. Unfortunately, it is hard to come up with a solution fast enough to protect the planet, and something that all explorers and space companies agree on. Space explorers believe in different things for different reasons, and also use a variety of techniques and equipment. Trying to settle on one way to help save the planet will be very hard to do. It will affect all of the explorers and companies in different ways, and will never be settled. On the flip side of this, it is a good start that the dangers are finally being heard. It's a step in the right direction that people know the underlying effects.
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Interference can cause problems with radio communication. Global navigation satellites such as Global Positioning System (GPS), power lines and satellites are affected. Black carbon and aluminum are the leading particles that contribute to the forced radio frequency in the atmosphere. Black carbon absorbs light from the sun and emits heat energy, making it a powerful weathering agent. Every rocket explodes in space, releasing carbon black into the remaining stratum corneum, absorbing sunlight and releasing heat for up to four years before disappearing. But if rockets explode twice a year or more, the stratum, solar pads and radii will add to the heat, lengthening the lifespan of detrimental effects.
Another thing to take into consideration is the cost of each rocket launch being performed. Nasa has come out and said that each mission normally costs around $450 million per aircraft. While this sounds like a crazy amount of money, for the billionaires running these new space programs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, it barely makes a dent in their net worth. They have the ability to build and commission a rocket whenever they want and there are no regulations that can stop them, so you can expect these billionaires to keep on doing this.
Economic Effects
Economic Effects
During the 1960s, the space economy was worth around $4 billion but there is now much more space exploration interest. According to the Space Foundation’s The Space Report 2022, the space economy is worth around 469 billion dollars as of 2021 (Ellerbeck, 2022). It costs a lot of money to send rockets into space. In 1969 when the Vanguard satellite launched, adjusted for inflation it was about $24,000/kg, while a rocket like the Falcon Heavy by SpaceX, launched in 2018, was about $1,400/kg (Roberts and Kaplan, 2022). The funding for launching rockets mostly comes from a company’s investors, with some revenue coming from the company’s profitable businesses that get poured back into themselves. Reducing the price of launching rockets into low earth orbit (LEO) became a priority in the 2010s, when SpaceX was producing rockets that were far better than its competitors. With that being said, the overall decline in launch costs plus the overall increase of the space economy since the 1960s will hopefully lead to an increase in the exploration and exploitation of space in the near future.
Space launch costs are calculated by the price per kilogram to LEO. The usual approach is to compare launch costs per kilogram by dividing the total cost per flight by the maximum payload delivery, with smaller payloads and limited payload volume increasing launch cost. Costs did not end with the development of rockets, during the 1960s, most rockets were expended in their missions and they required brand new ones to launch into space again (NASA). One of the first satellites sent into space by the U.S. was the Scout, worth around $3.6 million dollars in 1957. This led to the rise in production costs as they increased from the Scout to the Atlas-Agena at $17.8 million, Saturn IB at $56 million and the Saturn V at $225 million per launch (NASA). The Space Shuttle completed 135 launches to LEO at an average of $450 million dollars per launch from 1969 to 1971 (Roberts and Kaplan, 2022). Costs stayed high for producing and launching rockets into space, so more often satellites were sent to space during the 1970s and 1980s. Modern changes in research, development and production such as 3D-printing have allowed engineers to create autonomous robotics as well as reusable parts which provide efficiency, sustainability, and a reduction in cost (Brukardt, 2022).
*Photo by Mackenzie Marco on Unsplash
Stated before, the Space Foundation’s The Space Report 2022 shows that the current space economy is worth around 469 billion dollars, and according to Forbes, SpaceX is sitting at the top of the commercial space transportation companies, worth $137 billion as of January 2023 (Forbes, 2023), a little more than a quarter of the total economy. For billionaires running space programs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos with billions in returns, it barely affects their net worth. They have the ability to commission a rocket launch whenever they want with little to no regulations to stop them.
