Anyone else think there is a connection between space launches and global warming?

Question

It seems like since they started space launches, the jetstreams have gone crazy! I am old enough to remember when they first started space launches, and people would remark about how it affected our weather.

Answer 1

Sure - why not.  Clearly "global warming" started at the same time Goddard was experimenting with rockets.

There's some people who believe the climate tracks 30 US stocks listed as the Dow Jones, so why not equate "global warming" with rockets?

Answer 2

Oh no...  Space launches today consist of firing up vast amounts of Hydrogen and Oxygen.....  The underlying result or exhaust is steam or as many put it.... Water.....  Not sure how space launches could effect anything....  If you are talking about CO2, then there is probably no correlation either...  

Maybe you need to re-phrase the question....

Answer 3

Well that's an interesting question!  Hmmmm.  As far as the jet streams, they are about where they belong for a La Nina year.  Just North of the jet stream there is something called the Circumpolar Vortex.  It's a wind like the jest strean that circles the North Pole.  It marks the boundary between the arctic air and the warmer air.  During La Nina years they both move South, bringing the arctic air to places that don't usually get it.

You know there has been a rumor from the earliest days of the Shuttle Program that it made it rain when they launched it.  They said the same thing about earlier rockets, and about nuclear tests before that.

In the case of the Shuttle, the main engines burn clean, but the solid rocket boosters don't.  They put out tons of pollutants, both gas and particulate.  The Shuttle has a special exemption from the Clean Air Act.  The main gases are Sulphur Dioxide and Sulphuric acid.  Those aren't really Greenhouse gases, they are more like what you find in smog, or a thermal inversion over a big city.  Prople fussed so much about this at the beginning of the program that NASA commissioned a study of the issue.  The opinion was that the exhaust from the SRB's produce enough condensation nuclei to cause acid rain.

There was also concern from some that the shuttle "punched a hole" in the ozone layer as it went up.  This proved to be true, but was deemed not a concern, as the holes closed quickly.  The ozone layer doesn't really relate to Global Warming, but it was a concern in those days.

I've never really heard the Shuttle mentioned in relation to Global Warming before, but it seems like something as worth following up on as the ones I mentioned.  Very original thinking!

Answer 4

Don't believe it.

Answer 5

Global warming is a MYTH like 9-11 conspiracy theories. The lie was spread into a population of sheep by that crazed liberal lunatic, Al Gore.

Answer 6

The leprechauns who were in the capsules of those early space launches told me that President Eisenhower deliberately started Global Warming just to get revenge on Al Gore for inventing the internet!

Answer 7

I agree.