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Backstop in reply to @Oliver Schick

Ha, I'd say we have more than enough environmental problems at the moment for rocketry not to add to that ...

There are around 100 launches per year, I reckon that's a drop in the ocean next to India's and China's, and therefore the rest of the world's, carbon output.

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Oliver Schick in reply to @Backstop

Well, at the moment, I'm sure, but unless you use a lot of frankenrockets it'll be as with all motorised transport innovations--they're relatively harmless curiosities at first, and then usage explodes until you get to successive breaking points. The upshot is usually just more and more travel beyond any reasonable utility that one could rationally defend. As I joked earlier, there may well be environmentally useful applications for rocketry, but would they really happen in favour of middle-aged billionaires going up for their fifteen minutes in space?

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frankenbike in reply to @Oliver Schick

More about hydrogen production using excess electricity (with some fudgy numerical estimates). A really good solution IMO.

https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2017/7/5/hydrogen-made-by-the-electrolysis-of-water-is-now-cost-competitive-and-gives-us-another-building-block-for-the-low-carbon-economy
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Backstop in reply to @Oliver Schick

motorised transport innovations

I think the phrase loses meaning when extended to space travel...

The upshot is usually just more and more travel beyond any reasonable utility that one could rationally defend

This conclusion requires predicting the future and as such I wouldn't put much on it, who knows what utility there could be from commercial space flight?

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