Is space travel bad for the environment?

Question

Watching the huge clouds of smoke when a space shuttle takes off just looks like a lot of pollution. Also their emissions when they are traveling around space. Isn't that bad for the environment?

Answer 1

yes,rocket fuel components have been found in the milk of human breast feeding mothers.This effect was mentioned as a nation wide occurrence a few years ago.You can thank your political services for this cover=up.

Answer 2

Rockets are large, but space launches aren't nearly as frequent and widespread as jet and car travel. There are tens of thousands of jets in the air at any given time, but a space launch happens around the world only once every few days. Above the atmosphere, exhaust particles gradually fall down to the earth and burn up in the atmosphere.

One potential danger is that a rocket will break up during launch or fall back down from orbit and spread toxic debris. This has happened a few times; a Russian satellite crashed in Canada in the late 1970's and released some of its fuel, and the shuttle broke up a few years ago and left debris over Texas and Louisiana that NASA warned was potentially toxic. But these events are rare compared to disasters with oil tankers, industrial leaks, etc.

The second danger is that pieces of a rocket or satellite will stay in orbit after an explosion or impact test. This breaks an object into thousands of little pieces, some of which may stay in orbit around the earth for years. The more objects there are in orbit, the greater the chance that a piece of debris will hit a rocket, space station, or satellite and damage it. Even small pieces are more dangerous than bullets because of how very fast they're moving. Space is huge, so the danger is remote, but the shuttle once got a "ding" on its front cabin window from a collision, perhaps with a paint chip shed by a rocket.

But I think space travel does far, far more good than bad. Communications, mapping, and weather satellites, for example, let us figure out what's happening in the environment and how we can make positive changes. Other sources of pollution have a much bigger impact, like cars, factories, and farm runoff.

Answer 3

Rocket launches do pollute the atmosphere, but there are so few that it is not a problem. And pollution of space is of a different kind. Smoke and poison gas and even radiation are just no problem in space. Space has all that already. Space pollution is orbital debris, which is dead satellites, spent rocket stages, parts broken off of space craft, parts of exploded space craft, even paint flecks, all orbiting at speeds faster than the fastest rifle bullet are a hazard to space travel, like so many artificial meteors. But space itself is not damaged by even that. It is only a problem for human activity.

Answer 4

first of all the main engines of the space shuttle burn Hydrogen so all that is formed is H20 so no pollution there, however forming hydrogen takes a good deal of energy to create as no elemental hydrogen exists on earth (begs the question what is up with hydrogen cars) so yes there is net pollution from the main engines the SRBs do give off a good amount of pollution too
as for when they are in space they dont release anything i dont thing and nothing toxic, maybe a bit of urine or paint flecks but there is such a little bit of it its inconsequntial

Answer 5

Since there are so few launches, and all that "smoke" is mostly just steam (water), then there is very little effect on the environment.
Look at all the power plants spewing out smoke and toxic gases, or the manufacturing plants emitting toxic smoke and toxic waste water. There are thousands of these, and they emit their wastes all the time.

Space launches are the least of our worries.