No Laughing Matter

The Appleton Space Conference on 6th December was full of space scientists, of course. The keynote speaker was from Virgin Galactic, who aim to make space tourism a reality sometime later this year.

The propellant to get the spacecraft from the mother ship, to the outside of the atmosphere is currently a combination of rubber and nitrous oxide – AKA laughing gas. Now those of you who have visited climate secrets or read my earlier postings, will know that CO2 is not the worst greenhouse gas, by unit volume. In fact Nitrous Oxide’s radiative warming effect is substantially less than CO₂, but its persistence in the atmosphere, when considered over a 100 year period, per unit of weight, has 296 times more impact on global warming than CO2.

The good news from Virgin Galactic is they are trialling biofuel as a replacement propellant. Roll on that day. Now all I need is $100,000 and I can sign up for a guilt-free trip into space!