What is it about?
Humans have long dreamed of traveling to space. Since Yuri Gagarin first orbited the planet, we have spent 1.5 million hours in space, most of that time aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Crews aboard the ISS must be continually supplied from Earth with food and oxygen. All these launches burn a lot of fuel meaning each astronaut has a carbon footprint over 1500 kg CO2-eq per hour - this is equivalent to over 2000 times the average person on the globe, simultaneously driving sixty buses, or occupying twenty seats on a commercial airliner that never lands! There is also a moral component to this impact, since only a very small fraction of people from the wealthiest countries are able to travel to space, but the costs are borne by all.
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Why is it important?
Many space agencies have plans to set up human bases on the Moon and even Mars. This environmental assessment has never been done and raises important questions about pushes to expand human space travel. The environmental burden of supporting people off-Earth is much higher than any benefit of reducing the human population on Earth.
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Environmental and Moral Implications of Human Space Travel, SSRN Electronic Journal, January 2022, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.4039601.
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