From: mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Space shuttle destruction of the ozone layer
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 92 21:40:09 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

I asked about this about a year and a half ago.  Here is a response
I got from someone in NASA:

> /Gateways/Usenet/sci/chem/Space Shuttle Destroys Ozone Layer ???
> 11663.3.517.2 Re: Space Shuttle Destroys Ozone Layer ???
> 8/9/90 07:55 65/2949 newman@cdc910b21.gsfc.nasa.gov (P.A. Newman)
> Lines 1 to 14 of 65 (21%)
> ***
> On 6 Aug 90 mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson) wrote:
>  
> >The current issue of Buzzworm, an "environmental journal" has a short article
> >on page 14 describing the pollution effects of the space shuttle.  Quoting
> >from vol 2 no 4 (probably one of the last issues of this high-overhead glossy
> >rag):
> > ...<stuff deleted>
> >Huh?  Could any of these figures possibly be true?  If Space Shuttle
> >launches might cause 10% or even 1% of the ozone problem, that seems
> >like a serious cause for concern!  I rather suspect somebody must have
> >slipped a few digits in reporting this story.  Can somebody please provide
> >some real numbers on how much the Space Shuttle contributes to the ozone
> >problem.
>  
> **************************
> I talked to Charlie Jackman (one of the authors of the above quoted
> study)
> and his response follows:
> **************************
> The atmospheric modelling study of the space shuttle effects on the
> stratosphere involved three independent theoretical groups, and was
> organized by Dr. Michael Prather, NASA/Goddard Institute for Space
> Studies.  The three groups involved Michael Prather and Maria Garcia
> (NASA/GISS), Charlie Jackman and Anne Douglass (NASA/Goddard Space
> Flight Center), and Malcolm Ko and Dak Sze (Atmospheric and
> Environmental Research, Inc.).  The effort was to look at the effects
> of the space shuttle and Titan rockets on the stratosphere.
>  
> The following are the estimated sources of stratospheric chlorine:
>  
>    Industrial sources:    300,000,000 kilograms/year
>       Natural sources:     75,000,000 kilograms/year
>       Shuttle sources:        725,000 kilograms/year
>  
> The shuttle source assumes 9 space shuttles and 6 Titan rockets are
> launched yearly. Thus the launches would add less than 0.25% to the
> total stratospheric chlorine sources.
>  
> The effect on ozone is minimal:  global yearly average total ozone would
> be decreased by 0.0065%. This is much less than total ozone variability
> associated with volcanic activity and solar flares.
>  
> The influence of human-made chlorine products on ozone is computed
> by atmospheric model calculations to be a 1% decrease in globally
> averaged ozone between 1980 and 1990. The influence of the space shuttle and
> Titan rockets on the stratosphere is negligible.  The launch
> schedule of the Space Shuttle and Titan rockets would need to be
> increased by over a factor of a hundred in order to have about
> the same effect on ozone as our increases in industrial halocarbons
> do at the present time.
>  
> Theoretical results of this study will be published in the Journal of
> Geophysical Research in the next few months in the paper "The Impact of
> the Space Shuttle on Stratospheric Chemistry and Ozone" by M. J.
> Prather, M. M. Garcia, A. R. Douglass, C. H. Jackman, M. K. W. Ko, and
> N. D. Sze.
>  
> Charles Jackman, Atmospheric Chemistry and Dynamics Branch,
> Code 916, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center,
> Greenbelt, MD  20771
>  
> ***********************
> P. A. Newman
> Code 916
> NASA/GSFC
Newsgroups: sci.space