Elon Musk looks to Earths atmosphere as a source of SpaceX rocket fuel made from CO2 – San Antonio Express-News

Elon Musk needs methane to launch his Starship into orbit from South Texas in early 2022. Hes looking to the atmosphere to get it.

To get through an orbital test phase beginning soon and on to the moon and Mars in coming years, Musk has been searching for supplies of the hydrocarbon, which is found in natural gas. Its why he said earlier this year that he wants to drill for gas near his SpaceX launch site at Boca Chica.

And its at least partly why he now wants to create a program to remove carbon dioxide from the Earths atmosphere.

The SpaceX Starship SN10 rocket explodes Wednesday, March 3, 2021, after landing at the Boca Chica landing pad. The rocket landed and stood at an angle before catching fire and exploding.

SpaceX is starting a program to take CO2 out of atmosphere & turn it into rocket fuel, Musk, the companys founder and CEO, tweeted late Monday. Please join if interested.

He added: The process will also be important for Mars.

On ExpressNews.com: Elon Musk says SpaceXs first Starship launch from Boca Chica expected in early 2022

The billionaires tweets, which came shortly after he was named Person of the Year by Time magazine, received a mixed reaction from his Twitter followers and others.

Heres a potential source of methane for Starship launches in South Texas. (They need a lot.), Eric Berger, author of Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX and senior space editor at Ars Technica, tweeted that evening. This would also address the growing concern of climate impacts from rocket launches. Big test will be making it financially sustainable.

Thousands of tons of methane are needed for each Starship launch, and SpaceX is planning dozens for 2022.

Its Super Heavy rockets 32 massive Raptor engines run on methalox, a fuel cocktail of super-cooled liquid methane and oxygen. At launch, the rocket will be filled with about 6.8 million pounds of the mixture.

The SpaceX Starship SN10 rocket takes off Wednesday, March 3, 2021, at the Boca Chica launch pad. The rocket landed and stood at an angle before catching fire and exploding.

A supply of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere would provide SpaceX with a raw material for methane.

In San Antonio, Eloy Flores, a research scientist in the chemical engineering department at Southwest Research Institute, said Musk apparently switched from kerosene to methane as the Starships fuel because of its simplicity and efficiency for reusable engine operations a key to SpaceXs plans.

Earlier this year, Musk announced a $100 million Carbon Removal XPrize challenge to generate ideas from inventors to develop ways to capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or oceans.

Ultimately, the goal here is to take the CO2 out of the atmosphere to reduce climate change and if we can turn the CO2 into fuel, it can be burned and we recycle that CO2, Flores said. Not all of it, but enough of it so the net emission is lower than it wouldve been.

Musks idea to convert carbon dioxide into fuel isnt new.

Flores manages labs here using carbon capture technology not for methane but for jet fuels and gasolines, he said. There are processes that have been proven to convert CO2 to methane.

Theres a possible problem: If you end up emitting more CO2 when you produce the fuel, then youre still a net CO2 producer. A possible solution: Using renewable energies like solar and wind to convert CO2 into another form like methane, then its possible you could have a net reduction in emissions.

Flores said using methane as fuel is ideal for Musks plans for Mars. He described how the SpaceX CEO wants to use the Sabatier reaction a chemical process to synthesize methane from the red planets atmospheric CO2 and subsurface water. The process would help meet the Starships refueling needs to get back to Earth.

eric.killelea@express-news.net

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Elon Musk looks to Earths atmosphere as a source of SpaceX rocket fuel made from CO2 - San Antonio Express-News