Is it a problem for suborbital spaceflight? The article says “space tourism,” but there will be a lot more applications than that.
The problem is that, like most “climate science,” we don’t really know. But if it is an issue, I suspect that it’s a worse one for Virgin than for XCOR, at least based on pictures of the plumes of both, and the solution to it would be LOX/hydrogen.
Are these black carbon scientists aware of all the meteorites that burn up in our atmosphere daily?
They need to lose their “I’m a scientist” certification cards and Disney world memberships. They can keep the mouse ears.
Ah, but that is “natural”, therefore good. We are “unnatural”, therefore bad. It is axiomatic.
And, one “unnatural” atom is worse than an entire boatload of “natural” ones.
There are various carbon-containing propellant combinations that make rather little soot. For example, hydrogen peroxide/kerosene. Keep the H/C ratio high and the equilbrium should shift from C + H2O toward CO + H2.
Well, according to the article, XCOR is claiming that they’re pretty clean, but I’ll bet that SS2 is awful in that regard.
They burn alcohol, right? That would do it.
No, it’s some blend of kerosene. And LOX.
I was reading Ignition! by John D. Clark recently. One point mentioned is that soot in the exhaust is bad for performance.
According to:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Aerosols/page3.php
Mt. Pinatubo put 20 MILLION tons of aerosols up to 60km, and such events are roughly one each decade.
The authors behind the Popular Science article are trying to raise alarm over an activity which might, under certain assumptions, grow to a few tons/year of aerosols.
If they’re worrying about whether a few parts per million of the aerosols up there might be attributable to human causes, they have way too much time on their hands.
Note also that “pyrocumulus”clouds from large forest fires do the same thing — put black soot in the stratosphere. See for example
http://www-loa.univ-lille1.fr/workshop/PDF%20SESSION%202-5/Gatebe_etal_2012.pdf
Putting black carbon up there should help warm the upper atmosphere, which is currently much too cold to support song birds and monarch butterflies.
It’s all a matter of framing it for second graders.
You meant the second grade mentalities teaching science, right George? Seven year olds are much brighter.
Take a look at this picture. It’s the Kirby Tire Recycling facility fire of 1999. About 7,000,000 tires burned. Scrap tires average 22.5 pounds each, 28% of which is carbon black. That amounts to 20,000 tonnes of this stuff being put into the atmosphere. I don’t recall any drastic climate changes around that time.
The estimates of “black carbon” SpaceShip 2 would put into the atmosphere was 600 tonnes a year, and that required 1,000 flights per year. I think this “problem” may be a bit overstated.