[thrance]

How much carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere for a single rocket launch? How much labor and natural resources does it cost?

I think it's extremely selfish to expect others to expend so much energy and time to carry your remains so far away, when you wouldn't know the difference.

I also think seeing night lights from a city on the moon would be pretty cool.

[bryanlarsen]

> How much carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere for a single rocket launch?

Approximately equivalent to a trans-pacific jet flight.

[ANewFormation]

The interesting thing about this is that rockets can easily be net negative in terms of CO2 stuff.

One way is in the fuel itself. For instance the Space Shuttle main engine was powered by combustion generated from liquid hydrogen + liquid oxygen - the exhaust was literally water vapor.

A second interesting nuance is that any fuel burnt outside of Earth's atmosphere is a carbon reduction, so a hypothetical rocket that could get out of the atmosphere on 50% of its fuel would be net neutral/negative.

[thrance]

How is that negative? The hydrogen still had to be extracted from purified water, the rocket still had to be designed, forged, moved, cooled, etc.

Also wouldn't the carbon dioxide burned outside of the atmosphere eventually comes back down? The nozzle is usually pointed towards the Earth, so unless the exhaust is on an escape trajectory it wouldn't be lost.

[thrance]

Which is insane for carrying remains when a hearse would do the trick. If the sustainable carbon budget is around 2.5t per year per person, this is over 50 times that, for a dead guy.