Sending citizens into LEO has been a rising topic in the space community. The cost of space travel is very expensive and is unlikely to be accessible to all except the extremely wealthy in the near future. Across most suborbital space tour companies such as Virgin Galactic, prices range from $250,000 to $500,000 per seat, all for a just 90-minute ride. SpaceX's multi-day trajectory, an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation (Berger, 2021), is estimated to be worth between $50 million and $55 million, promising expedited travel across states. Presented on their website, travel time from Los Angeles to New York takes almost 5.5 hours by commercial airline, but if passengers were to be on their “Dragon” rocket, it would take 25 minutes (SpaceX.com).
*Photo by SpaceX on Wikimedia Commons
In order to start producing and sending rockets into space, there needs to be money in the first place to pay for it. NASA gets money annually from the government because they are a federal agency, through budgetary resources and obligations (usaspending.gov). For the fiscal year of 2023, NASA received over $32 billion dollars in budgetary resources but obligated to $10.34 billion (usaspending.gov). Commercial companies mostly make their budget possible through their own businesses. For example, SpaceX sends satellites into space for businesses to leverage their firms better, at an average cost of around $62 million dollars each (Pereira, 2023). So far they have nearly 4,000 Starlink satellites orbiting Earth, which is just short of $250 billion in revenue.
*Photo by Anastasiia Moskalenko on Unsplash
The Falcon 9, a reusable rocket produced and launched by SpaceX, was valued at $2,100/kg per launch in 2010, completing 80 successful ‘reused’ launches as of 2018 (Roberts and Kaplan, 2022). The most recent and cheapest space launch was Falcon Heavy, launched by SpaceX in 2018 at $1,400/kg. These major decreases in recent space launch costs give us hope that future launches will be even cheaper than before. Technical approaches to reducing space launch costs include simplifying the vehicle configuration, optimization for minimal cost, reducing the parts count, reducing instrumentation, and design for production and full operation (Wertz and Larson, 1996, pp. 126-33).
So, is it possible to make costs go below $1,400/kg? In the near future, it does seem likely. SpaceX had launched a rocket worth $2,100/kg in 2010, improving in the coming years to launch the Falcon Heavy at $1,400/kg in 2018, so it is likely the next rocket will be closer to $1,000/kg in costs. The funding for these rockets mostly comes from investors, but commercial companies like SpaceX make their high budgets possible through business ventures (Pereira, 2023). Commercial suppliers were anticipated to reuse rockets as they were a method to cut costs, however it has not cut any cost so far and actually contributed to higher launch costs due to maintenance and repair in between launches (Jones, 2018). As the space economy continually increases annually, we can expect better performing rockets and less harmful emissions exerted from launching them into space.
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*Photo by SpaceX on Unsplash
SpaceX Explosion
SpaceX Explosion
In April of 2023, just a few minutes after launch, the Star Ship rocket exploded into a cloud of flaming debris (Harwood, 2023). Luckily there were no passengers on the rocket, but SpaceX is getting lots of backlash due to the dangers it caused to Earth. Starship is the biggest rocket ever made by SpaceX, including thirty three engines on the booster, and six engines on the upper stage ship (Harwood, 2023).
The launch alone was already going to cause an extreme amount of damage to the environment, and with the explosion it got a lot worse. The Starship aircraft reached an altitude of about 150 miles, exploded, then quickly fell into the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii (Chang, 2023). It is unknown where the lingering debris is in the ocean, and what and or who it is affecting in the water.
*Photo by Kyle Montgomery on Wikimedia Commons is licensed by CC BY-SA
*Photo by Pete Alexopoulos on Unsplash
The rocket launch also affected the nearby residents of Port Isabel, a town nearby SpaceX’s spaceport which is located in Brownsville, Texas. Many residents reported broken windows, shaking at their homes, as well as dust and particulate matter which covered their town (Kolodny, 2023). It is not yet known if the ash-like particulate matter is dangerous to humans or the soil. However, environmental engineers are concerned that the ash-like particles could negatively impact people's respiratory health, along with harming endangered species in the area (Kolodny, 2023). Researchers are still trying to assess the health and environmental impacts the Starship caused last week.
