Is it morally correct for people to polute the atmosphere with rockets?

Of course.

And destruction of oxygen-producing forests, and other forms of greenhouse gas emissions, and overfishing, and strip mining, etc.

 

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Well, kerosene/LOX rockets also produced unburned hydrocarbon exhaust, as well as the SOx that comes from fuel that has a (low) content of sulfur. Plus CO2 and water.

Some (LH2/LO2) produced only water.

The methane/LOX engines on the Starship will be somewhere in between - water and CO2.

(And of course, solid fuel boosters were incredibly dirty/toxic.)

 

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Plymouth Colony started with 124 people. The Starship should be able to hold ~100 people each. So yes.

The goal would be to become self sufficient - so never (once that was set up.)

Seems like that would be up to them.

 

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Yeah, I was thinking of the Saturns*. They were straight LOX and LHy, were they not?

*folly of the armchair enthusiast - only thinks of the popularized ones, forgets the other 95%.

 

Is there hope of finding an Earth like planet with a suitable atmosphere ?

 

We are mostly all to blame for the pollution of the atmosphere and possible future extinction of humanity ?

 

Not in our lifetimes. It is very likely that there are suitable planets out there around other stars.

 

First stage was kerosene/LOx, second and third stages were LH2/LOx.

 

Is it moral to dress up monkeys? I'd say "yes" but it's an open question.

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I think it would be safe to say that if there is other suitable planets like ours , any lifeforms that may exist on these planets would either be primitive to ourselves or equals to ourselves . I don't think they would be superior to ourselves because if that were so , we perhaps would have seen them by now or communicated some way .

 

Because, that is the only way to get to space, so the pollution is a sacrifice that is reasonable.

 

Why won't Helium balloons go into space ?

 

All depends on how far we are willing to go.

But it doesn't have to have a suitable atmosphere. It's quite possible that the first colonies will be domed or even underground - and will produce their own oxygen by cracking the minerals in the planet's regolith.

Presumably, for every planet we discover that has evolved to macro-life, we will discover hundreds that have only evolved micro-life. And for every planet we discover that has micro-life we will discover hundreds that have no life.

 

Er.
Balloons operate on buoyancy. They require an atmosphere to be buoyant in.

 

What does a Helium balloon do , does it stop rising at a specific height ?

 

Yes.

 

I always imagined the Helium balloon continued into space or popped , that never happens ?

 

Space is pretty big. We couldn't detect us from 20 lightyears away.

 

They certainly do pop, but not always.

If built for it, they will rise until they reach equilibrium with the atmo and then will float no higher.

There has been some research into launching rockets from balloons to save on launch costs, but the benefits are minimal.

 

Like, vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big.
I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist...

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