Things I don’t understand ||

This comes from the BBC’s description of the flights of SpaceShipTwo to take people to the edge of space, and then come back to a nice safe landing (hopefully). And all for a mere $200,000 - the world’s most expensive rollercoaster.

Of course, Richard Branson is a man who is extremely adept at being on both sides of the debate on environmental issues.

On the one hand he runs a transcontinental airline and several smaller low-cost airlines so beloved of environmental extremists AND now a sub-orbital flight company, none of which are known for their environmental friendliness or low carbon emissions.

And on the other:

“To my mind there is no greater or more immediate challenge than that posed by climate change,” said Sir Richard.

“It’s therefore more than fitting that the very first science to be conducted on board our new vehicles may be specifically directed at increasing our understanding and knowledge of the atmosphere and from there, to better inform our decisions as to the most effective ways of dealing with climate change.”

“It’s therefore more than fitting that the very first science to be conducted on board our new vehicles may be specifically directed at increasing our understanding and knowledge of the atmosphere and from there, to better inform our decisions as to the most effective ways of dealing with climate change.”

What’s the betting that no-one will be tasteless enough to point out the carbon emissions per passenger of SpaceShipTwo? Certainly not NASA/NOAA because he’s offered to put their scientific instruments on his carbon-spewing air tractor, sorry, sub-orbital first stage launcher, White Knight 2

“Almost everything Noaa does at the moment is at 25,000ft (7,600m) maximum altitude. It’s quite difficult to find research aircraft that do atmospheric testing above that,” Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, explained.

“One of the things that we as an airline operator know is that the tropopause is rising slightly. That has had quite an effect on aircraft flying in the upper atmosphere and the amount of turbulence they get.

“This is probably related to the mix of greenhouse gases and the levels they are rising to that’s moving the tropopause up.”

…and absolutely nothing to do with the greenhouse gases coming from Richard Branson’s planes.

So here’s today’s scientific question: What’s wrong with this picture?

I rather think even Sir Isaac Newton could answer this one.

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