'Starwashing': The new space race has an environmental problem | Hacker News Reader

'Starwashing': The new space race has an environmental problem

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11 pointsspeckx6 comments

> All the emphasis these companies place on technological progress is a distraction from dealing with the climate crisis, said Gregers Andersen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Southern Denmark who has written a forthcoming book about Silicon Valley overpromising tech solutions to climate change. “The problem is, of course, that it takes attention away from actually solving the problems that are here on Earth,” he said. “And I think that’s also what’s meant by the term of ‘starwashing.’”

This is an example of the fallacy of relative privation[0]. Private space ventures have essentially zero impact on climate change. They do not utilize the same resources that combatting climate change involves. Changing anything about space ventures will have no impact on the effectiveness or timing of climate change solutions. The global space industry is roughly the same size as the global cosmetics industry - it is exactly as ridiculous to say space is distracting us from the climate crisis as it is to say we should stop producing cosmetics until the climate crisis is solved. Environmental protection is important, but so are other things, and we neither will nor should stop everything to focus on one problem at a time.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies#Fallacy_of_r...

I disagree with you for two reasons:

1. Current space exploration work is supported at least in part by the bizarre fiction that humanity can escape global warming by putting infrastructure in space or by traveling to Mars. This pipe dream competes with more realistic proposals. People concerned about global warming might be misled and support allocating capital to space exploration rather than to overhauling transportation and power grids here on Earth.

2. Fabricating and launching rockets is environmentally destructive. This is not causing global warming so much, but launch facilities cause a great deal of local pollution to air and water. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/12/spacex-repeatedly-polluted-w...

I suppose that what I am really saying here is "SpaceX sucks" in two different ways. Their competitors don't have either of these problems to the same degree.

> People concerned about global warming might be misled and support allocating capital to space exploration rather than to overhauling transportation and power grids here on Earth.

Assuming jjk166's position that space industry's environmental impact is akin to a rounding error overall: it's hardly competing with "overhauling transportation and power grids here on Earth" because these 2 activities are limited by different bottlenecks.

For both, government funding is an important factor. But the space industry is limited by long development/testing cycles (spacecraft & their engines, designing & building satellites, etc). Or simply commercial demand for satellite-related services.

Whereas the energy transition is largely depending on permitting issues (for new power cables, land for solar or wind parks), production capacity of specialized companies, shortage of qualified workers, price vs. market tipping points, geopolitics & more.

Apart from governments' limited role here, cutting back one doesn't speed up the other.

The bigger issue is presenting [moving to space] as a fix for problems back on Earth. That's just ridiculous. Building & putting anything in space is waaayy more difficult & expensive (read: more resource-consuming) than doing the same on Earth. Not even a tiny fraction of Earth's population can be moved to space in the forseeable future. Surviving in space (long-term) is harder still than surviving on the open ocean, in a desert, or on Antarctica.

So humankind is stuck on Earth for the time being. To survive as a species we MUST make things work on this planet.

Space industry should focus on complementing that: science / exploration, telecom, Earth observation, maybe some niche manufacturing that's small-mass but enabled by 0-G, etc. Building datacenters in space? Send up mirrors to aid the energy crisis? Anyone saying such things with a straight face has lost their marbles and/or is BSing you.

But for believers: okay! Research what's needed, do the math & see how that works out. Maybe surprise us all.

  >bizarre fiction that humanity can escape global warming by putting infrastructure in space or by traveling to Mars

So this is awkward, but Elon Musk agrees with you.

https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-moving-to-mars-interv...

  >but launch facilities cause a great deal of local pollution to air and water. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/...

Importantly this was a paperwork issue, not actual pollution. SpaceX reading of the rules was that only Texas regulated this category of discharge not EPA, but this was quickly resolved. The same unmodified water deluge system was later operated with the blessings of the EPA (guess it wasn't that bad!), so I wouldn't lose sleep over this one. YMMV

Space companies shouldn't try to help us out of this crab bucket. They should work to try to make this bucket full of crabs better. We should pull down any crabs that try to get out of this bucket.

Points for identifying an emerging environmental issue.

OK on science communication.

"Starwashing" thesis is poorly argued and framed.

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