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Comment by worldsayshi | Hacker News Reader

So apparently SpaceX intends to use synthesised fuel for the Earth to Earth transportation [1]. Which could make it potentially carbon neutral. But it feels like it could be wishful thinking that it would hold as a long term solution? Synthesising such fuel would be vastly more expensive than just buying it from the fossil fuel supply chain right?

1: https://cleantechnica.com/2019/10/30/no-you-dont-have-to-wor...

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That depends on how big a percentage of the cost fuel is, and what government fossil fuel policy looks like.

I find it far more likely it will be the other way around: current tests are using natural gas, and I'm working under the assumption that SpaceX will switch to synthetic methane only when they have very high margins on the Starship business or fossil fuel taxes/permits start to bite.

(Happily for the environment, this is still a drop in the bucket.)

They will have to invest in carbon capture on Earth to build expertise for deployment on Mars.

Personally, I think they will not make Starship reliable enough for passenger flights.

The chances of airplane crash are somewhere around 1 in 10 millions per flight.

For comparison, the Crew Dragon requirement is no more than 1 in 127 chances of loosing a crew.

I would really, really not want to use Crew Dragon to do business flights. It's more kind of climb Mount Everest type of thrill.

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