After years of waiting, Richard Branson's journey to space this month on a Virgin Galactic vessel was supposed to be a triumphant homecoming. With Jeff Bezos set to launch on a Blue Origin rocket on July 20, and Elon Musk's SpaceX planning an all-civilian orbital mission in September, the nascent space tourism industry finds itself facing tough questions about its environmental impact. The company "has already taken steps to offset the carbon emissions from its test flights and is examining opportunities to offset the carbon emissions for future customer flights, and reduce our supply chain's carbon footprint," it said in a statement to AFP. When SpaceX puts four private citizens into space in September, it will use its Falcon 9 rocket, which calculations show puts out the equivalent of 395 transatlantic flights-worth of carbon emissions. "Who would want to be a space tourist if you can't tell people you were a space tourist?"

Source: Mint July 18, 2021 02:15 UTC