Fund Eloise's rocket pollution tracker

Why rocket pollution matters:

Rockets produce harmful pollutants and greenhouse gases faster than entire cities and other large Earth-bound sources like coal-fired power plants, but there is no incentive to keep track of these super-emitters.

The space industry is growing rapidly, due to establishment of many satellite megaconstellation providers like SpaceX and Amazon and for selfish billionaires to reach space to take expensive, environmentally harmful selfies.

The threat to astronomy and our ability to use orbits for vital services on Earth like GPS and weather and climate monitoring is well known, but the threat of chemical byproducts is not. The kinds of pollutants produced when a rocket launches alter climate and harm the ozone layer that is protecting us from the sun's harmful rays.

We urgently need to start tracking rocket launch emissions to convince regulators act before these harm the global atmosphere and to dispel misinformation around pollution produced by events like the all-female Blue Origin PR launch in April 2025 that has spurred a culture war between Katy Perry and Taylor Swift.

What we want to do:

I'm often asked by leading news agencies to comment on the amount of pollution produced by rocket launches, so my research group and I built a demo to track and visualise emissions. Give it a try! No rocket science degree needed.

Our demo is grounded in research we conducted that is published in the high-profile Nature journal. Though fun to explore, it only accounts for 3 years (2020-2022) of more than half a century of rocket launches, is limited by our need to use freely available computer resources, and currently piggybacks off our research group website.

The tracker has only been active for 3 months and has already gained attention from users in 43 countries around the world, according to Google Analytics. This interest motivates us to advance it to the next step: expand the record to the whole space era and calculate emissions for scheduled rocket launches before these occur.

Why GoFundMe:

If we seek support from traditional funding routes, we'd need to commercialise the data and hide it behind a paywall. We want it to be free for all and free from commercial influence and we want the data to be used by communities living near spaceports, and activists, litigators, lobbyists and campaigners pushing for regulation. The data can also be used to stamp out misinformation and greenwashing by launch providers like Jess Bezos' Blue Origin.

Budget:

We would use your generous donations to cover the following costs:

£1,000: Computer resources

£7,000: Labour costs

Computer resources: Server usage and storage space fees.

Labour costs: 1 researcher to gather the data needed to extend the emissions record to more years. 1 computer scientist to design a standalone web platform and algorithms to process, visualise, and customise data downloads.

About Me:

I'm Eloise Marais, a University College London Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Air Quality. I have world-leading research expertise in the atmospheric impacts of rocket launch pollution and my research receives lots of attention from the media, policy makers, and fellow scientists.

Examples of media coverage:

BBC Inside Science episode on Rocket Launch Pollution

BBC Rare Earth Final Frontier episode

The Guardian article on the environmental hazards of space tourism