Soon after the launch, it was found that Elon Musk had background knowledge that the rocket was going to explode. Musk was fully aware of the dangers it could cause to the environment, yet he still decided to launch it. He said that the Starship was akin to a box of grenades, was not likely to reach orbit, and most likely to explode (Kolodny, 2023). Adding onto this, it is reported that chunks of concrete were flying in all directions, and there was a risk the concrete was going to hit the fuel storage tanks (Cortez, 2023). It is shocking that the people who worked on the Starship and the experts on space launches knew the chances of this succeeding were very low, yet they still launched the ship knowing the detrimental environmental effects going into this launch if it were to fail, yet that did not stop anyone.
This is why lawful regulations for rocket launches need to be reassessed and improved upon. To know that SpaceX and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) were not careful in their environmental analysis enough to comfortably move forward with a launch of this magnitude, is unsettling (Kolodny, 2023). Since Musk had prior knowledge of the rocket being susceptible to failure and the FAA did not do a thorough examination, why did Musk still decide to launch Starship? State and federal agencies have activated an “anomaly response plan” which in this case, stated SpaceX is to mitigate environmental effects before launching again and ultimately revoked their launch license. The Center for Biological Diversity attorney named Jared Margolis believes that the FAA requirements for reinstating the launch license will be easy to complete, but will not be effective in protecting the endangered species nearby nor the local residents’ wellbeing (Kolodny, 2023). The current laws and regulations regarding rocket launches are futile, and must be changed to better protect our environments and living communities.
Resolutions
Resolutions
While many companies are starting to look at the effects, regulations must be put in place to create a more permanent solution to the problem. The obvious answer would be the banning of combustion engines being used in rockets, because they emit the toxic black carbon. It has the most well known downsides and many companies are already moving away from it. Black Carbon has been known to affect climate change. It can affect the ecosystem by increasing the temperature of plant leaves along with dimming the sunlight (Ghanin, 2017).
Another regulation is putting a cap on how many total launches could happen in a year. This is such a prevalent issue with the increase in space travel in recent years so setting a limit could control the harmful emissions from the rockets. Most rockets emit black carbon which is very harmful for our planet. This black carbon absorbs sunlight and radiates heat for up to four years before dissipating. This causes black carbon to be a major contributor to climate change as it continues to damage our ozone layer. The effects that black carbon has on humans include respiratory and cardiovascular disease, cancer, and even birth defects. These are reasons why black carbon is so dangerous to both Earth and us humans.
As more and more detrimental byproducts are released into our atmosphere, more people will suffer these horrible effects. We have already seen some companies move away from rockets producing black carbon by choice. Blue Origin’s rockets burn liquid hydrogen and oxygen and emit water vapor and nitrogen oxides, but not black carbon. While vapors and oxides still have an effect on our ozone health, they are still much better than the black carbon emissions. Other companies such as the German rocket startup ISAR Aerospace plan to use a fuel mix of light hydrocarbon and liquid oxygen for their rockets, which is not an ideal solution but still much better than releasing black carbon.
Photo by Nasa on Unsplash
*Photo by Brandon De Young on Wikimedia Commons, Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
It is clear that scientists and astronomers know the harm of launching rockets into outer space, but what are changes that can be made? There is a race to develop alternatives to existing fuels like RP-1 and UDMH, and liquid methane appears to be in the lead. Several new rocket engines, including SpaceX's Raptor and the European Space Agency's Prometheus engine, have been designed to use this gas as a fuel because it has a higher performance than other fuels, meaning the rocket can be smaller and produce less soot when it's launched. (Piesing, 2022) This is just the start of hopefully finding ways to produce less soot and fossil fuels that are going into the atmosphere.
