SpaceX rockets don’t add Methane to the atmosphere. When you burn something, you’re not adding that thing to the atmosphere, you’re adding byproducts from the combustion, and Methane isn’t one of the byproducts of any rocket fuel.
Starship uses methane as a fuel, but that’s not at all the same thing. Methalox engines are one of the cleanest burning rocket fuels after Hydrolox. When burnt, methane just becomes CO2 and water vapor along with a bit of NOx (Nitrous Oxide, aka laughing gas, aka that boost you see in Fast and the Furious) as well.
Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are Kerolox (Kerosene, RP-1) engines. RP-1 is basically just a highly refined kerosene. When burnt, it will produce CO2, water vapor, NOx, carbon soot, carbon monoxide (which again mostly becomes CO2) and a little bit of sulfur compounds. The exhaust is nasty but it is not that different from what a normal internal combustion car produces. And even with the large amounts, it is still lower than what cars/trucks/SUVs output to get everyone in your city back and forth to work, the grocery store, and home on a daily basis.
NOx is not Nitrous Oxide and is not short for Nitrous Oxide. Nitrous Oxide is specifically N2O. NOx refers to both Nitric Oxide (NO) and Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), both of which are far, far more damaging to health and atmosphere than N2O. NOx emissions are the reason diesel is generally nonexistent in US passenger vehicles - not even great mpg numbers have sufficiently-low NOx emissions.
Even if it included N2O, using nomenclature with a variable like “NOx” and grouping it all together as one inert byproduct vastly underrepresents harm. Imagine if you referred to another group as “COx” but saying it’s relatively inert and easily detected by way of a burning lung sensation but feeds plants so it’s not all bad because Carbon Dioxide (CO2) has that effect. Carbon Monoxide (CO) is completely left out of that description and will silently kill you.
Rocket engines don’t just immediately start, propellant has to be flowing through the turbo pumps before the flames start. Same at shut down. On the video you can see vapour coming out. That’s either methane or oxygen. How much of either? We can’t say because spacex doesn’t talk much about it. Same with ‘venting’ which happens quite a lot as shown on the videos as well. Whether it’s a little or a lot, it’s definitely more than was there before launch.
And that’s on a successful launch. Scott Manly talks about the last launch and shows how the methane levels were draining on the ship way faster than the oxygen levels, pointing to at least incomplete combination and probably methane puking out the back. Methane may be ‘clean’ when it’s burnt under optimal conditions, when it’s conflagrated in a RUD it’s less so.
Yes, yes, “it’s a drop in the bucket, it’s a tiny percentage of blah blah blah” which works fine until they start launching 3 per day. Then the question of what methane (a highly potent greenhouse gas) does when it’s directly added into the upper atmosphere gets answered.
The part you’re not talking about is that there’s no catalytic converters on rockets tough, so it’s more like running a carbureted car than a modern car.
Nit to mention all the methane his rocket is adding to the upper atmosphere.
SpaceX rockets don’t add Methane to the atmosphere. When you burn something, you’re not adding that thing to the atmosphere, you’re adding byproducts from the combustion, and Methane isn’t one of the byproducts of any rocket fuel.
Starship uses methane as a fuel, but that’s not at all the same thing. Methalox engines are one of the cleanest burning rocket fuels after Hydrolox. When burnt, methane just becomes CO2 and water vapor along with a bit of NOx (Nitrous Oxide, aka laughing gas, aka that boost you see in Fast and the Furious) as well.
Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are Kerolox (Kerosene, RP-1) engines. RP-1 is basically just a highly refined kerosene. When burnt, it will produce CO2, water vapor, NOx, carbon soot, carbon monoxide (which again mostly becomes CO2) and a little bit of sulfur compounds. The exhaust is nasty but it is not that different from what a normal internal combustion car produces. And even with the large amounts, it is still lower than what cars/trucks/SUVs output to get everyone in your city back and forth to work, the grocery store, and home on a daily basis.
NOx is not Nitrous Oxide and is not short for Nitrous Oxide. Nitrous Oxide is specifically N2O. NOx refers to both Nitric Oxide (NO) and Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), both of which are far, far more damaging to health and atmosphere than N2O. NOx emissions are the reason diesel is generally nonexistent in US passenger vehicles - not even great mpg numbers have sufficiently-low NOx emissions.
Even if it included N2O, using nomenclature with a variable like “NOx” and grouping it all together as one inert byproduct vastly underrepresents harm. Imagine if you referred to another group as “COx” but saying it’s relatively inert and easily detected by way of a burning lung sensation but feeds plants so it’s not all bad because Carbon Dioxide (CO2) has that effect. Carbon Monoxide (CO) is completely left out of that description and will silently kill you.
Rocket engines don’t just immediately start, propellant has to be flowing through the turbo pumps before the flames start. Same at shut down. On the video you can see vapour coming out. That’s either methane or oxygen. How much of either? We can’t say because spacex doesn’t talk much about it. Same with ‘venting’ which happens quite a lot as shown on the videos as well. Whether it’s a little or a lot, it’s definitely more than was there before launch.
And that’s on a successful launch. Scott Manly talks about the last launch and shows how the methane levels were draining on the ship way faster than the oxygen levels, pointing to at least incomplete combination and probably methane puking out the back. Methane may be ‘clean’ when it’s burnt under optimal conditions, when it’s conflagrated in a RUD it’s less so.
Yes, yes, “it’s a drop in the bucket, it’s a tiny percentage of blah blah blah” which works fine until they start launching 3 per day. Then the question of what methane (a highly potent greenhouse gas) does when it’s directly added into the upper atmosphere gets answered.
The part you’re not talking about is that there’s no catalytic converters on rockets tough, so it’s more like running a carbureted car than a modern car.