Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

The short answer is yes. Airplanes account for 2.5% of CO2 emissions and rockets use massively more fuel than airplanes per flight (falcon 9 is ~10x fuel capacity of a 737).

But this is an insane scenario because there are about 100,000 commercial flights per day in the world. In all of 2024 there were ~250 orbital launches. So to hit the same rate as airplanes it would require a ~150,000x increase in the launch rate (or a ~15,000x increase to equal the CO2 emissions of airplanes).



Most of the falcon9 fuel is liquid oxygen. A Falcon9 holds less kerosene than a 737 ER.


You are thinking of the 777 ER, which holds more kerosene than the first stage of Falcon 9 (and slightly less fuel than both stages combined)

The 737 is a much smaller plane, and its fuel capacity is near the ballpark of 10x smaller.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: