Why don't we launch our garbage into space?

[Internet Kraken]

Read this [http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/news/breakingorbit/2010/03/tiny-solar-sail-pitched-to-cle.html]

It talks about how satellites alone are generating a harmful amount of space debris. And in space, these debris can be very hazardous to other satellites or astronauts. Basically, launching trash into space does not make it magically disappear. It stays there, orbiting earth, and eventually crashing down on your head. The only way this wouldn't happen is if you launched the trash into deep space, but that is ridiculously expensive and has the potential to cause the same problem in the distant future. People used to think burying trash or throwing it in the ocean wouldn't cause any problems, and look at how wrong they were.

Not to mention how every bit of trash you launch into space reduces amount of resources on Earth. A lot of trash can be recycled and reused for a variety of different purposes. Even the nuclear waste generated by power plants could be potentially reused as another power source. If we just launch it all into space, we don't get that opportunity.

 

[SD-Fiend]

well minus the cost or something bad hapenimg we could really just send it to venus then all the trash will melt in seconds

 

[Legendsmith]

Everything you could possibly say has been ninja'd. All points have been made, let this thread die.

 

[Therumancer]

Everyone's wanting a greener earth, right? We're all concerned about landfills and I was recently reading about the great plastic ocean. I've always wondered why we don't just take our garbage and blast it into space?

I know that some of it is biodegradable, but alot of it isn't. So why don't we just take the stuff that isn't and launch it somewhere far away. Pioneer has been travelling since like the sixties, right? And it only "recently" left our solar system. So, chunking a huge bunch of garbage out there wouldn't be bad for the space environment. As for the cost, it could create jobs as well as probably be done with joint ventures of sending up satelites or something.

(ITT: Bad spelling)

Well, one of the problems we're already dealing with is an absolute ton of garbage in orbit around the planet as it is. One of the reasons why I am so "into" the idea of a single world unity at any price (including insane numbers of deaths). Basically every nation and business has to have it's own satellites. Even tiny nations get into the act as a matter of national pride, plus you have mercenary space programs run by nations like China or France that will pretty much shoot a satellite into space for anyone.

The result is that we have tons of debris, outdated satellites, second and third world satellites that might as well be space junk but are matters of national pride for various nations, and other things.

People joke about getting hit by space debris as being unlikely, but as time goes on more and more stuff is falling to earth, especially stuff that was not placed properly to begin with or broke off of shoddy space objects. Most of it burns up and we never notice it, but as time goes on we might very well be facing a crisis of our own making. There have been articles about it for a while now. If some of these big satellitest that were placed badly actually go through reentry and don't burn up entirely they can wreck buildings and such, and allegedly there are even a couple that might be city-smashers that are being tracked. Half the problem is that it's fairly unpredictable.

At any rate, one thing to consider is that it's quite an effort to break the earth's orbit entirely. While we CAN do it, it's not as easy as just shooting stuff up into space. This is why we haven't been firing probes out with machine-gun like speed. The cost of firing garbage out into space is going to be prohibitive for that reason, and if we start firing it into orbit (which will happen with a lot of the smaller countries if the big ones start doing it 'right') it's going to make a lot of problems.

What's more one of our problems with trash is that we want to get rid of it right now, as opposed to waiting for the planet to recycle it. I'm wary about shooting that much mass from the planet into space and removing it from earth. In the long run every piece of garbage is a resource. I don't think we should be considering things like that until we establish space colonies, and obtain more resources than Earth provides, which would also mean us having developed the technology to reliably shoot it into deep space/create trash hauling ships.

See, a lot of people joke about Space Programs as being a waste of time and money due to "all of the problems down here on Earth". However I believe the solution to a lot of those problems IS Space Travel and expansion.

 

[Escapefromwhatever]

1. Because landfills aren't all that big of a problem. We still have plenty of space to dump our trash- CO2 is the bigger thing right now.

2. Because its frakkin' expensive.

3. Because not every country has a space program.

I can be arsed to look for sources later, if you want.

 

[ClockWork]

Do you have any idea how much junk is up there already? In 1999 there was over 4 million pounds, and that was over ten years ago! Hundreds of thousands of objects fall to Earth every year, and a metal sphere just the size of a tennis ball hitting earth at the speed something would have falling from space could be as devastating as 25 sticks of dynamite.

 

[AgentNein]

I think you're on to something. But the energy and costs would be prohibitively expensive.

Which is why I'm going to do my part, and move next door to a launch site.

Any time they're heading into space I'll run over with my trash bags, ask them to be a doll and take this with them on their way out.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I would think it would be much too expensive to blast our garbage into space. Also, since someone mentioned Futurama, there is the chance that the garbage will return to our world or, screw up another one [unless we throw it into the sun but, we don't know how disposable camera and, Styrofoam coffee cups will effect The Sun if at all]

Landfills really aren't as evil as everyone thinks though, assuming you have enough space for one. They're usually made up of biodegradable garbage anyway and are later turned into parks or Golf courses [though we don't need the later]

 

[Deleric]

Someone's been watching too much Futurama.

Ah damnit. Beaten to the punch.

 

[Knight of Cydonia]

Cost, money, we might bump back into it one day and it being too expensive

 

[Burst6]

Because the materials eventually need to degrade back to basic elements. If we send it out to space the earth will eventually whittle away.

 

[brodie21]

because rocket fuel is harmful to the environment and uses a butt load of resources to make. plus it costs alot. the better idea would be to make a Magnetic catapult and shoot stuff into space

 

[Oskar K]

I would... If you payed for it.

 

[headshotcatcher]

Everyone's wanting a greener earth, right? We're all concerned about landfills and I was recently reading about the great plastic ocean. I've always wondered why we don't just take our garbage and blast it into space?

I know that some of it is biodegradable, but alot of it isn't. So why don't we just take the stuff that isn't and launch it somewhere far away. Pioneer has been travelling since like the sixties, right? And it only "recently" left our solar system. So, chunking a huge bunch of garbage out there wouldn't be bad for the space environment. As for the cost, it could create jobs as well as probably be done with joint ventures of sending up satelites or something.

(ITT: Bad spelling)

Wouldn't the earth decrease in mass? Wouldn't that be very very bad?

 

[Daemascus]

As cool as it would be it would be to expsensive an hard.

 

[Marowit]

The cost is obscene.

Even then, the cost would have to be lower than it is to pay two fellows pick it up in a truck, haul it to the local dump (or continental shelf for those of us in the tristate area).

 

[Dexiro]

We already have a massive layer of garbage orbitting us, and it causes massive problems for space people (NASA n stuff).

 

[Fox242]

We don't do that because it will piss off the aliens. Think about it...you're an alien on your home planet enjoying life and all of a sudden, a rain of used condoms, dirty diapers, tampons, used needles, and other horrible things fall onto your planet and cause massive damage and spread terrible diseases. How would you and your kind react to such a thing? I, for one, could not get the space fleet launched for a reataliatory strike against the offending planet (which would be Earth if you haven't been paying attention) fast enough. Ask yourself, do you really want something like this to happen about 1-5,000 years from now because of bad decisions we made in the present do you?