The Atlas of Space Rocket Launch Sites

The machines that orbit our planet live in a void environment – however, space travel itself does not exist in a vacuum. Travelling to space is an immense effort of humans and machines, taking not just ‘a small step for a man’ but leaving a huge carbon footprint in the process. We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in which private companies and leadership figures in the form of billionaires are re-popularising space travel to an extent not seen since the space race between the USSR and USA. Space exists isolated from the place that births its mechanical and a few select human inhabitants. Thus, we tend to forget that every single thing that exits our atmosphere takes with it more than just its own weight of materials when it departs our fragile blue marble.