Rocket launches may need regulation to prevent ozone depletion

A new study by researchers in California and Colorado has suggested that the global market for rocket launches may require more stringent regulation in order to prevent significant damage to Earths stratospheric ozone layer in the decades to come.

Washington, April 1 : A new study by researchers in California and Colorado has suggested that the global market for rocket launches may require more stringent regulation in order to prevent significant damage to Earth's stratospheric ozone layer in the decades to come.

The study, which includes the University of Colorado at Boulder and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, provides a market analysis for estimating future ozone layer depletion based on the expected growth of the space industry and known impacts of rocket launches.

Future ozone losses from unregulated rocket launches will eventually exceed ozone losses due to chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which stimulated the 1987 Montreal Protocol banning ozone-depleting chemicals, according to Martin Ross, chief study author from The Aerospace Corporation in Los Angeles.

"As the rocket launch market grows, so will ozone-destroying rocket emissions," said Professor Darin Toohey of CU-Boulder's atmospheric and oceanic sciences department.

"If left unregulated, rocket launches by the year 2050 could result in more ozone destruction than was ever realized by CFCs," he added.

Since some proposed space efforts would require frequent launches of large rockets over extended periods, the new study was designed to bring attention to the issue in hopes of sparking additional research, explained Ross.

"In the policy world, uncertainty often leads to unnecessary regulation," he said. "We are suggesting this could be avoided with a more robust understanding of how rockets affect the ozone layer," he added.

According to Toohey, current global rocket launches deplete the ozone layer by no more than a few hundredths of 1 percent annually.

But, as the space industry grows and other ozone-depleting chemicals decline in the Earth's stratosphere, the issue of ozone depletion from rocket launches is expected to move to the forefront.

Highly reactive trace-gas molecules known as radicals dominate stratospheric ozone destruction, and a single radical in the stratosphere can destroy up to 10,000 ozone molecules before being deactivated and removed from the stratosphere.

"Microscopic particles, including soot and aluminum oxide particles emitted by rocket engines, provide chemically active surface areas that increase the rate such radicals "leak" from their reservoirs and contribute to ozone destruction," said Toohey.

"Today, just a handful of NASA space shuttle launches release more ozone-depleting substances in the stratosphere than the entire annual use of CFC-based medical inhalers used to treat asthma and other diseases in the United States and which are now banned," said Toohey.

"The Montreal Protocol has left out the space industry, which could have been included," he added.

ANI