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It isn't Easy Being Green and Getting to LEO
MWTJ writes "The BBC has a story about the environmental impact of the space shuttle. One of the things that started the modern environmentalist movement were pictures of the Earth from space, so we could see the beauty of the planet as never before. We could also see environmental destruction from space. But what is the impact of the space program on our planet? The story talks about the switch to Freon-free insulation, the use of clean-burning hydrogen/LOX fuel, and other factors. What else could be done to get to space with minimal harm to the planet?"
Maybe if they used CFC-based insulation that was stronger, like they used to, they'd have fewer explosions therefore less polutants entering the atmosphere and fewer dead astronauts? Just my vote.
While the effort is admirable, getting too bent out of shape over the space shuttle's emissions is a little myopic. Weighed against all of the benefits and advancements we've gleaned from the space program, I'd say the environmental impact is pretty negligible. The article itself suggests that the damage to wildlife from hydrochloric acid deposits is "minimal and manageable".
I can't imagine that the costs of upgrading a $1.7 billion shuttle to make NASA's once-in-a-blue-moon launches more earth-friendly will be reasonable for taxpayers. Environmentalists looking for something to complain about should have no trouble finding a better outlet for their ire in corporate America than at NASA.
domain combinatorics
Put this in perspective, people. There are TWO space shuttles still in service, and even though they have a CFC exemption, and it was the breaking off of a piece of that insulation that caused the Colombia disaster, they STILL use non-fluorocarbon (non-freon based) foam for insulation on the shuttles.
As stated in the comments to the article on the bottom of the page, underground fires and about a bazillion other natural sources have more of an environmental impact than the shuttle. If anything, industries and the world's large polluters ought to learn from the efficiency of NASA wiht regard to abusing/respecting the environment.
We do a shuttle launch once every, what, four months even under the optimal conditions that never happen? And the city of Houston, Texas alone is pumping out how much greenhouse gas every day just from the cars alone?
Why is it we never actually care about the environment except at times that it's stupid to do so? Oh noes, think what nuclear power could do to the environment under extreme and unlikely circumstances that can be totally avoided with a modicum of competent regulation! We'd better avoid that and stick with the huge belching coal plants built in the 1970s and grandfathered in from the time before emission controls, that's sooo much more ecologically friendly.
1) Get to space.
As long as you're stuck on this step, you're going to have to have an entire planet's worth of heavy industries, energy generation, and resource extraction being performed on the surface of said planet.
Arguing about the "greenness" of space exploration is like someone having a heart attack deciding not to call an ambulance because being a passenger in a vehicle that's going faster than the posted speed limits in city streets is a health hazard.
A space elevator (always popular on /.) would be about the cheapest way up in theory provided you write of the energy cost of building the damn thing over a long lifetime.
Still, I think the posts and articles about the environmental impact of the Shuttle are mostly crap. Cars that do 40mpg instead of 20mpg on an urban-cycle would have much more positive impact on the environment. Using the heat from power station cooling systems to heat offices/factories in local areas would do more. Recycling your plastic, glass bottles, cans, and paper would do more.
Nasty as the perchlorate SRBs are, they're worth the inconvenience if NASA can use them to build (say) a 100 ton heavy launcher to replace the Shuttle.
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and then as has happened in other fields - Western bleeding hearts set out to save the world via job-killing regulations at home, and then other countries (who could give a rat's ass about the environment) eat our lunch with cheaper products/services, ala China.
The path to hell is paved with good intentions..
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
Electromagnetic launchers are practical NOW. "Just accelerate the space cargo in a vacuum tube until escape velocity is achieved, while climbing a high mountain." Only one key technology has been needed, and it got invented just a couple years ago. At the END of that vacuum tube, a means is needed to keep the atmosphere from rushing in while still letting the cargo exit. The plasma valve is the answer to that problem.
Yeah, let's kill millions of people every year, mostly children, by banning mostly harmless DDT!
What utter stupidity! The EPA's ban on DDT has caused ZERO deaths. By 1972 malaria had been eradicated from the US, so there was no need to spray with DDT (or any insecticide) for malaria control. When there have been some small outbreaks since 1972, they have been eradicated by other, more effective, insecticides. The radical right seems to think that DDT is the only insecticide in existence -- and that the EPA regulations are binding on every country in the world.
There is no ban on using DDT to fight malaria and there never has been. DDT is banned for agricultural use (and rightly so because of environmental damage) but can still be used for disease prevention. The radical right pretends that there is a ban so they can blame malaria deaths on environmentalists.
According to the EPA's December 31, 1972 press release on the DDT ban:
"An end to the continued domestic usage of the pesticide was decreed on June 14, 1972, when William D. Ruckelshaus, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, issued an order finally cancelling nearly all remaining Federal registrations of DDT products. Public health, quarantine, and a few minor crop uses were excepted, as well as export of the material."
So it was still legal to use it for public health, quarantine, and to export it.
"The effective date of the EPA June cancellation action was delayed until the end of this year to permit an orderly transition to substitute pesticides"
See that? "Substitute pesticides." Didn't know they had those, did you?
"During the past 30 years, approximately 675,000 tons have been applied domestically. The peak year for use in the United States was 1959 when nearly 80 million pounds were applied. From that high point, usage declined steadily to about 13 million pounds in 1971, most of it applied to cotton.
The decline was attributed to a number of factors including increased insect resistance, development of more effective alternative pesticides, growing public and user concern over adverse environmental side effects..."
Again, insects had become increasingly resistand and more effective alternatives already existed.
The World Health Organization's plan for malaria prevention in Sri Lanka after the tsunami stated:
"Endemic sporadic malaria close to the affected areas transmitted by An.culicifacies, which has been considered DDT-resistant for many years, but is still sensitive to organophosphates, such as malathion, and pyrethroids."
The mosquitoes in Sri Lanka, as in many other parts of the world, have evolved resistance to DDT. It doesn't work any more. In fact, that is the reason why they stopped using DDT in Sri Lanka. It wasn't because of any ban. It was because it became ineffective. If the radical right wasn't so busy trying to ban the teaching of evolution, they might have less trouble grasping the concept that mosquitoes evolve resistance to DDT. Fortunately, the World Health Organization does not consist of flat-Earth conservatives, so they sent malathion to Sri Lanka -- which can actually kill the mosquitoes there.
Before you waste all of our time with the much-repeated claim by the right that aid organizations won't fund DDT spraying to control malaria, I'll shoot that claim down, too:
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria finances some DDT spraying in Somalia. USAID pays for some spraying of DDT to prevent malaria in developing countries.
According to a news story from the July 18, 2005 issue of The Monitor (Uganda), Dr Herbert Wilson Lwanga, the Executive Director of the Community Welfare Services, said his agency had received funding for DDT spraying programs from the Global Fund.
Until you can show me an example of where a non-government entity kills millions every year by polluting, I'd say the radical enviromentalists have quite the