Implications of a Growing Spaceflight Industry: Climate Change

The global impacts of the spaceflight industry have historically been viewed as limited in scope, without significant change, and therefore not requiring regulatory attention. Concern about pollution of Earth’s sensitive stratosphere by spaceflight-generated particles is relatively new. The new factors of rapid growth, commercialization, and realization of routine reentry emissions render the old “too small to notice” approach untenable. A new policy that acknowledges the inevitable intersection of growth in spaceflight emissions and growth in regulatory aggressiveness is needed.

Primary Author: Dr. Martin Ross.