> I'm going to assume you aren't trying to be disingenuous.
If you truly make that assumption, why start by casting aspersions on my sincerity?
> First off, the kerosene rockets are going to be replaced with methane ones so that will greatly reduce the carbon output.
Mr. Musk envisions hundreds of flights of methane-powered rockets with immense payload capacity in the thousands of tons. Methane combustion produces CO2. A Starship flight will put more CO2 into the air than a Falcon Heavy flight. Its advantages are likely to be less NOx and less soot.
> Secondly, he has stated many times that once they're flying regularly they'll be creating methane fuel themselves from carbon capture.
This barely exists in a laboratory yet, let alone at the scale needed for retail spaceflight. Ask yourself, where do we get methane these days? Answer: Largely from fracking and as a byproduct to other fossil fuel harvesting/processing.
> Additionally, you have to expel mass to build a rocket. That's a requirement. You can do it with no carbon with hydrogen-oxygen rockets, but hydrogen has a lot of issues with it. Also much as people like to talk about hydrogen being green, the vast majority of all current Hydrogen is from methane steam reforming and has quite the carbon footprint.
Now you're starting to see my point. Someone who is focused only on creating green technologies wouldn't put his solvency on the line to build and grow a fossil-fuel-based space propulsion company. Space flight is critical to the future of mankind, but we have to be clear-eyed about its ramifications and avoid greenwashing it for the benefit of corporations. $100m sounds like a lot of money until you compare it to Mr. Musk's net worth.
If you truly make that assumption, why start by casting aspersions on my sincerity?
> First off, the kerosene rockets are going to be replaced with methane ones so that will greatly reduce the carbon output.
Mr. Musk envisions hundreds of flights of methane-powered rockets with immense payload capacity in the thousands of tons. Methane combustion produces CO2. A Starship flight will put more CO2 into the air than a Falcon Heavy flight. Its advantages are likely to be less NOx and less soot.
> Secondly, he has stated many times that once they're flying regularly they'll be creating methane fuel themselves from carbon capture.
This barely exists in a laboratory yet, let alone at the scale needed for retail spaceflight. Ask yourself, where do we get methane these days? Answer: Largely from fracking and as a byproduct to other fossil fuel harvesting/processing.
> Additionally, you have to expel mass to build a rocket. That's a requirement. You can do it with no carbon with hydrogen-oxygen rockets, but hydrogen has a lot of issues with it. Also much as people like to talk about hydrogen being green, the vast majority of all current Hydrogen is from methane steam reforming and has quite the carbon footprint.
Now you're starting to see my point. Someone who is focused only on creating green technologies wouldn't put his solvency on the line to build and grow a fossil-fuel-based space propulsion company. Space flight is critical to the future of mankind, but we have to be clear-eyed about its ramifications and avoid greenwashing it for the benefit of corporations. $100m sounds like a lot of money until you compare it to Mr. Musk's net worth.