Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket tests in Texas are emitting so much methane you can see it from space::So much you can see it from the ISS in space.

  • Ecen@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    It sounds like they should be more careful with how they store their methane.

    I do want to stress though, that I think that space technology is the single most important subject we can focus on, except maybe medical. If extravagant trips for billionaire’s can fund a bunch of it for now, that’s fine by me. Only really means that governments should be doing more.

    Every day, the sun emits roughly a billion times more energy than the earth uses. That is, all our technology, all our food, all animals, all plants and all the energy needed to create all weather combined consumes about one billionth of the sun’s output. The rest is sent into deep space.

    This waste of the sun’s energy is so vast, that we as a species absolutely want to start capturing more of it as soon as possible, rather than squabbling in the mud for fractions of the 0.0000001% of the sun’s output the earth uses today. Obviously we need our planet to survive until then, but getting proper infrastructure in orbit and beyond is such a massive game changer.

    • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      1 year ago

      but getting proper infrastructure in orbit and beyond

      Ah, there is the catch. Don’t forget how you plan on getting that power safely back to earth.

    • Fades@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Which is why we should not be leaving it to these billionaires.

      FUCKING FUND NASA instead of these fascists

      • wahming@monyet.cc
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, but prior to spacex coming along, NASA had done nothing major for ages. We can blame the system or the politicking, but possibly the one good thing Elon did with his fortune was revive the space industry.

    • gandalf_der_12te@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I agree to some of it, but also disagree on other parts.

      Energy availability, in the future of humanity, will not be the constraining factor. There will be enoigh electric energy from solar panels on planetary surfaces (be it Earth or others). Resources (mining, plants) will be the constraining factor for economy.

      • Ecen@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Be that as it may, my main point would be that basic orbital and interplanetary infrastructure is an incredibly worthwhile investment since it will allow us to start tapping into energy collection, as well as mining, of a different order of magnitude than we currently have access to on earth :)

        • gandalf_der_12te@feddit.de
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Yeah, my point was kinda that you would need to land on a solid surface to mine metals. But now that I think about it, it could also be done on asteroids.