Ok, would there be a downside to firing our nuclear waste into space? We're talking far smaller amounts than the world's trash, and we can certainly make more if we find a use for it 
Why don't we launch our garbage into space?
- Thread starter Vohn_exel
- Start date
Recommended Videos
The cost of lifting something into orbit with current chemical rockets is ~$10,000 a pound. That means it costs $1.5 million bucks just to launch a 150 pound human into orbit. It takes pennies per pound to put it in a hole on the surface.
If you have a bag of trash that weighs 20 pounds, it costs $200,000 to lift it to orbit. That's JUST to orbit, not breaking earth's orbit for the sun or whatever. So if you want to drop 200 grand to take out your 20 pound bag of old pizza and paper, which will biodegrade within a few decades, go nuts. It's POSSIBLE that really really bad garbage like radioactives could justify the price, but then there's the risk that rocket launches aren't 100%. No one wants 200 pounds of intensely radioctive waste coming down in their country, or worse, exploding in midair and generally irradiating everyone.
EVEN IF we had a space elevator that could pinprick the gravity well a little, it would still costs probably hundreds of dollars a pound to lift.
So that's why. Physics and money.
If you have a bag of trash that weighs 20 pounds, it costs $200,000 to lift it to orbit. That's JUST to orbit, not breaking earth's orbit for the sun or whatever. So if you want to drop 200 grand to take out your 20 pound bag of old pizza and paper, which will biodegrade within a few decades, go nuts. It's POSSIBLE that really really bad garbage like radioactives could justify the price, but then there's the risk that rocket launches aren't 100%. No one wants 200 pounds of intensely radioctive waste coming down in their country, or worse, exploding in midair and generally irradiating everyone.
EVEN IF we had a space elevator that could pinprick the gravity well a little, it would still costs probably hundreds of dollars a pound to lift.
So that's why. Physics and money.
The expense of getting the fuel, getting the rocket, loading the garbage into the rocket, successfully launching said rocket, then getting rocket back to earth is waaaaay more costly than just burying it in a landfill.
the whole Needing an immense rocket filled with fuckloads of poisonous gas emitting combustible fuels, the new holes ripped in the ozone layer, the chance the rocket explodes and scatters its terrible payload... Those are the ones off the top of my head.
Exactly what I was thinking. In principle it sounds like a great idea, but economically it just wouldn't work... the amount of rubbish this earth produces each year is catastrophic (we'd need a lot of rockets) and the overall cost to run the rockets would be immense.Julianking93 said:
We just need to focus on better recycling strategies and better forms of greener fuel.
It would cost a hell of a lot just to get it out of our atmosphere and then you have to give it enough velocity to escape our solar system costing even more. And in the long term when a bunch of giant space squid come knocking with banana peel on their face it just isnt worth it.
I say it could work just fine. I recently read an article somewhere about a space-launching "gun" that is able to shoot containers of materials into space to resupply space stations. We should find a way to compress the garbage until it takes up as little space as possible then cannon it into the void. Problem solved.Vohn_exel said:
(unrelated note to the OP: I think I recognize your name from a certain Star Wars themed message board I used to frequent. Hi!)
Hate to introduce real points to an argument like this on a forum, but here we go:
1) cost: it currently costs $20,000 USD per Kg to launch a payload into space. Go check your trash bag. Probably 1kg-2kg alone.
http://www.futron.com/pdf/resource_center/white_papers/FutronLaunchCostWP.pdf
2) Retrieval. Despite making an enormous mess when burying, it leaves the possibility of retrieving resources from it in the future. Once you launch something off the planet, that matter cannot be used again.
1) cost: it currently costs $20,000 USD per Kg to launch a payload into space. Go check your trash bag. Probably 1kg-2kg alone.
http://www.futron.com/pdf/resource_center/white_papers/FutronLaunchCostWP.pdf
2) Retrieval. Despite making an enormous mess when burying, it leaves the possibility of retrieving resources from it in the future. Once you launch something off the planet, that matter cannot be used again.
Gunnery Chief: This, recruits, is a 20-kilo ferrous slug. Feel the weight. Every five seconds, the main gun of an Everest-class dreadnought accelerates one to 1.3 percent of light speed. It impacts with the force of a 38-kilotomb bomb. That is three times the yield of the city buster dropped on Hiroshima back on Earth.That means Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-***** in space. Now! Serviceman Burnside! What is Newton's First Law?starfox444 said:
Recruit: Sir! A object in motion stays in motion, sir!
Gunnery Chief: No credit for partial answers, maggot!
Recruit: Sir! Unless acted on by an outside force, sir!
Gunnery Chief: Damn straight! I dare to assume you ignorant jackasses know that space is empty. Once you fire a husk of metal, it keeps going until it hits something. That can be a ship, or the planet behind that ship. It might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in ten thousand years.
If you pull the trigger on this, you're ruining someone's day somewhere and sometime. That is why you check your **** targets! That is why you wait for the computer to give you a **** firing solution! That is why, Serviceman Chung, we do not "eyeball it!" This is a weapon of mass destruction. You are not a cowboy shooting from the hip.
Recruit: Sir, yes sir!
It's hilarious because he talks like a stereotypical soldier.
Because even if we found a cheap way of launching garbage into space with a mass driver or whatnot, it would really put a crimp on space travel when we develop faster than light tech. I mean, running into a garbage bag at thousands of miles a second could really damage a spaceship.
Edit: sigh, ninjad
Edit: sigh, ninjad
It would be cost prohibitive
What is an alien intelligence going to think when it discovers that possibly the only other intelligent life forms for some distance solve their problems by launching them away?
Oh, and that would be removing resources from the closed system that is OUR PLANET.
What is an alien intelligence going to think when it discovers that possibly the only other intelligent life forms for some distance solve their problems by launching them away?
Oh, and that would be removing resources from the closed system that is OUR PLANET.