From Ben Haller, Ithaca, New York, US
So NASA has decided to create a “commercial destination” on the International Space Station where tourists could stay in the future, with the aim of facilitating for-profit space tourism (15 June, p 5). That sounds fun: who wouldn't love to see Earth from orbit and experience weightlessness?
But the problem is that space tourism is projected to have a huge environmental impact. A thousand suborbital trips per year – peanuts compared with what NASA's plans might lead to – could result in warming of up to 1°C at Earth's poles during winter (30 October 2010, p 5). Should we subsidise another way for the irresponsible rich to accelerate the destruction of our planet? Must we actively dig our own graves?
