Zero carbon space travel is getting closer! Companies develop green fuel capable of taking rockets into space

With the growth of rocket launches into space by large companies, they began to develop a clean, zero-carbon fuel to use in travel.

As companies' interest in joining the space race grows, so do climate researchers' concerns about carbon emissions from rockets. Therefore, some companies that launch rockets into space are developing a clean fuel, in order to preserve the environment, according to the Época website.

In the company SpaceX, for example, a single flight of the Falcon 9 rocket emits about 336 tons of carbon dioxide, which is equivalent to returning a car around the world 70 times. That's an estimate by John Cumbers, a former NASA biologist and CEO of SynBioBeta, who was interviewed by Fortune magazine.

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Research and studies to develop sustainable fuel

There are some sustainable green hydrogen fuel projects in progress, for example, which aim to improve the sustainability of burning liquid hydrogen, which in this case is the main fuel used by NASA in its missions, and which also emits tons of carbon dioxide. carbon.

There is still in progress the production of a rocket fuel in a more ecological way. Check out some of them:

• Energy startup Green Hydrogen International is developing a green hydrogen project in South Texas;

• Researchers at the German Aerospace Center are working on a fuel that only produces nitrogen, oxygen and water when heated;

• Canadian company Hyox is developing technology to produce liquid aviation fuel and rocket boosters that use low-cost solar energy to produce methane and kerosene, which can propel rockets into space;

carbon free technology

Among the companies, Air Company, headquartered in New York, also stands out for its innovative technology, which is studying the technology of direct air capture, a principle that removes carbon dioxide.

The company mixes that carbon with hydrogen developed with renewable energy to create Rocket Propellant-1 (RP-1), the type of kerosene used by Space X's Falcon 9 rocket.

The process for turning kerosene is carbon negative, but it could one day be replicated on Mars – where the atmosphere consists largely of carbon dioxide – to produce fuel for return trips. Thus, fuel will not need to be carried from Earth for missions to the red planet.