Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic says it has built a "green spaceship" with an environmental footprint comparable to that of long haul commercial jet flights. Not everyone is buying it.
"The laws of physics tell us that it takes an awful lot of energy to escape the Earth's gravity – and that means plenty of rocket fuel," wrote The Guardian's Leo Hickman in response to Virgin's claims. "Virgin Galactic has long known that it's open to criticism about its environmental impact and has presented a positive spin, as is the hallmark of any Virgin venture at every available opportunity."
Virgin's 60 foot long SpaceShipTwo, which will carry six passengers and two pilots on two hour trips, will launch 62 miles into the atmosphere before switching into glider mode for the flight back to earth. Shuttling SpaceShipTwo to the 50,000 foot mark will be WhiteKnightTwo, a central wing all-composite aircraft powered by four Pratt & Whitney engines. There's no firm date set for passenger flights to begin, but the company has already lined up $30 million worth of deposits for the $200,000 passenger tickets.
The environmental claims Virgin is making for its space tourism program do reek of high-level public relations planning. The company says that SpaceShipTwo has shorter rocket burns and is debris free, with CO2 emissions per passenger will be equivalent to approximately 60-percent of a per-passenger New York-London roundtrip. According to Virgin, SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo will provide "an incomparably smaller environmental impact, lower cost and greater flexibility than anything that has gone before (in space travel)." Galactic's president Will Whitehorn contends that his company's ships could eventually be flown using 100-percent renewable aviation fuel or solar power, and that floating debris would pose the only significant environmental threat. "Polluting space is extremely difficult," he said in an interview with Reuters.
The Guardian's Hickman, writing for the paper's environmental blog, is unimpressed. He argues that Virgin hasn't produced any numbers to support its green claims, and that measuring liters of fuel burned per flight might be a better metric than CO2 emissions per passenger.
He's even more dismissive of Willburn's claim that it's only hardcore greenies shelling out $200,000 for a flight on SpaceShipTwo. " Every astronaut is an environmentalist," he said, implying that the very act of viewing the earth from space will change people's attitude's about pollution and the environment.
That may be, but we agree with the Guardian that it's a pretty extravagant claim to make. Yes, Virgin Galactic needs to give its business the best spin possible, but the company is lame to try and position space tourism as an environmentally friendly venture. Thrilling for sure, but it is probably one of the most collosal wastes of fossil fuel that we'll ever see.
*Photo: *Virgin Galactic
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