Also, it seems that this propellant spilled onto grassland and poisoned the soil for decades (Piesing, 2022). This is one of many examples of propellant causing major danger to us humans and planet earth. It is causing people to get cancer and also destroying the soil that people and plants need to survive. While reading this article, it also talked about the flip side and possible solutions that could be used to stop the harm and damage. "People are starting to wake up to the disproportionate impact on the atmosphere of the space launch industry, but nothing happens in a hurry in space… I definitely think we'll see regulation coming in.
The government will set an emissions target and we will have to adhere to it. The industry can lobby all they want, but in the end, it's the politicians that make laws." (Piesing 2022) If the co - founder and CEO of a small satellite launching service says he thinks progress will be made soon, I think we are headed in the right direction. He realizes the harm launches cause on planet earth and he wants change to happen, and he wants it fast.
Another major downside of the rocket launches happening today would be the effect on stratosphere health. Every rocket launch, no matter what material used, will have a negative effect on the health of our stratosphere. According to new NOAA Research, there will be a significant increase in hydrocarbon space launches. That would have a detrimental effect on the health of the ozone layer as well as change atmospheric circulation patterns. The circulation pattern is what causes the equator to be very hot and the poles of the world to be very cold. A change to those patterns would be catastrophic.
This continued damage to the stratosphere would cause annual temperatures in the stratosphere to increase by 1- 4° Farenheit. We saw how unprepared Texas was for snow that one year, imagine that but on a world wide scale. While it does not seem like much, it will add up over time and continue to contribute to our planet heating up. There are also rocket emissions that only harm our planet. The main two worries are black soot and aluminum particles. The problem is that these particles would end up in Earth’s upper atmosphere and stratosphere. This in turn would interrupt our planet’s ability to reflect the sun’s heat and harmful rays. Damage the stratosphere and continually block out more and more of the sun’s rays, this would lead to the end of life on Earth as we know it.
*Photo by Jonathan Cutrer on Flickr
About the Authors
About the Authors
Abby Cody, Educational Studies, 2025
Alex (AJ) Menendez, Web Development, 2024
Pichy, Accounting, 2024
Colin McKay, Cybersecurity, 2025
References
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“The Environmental Impacts of the New Space Race.” The Environmental Impacts of the New Space Race | Georgetown Environmental Law Review | Georgetown Law, https://www.law.georgetown.edu/environmental-law-review/blog/the-environmental-impacts-of-the-new-space-race/.
Measuring Economic Impact Space Sector - OECD. https://www.oecd.org/sti/inno/measuring-economic-impact-space-sector.pdf.
Radiative Forcing Caused by Rocket Engine Emissions - Ross - 2014 ... https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2013EF000160.
Sirieys, Elwyn, et al. “Space Sustainability Isn't Just about Space Debris: On the Atmospheric Impact of Space Launches.” MIT Science Policy Review, 29 Aug. 2022, https://sciencepolicyreview.org/2022/07/mitspr-191618003013/.
Weisbrod, Katelyn. “Space Tourism Poses a Significant 'Risk to the Climate'.” Inside Climate News, 30 June 2022, https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29062022/space-tourism-climate/.
Harry, W. Jones. The Recent Large Reduction in Space Launch Cost, published by NASA Ames Research Center. 2018.
https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/bitstream/handle/2346/74082/ICES_2018_81.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
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https://www.oecd.org/sti/inno/space-forum/measuring-economic-impact-space-sector.pdf
Roberts, Thomas G., and Spencer Kaplan. “Cost for Space Launch to Low Earth Orbit- Aerospace Security Project.” Aerospace Security, 1 Sep. 2022, aerospace.csis.org/data/space-launch-to-low-earth-orbit-how-much-does-it-cost/.
Wertz, J. R., and Larson, W. J., eds., Reducing Space Mission Cost, Space Technology Series, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1996. Wikipedia, Comparison of orbital launchers families, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparisonoforbitallaunchersfamilies.
Kolodny, L. (2023, April 24). SpaceX starship explosion spread particulate matter for Miles. CNBC. Retrieved April 25, 2023, from https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/24/spacex-starship-explosion-spread-particulate-matter-for-miles.html
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