Not everyone gets to leave Earth’s atmosphere, even for 11 minutes. As commercial spaceflight grows, that exclusivity has become part of its appeal, and part of the controversy surrounding it.
On April 14, 2025, pop star Katy Perry and Lauren Sánchez joined four other women aboard a Blue Origin suborbital flight. During the brief journey, the passengers experienced weightlessness and viewed the curvature of Earth before returning home.
Such flights are part of a rapidly developing commercial space industry. Companies including Blue Origin, SpaceX and Virgin Galactic have opened opportunities for private citizens to travel beyond Earth, although different operators offer very different kinds of missions. But as access to space expands, scientists are increasingly asking what these journeys may cost the planet below.
Rocket launches release pollutants at altitudes where their atmospheric effects can differ significantly from emissions produced near Earth’s surface. Depending on the fuel and engine, launches can produce carbon dioxide, water vapour, nitrogen oxides and black carbon, or soot.
Black carbon is of particular concern. When released into the upper atmosphere, soot can absorb sunlight and contribute to warming. Research has also raised concerns that increasing rocket emissions could affect stratospheric ozone. Unlike emissions from most ground-level activities, rocket exhaust is injected directly into different layers of the atmosphere.
That creates an uncomfortable paradox: travellers leave Earth partly to marvel at the planet’s beauty while the journey itself carries an environmental footprint.
Supporters argue that private spaceflight can finance technological development and infrastructure with benefits extending beyond tourism. Commercial space companies are involved in larger ambitions, from proposed orbital habitats to lunar exploration. The question, however, is whether technological benefits can eventually justify the environmental costs of an industry serving relatively few people.
The debate intensified after Perry’s Blue Origin flight. Critics questioned the purpose of such a short, celebrity-heavy journey, while supporters presented it as a milestone for women’s participation in spaceflight. The disagreement exposed a broader tension between exploration, spectacle and privilege.
Cleaner propulsion does not necessarily eliminate the problem. Hybrid rocket engines, for example, can still produce soot. Aerospace engineer Filippo Maggi has compared their combustion process to a candle, noting that conditions inside such engines can favour soot formation.
None of this means humanity should stop exploring space. Scientific missions, satellites and space research have transformed communication, weather forecasting and our understanding of Earth itself. Space tourism, however, poses a different question.
For those aboard, a journey beyond the atmosphere may last only minutes. Its environmental consequences do not necessarily return to Earth quite so quickly.
As space becomes a playground for those wealthy enough to reach it, the real question may be whether the thrill experienced by a few is worth a cost ultimately shared by everyone below.
