Rockets that use solid boosters like the Space Shuttle, SLS, or Atlas V do a good amount of ozone damage as they go up but the ozone damage from cryogenic propellants of the sort that a BFR uses is pretty small.
[1]https://www.quora.com/Elon-Musk-suggested-that-the-SpaceX-BF...
I could not be more skeptical.
I honestly don't know, so if someone can explain how it really is damage, please do so by all means. But despite some popular suppositions to the contrary, "affects" != "damage". I know it affects it, probably from the same article from a week or so back as you, but that doesn't mean it's "damaged".
Depending on the efficiency of the rocket and the reduced number of people doing this, the numbers shouldn't be that much higher.
So, they are actually very efficient transportation for long trips. Absolute worst case flying around the world is 24,901 mi which uses the same fuel per person as a 35 MPG car commuting 26 miles each way for one year.
PS: You can double check this by considering ~1/3 of the cost of a seat as being spent on fuel.
I'm not saying cars are more efficient. It's just that the distance travelled is huge when one uses an airplane.
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:777-224_fuel_burn-...
Fuel economy improves at first due to reduced overhead of taxiing, takeoff, and ascent, but as you go farther the fuel consumption increases due to the need to actually carry the fuel.
There is a tradeoff of needing carry more fuel over a portion of the flight, but the aircraft also spends a higher percentage of it's fuel on flying vs taxiing etc.
However, it's possible to generate Methane fairly easily using solar power, so such launches have the potential to be nominally carbon neutral with some investment.
Ignoring obvious scalability problems, wouldn’t it be possible to manufacture that with a pretty decent environmental footprint from various carbon neutral bio sources?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction#Manufacturin...
The same propellant (methane) can also be used on planes, eventually, so BFR will bring many technologies advances independently of the outcome of the project.
Obviously planes in the future can use cleaner propellants too.