What would be the problem with this?

[kupocake]

Besides money, what's wrong with this idea?

Wait, that's no fair. You've basically said 'besides the main, obvious and absolutely cripplingly prohibitive problem with this idea, what's wrong with it?'

That and the fact that we probably shouldn't over-estimate our ability to send objects beyond the earth's gravitational pull, regardless of cost. The objects we've sent, lunar modules to deep-space satellite, are not especially large ones. I'd say the Apollo machines were probably the largest things we've propelled to another body, and the distance involved pales in comparison to the distance to the sun (also, I suppose since the body in question is orbiting the earth, only small satellites have actually been sent very far at all). Factor in increased fuel and increased payload over the lunar modules, and you'd have this over-large, likely disposable machine that is probably far, far more environmentally damaging when you use it than a cargo-container of waste encased in concrete down a subterranean mine.

To top it all off, is there any way of really knowing what will happen if you dump radioactive waste in the sun until you do it? Ok, the damned thing isn't going out or anything, but there's always the chance that something harmful could be propelled outward from the impact, only to wash back in our atmosphere on its way to deep-space. We surely only understand the important essentials of what a star actually does?

 

[AJ Rimmer]

To top it all off, is there any way of really knowing what will happen if you dump radioactive waste in the sun until you do it? Ok, the damned thing isn't going out or anything, but there's always the chance that something harmful could be propelled outward from the impact, only to wash back in our atmosphere on its way to deep-space. We surely only understand the important essentials of what a star actually does?

Well given that you're launching spent fissile fuel into a huge fusion reactor... I'd say the chances are pretty big something would go wrong. The sun works by burning all the lightest elements and turning them into heavier elements. At the moment, it's fusing hydrogen into helium. Introducing a really heavy element would be bad. Granted, it would probably take a shitload of nuclear waste to do it, but eventually it might screw the sun up. Like, a couple thousand years maybe, if we continue to dump it at the same rate.

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

Then instead of into the sun, we should just launch it on a course out of our solar system. Then it has an infinitesimal chance it would be a problem for some extraterrestrials millions of years from now. Of course it's moot because of the fuel cost / atmospheric dispersal risk thing.

 

[kupocake]

Then it has an infinitesimal chance it would be a problem for some extraterrestrials millions of years from now.

And so, a space Cherokee sheds a solitary tear as depleted uranium thuds into the soil of his asteroid reservation. When will the white man learn?

 

[Parky]

Nuke a third world country and dump the waste in the crater.
OR
make a huge mountain of waste so tall that the top of it is unaffected by gravity, climb the mountain with waste, then throw into space????????? Success?

 

[AJ Rimmer]

Nuke a third world country and dump the waste in the crater.
OR
make a huge mountain of waste so tall that the top of it is unaffected by gravity, climb the mountain with waste, then throw into space????????? Success?

In order to be unaffected by gravity, the mountain would have to extend beyond the solarsystem. Gravity does not stop once you pass the atmosphere. Even if you were only talking about Earth's gravity, the mountain would still have to go past the moon, and then some! Although I guess since the mountain would rotate at the same speed as the Earth, maybe you'd only have to make it 50,000 km high... then everything you 'threw' off the top would just go into a faster orbit, providing you were careful to throw it in the right direction. Of course, then you would run the risk of the waste hitting the mountain once it passed around the Earth, since it would be going faster than the mountain. But with some sort of computerized machinery to make sure each trajectory was higher and faster, or faster and at a different latitude than the mountain, it could work. You'd just build up a shitload of spacejunk. And a huge effin' mountain of radiactive waste...

...sorry, geekout.

 

[Harryz]

So instead of burying radioactive waste underground and ****ing shit up with the earth, why not just launch the radioactive waste into the sun? Besides money, what's wrong with this idea?

I'm sorry but this is a really stupid question.

Uh... not that I think it does that big of a difference, but the more things we launch into space, the more the earth's rotation route around the sun gets messed up?

But you win.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

I'm sorry but this is a really stupid question.



But you win.

Well he is technically correct. I think. It's completely irrelevant, since we could launch billions of rockets before noticing any significant change, but technically, it's true. I think.

 

[Eejit]

The mass of planets is constantly changing with (usually) asteroid and meteor impacts adding to it - or if large enough during the molten stage - taking mass away.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

Aah. See, I was thinking of the fact that if a rocket blasts off the surface, shouldn't the Earth be pushed back an infinitesimally small bit? Like, how if you use Jupiter's gravity to speed up, Jupiter slows down?

 

[Viperidae]

The earth is not a single homogeneous structure like a pool ball. It can absorb a lot of acceleration.

As for the Jupiter thing--I've never heard of that specific example (of slingshotting affecting the other body's orbit), but I suppose you're affecting its orbit very, very, very, slightly? To no real effect.

 

[Eejit]

Yeah we're talking pretty huge differences in scale. Along the lines of the gravity a building has vs a planet.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

The earth is not a single homogeneous structure like a pool ball. It can absorb a lot of acceleration.

As for the Jupiter thing--I've never heard of that specific example (of slingshotting affecting the other body's orbit), but I suppose you're affecting its orbit very, very, very, slightly? To no real effect.

Oh yes, in either example we would be talking about absolutely insignificant numbers. Like 0.000000000000000001% or something like that, but the Jupiter example is true, and actually the most common one I've heard, since that's exactly what the Voyager probes did. Since the spacecraft in question 'steals' a small piece of Jupiter's angular momentum, Jupiter slows down by the same amount that the craft speeds up, which is significant for the craft, but of course absolutely nothing for a planet-sized body. To quote Arthur C. Clarke: "Nature always balances her check books." Take note though that that example doesn't have anything to do with Jupiter's orbit, just his rotational speed.

And I didn't say I knew anything about the Earth's orbit shifting, it was just a thought that popped into my head, that it might be true, in that same vein as transference of Angular Momentum.

 

[Dog--]

I'm sorry but this is a really stupid question.



But you win.

So if we had unlimited funds, and a choice between burying it or launching it into space you'd bury it? That's just stupid, I never thought of the exploding on launch thing my bad, but sticking it in space is better then just keeping it here, isn't it?

 

[AJ Rimmer]

So if we had unlimited funds, and a choice between burying it or launching it into space you'd bury it? That's just stupid, I never thought of the exploding on launch thing my bad, but sticking it in space is better then just keeping it here, isn't it?

I'd bury it on the moon. Easier to dig there. And we know it'll stay in place, in case we need it for something. Now, granted, we'd need to get it up there safely (and btw- that exploding in-transit is not just "Oh, whoops", it's, like, super-duper-mega-bad, mmkay?), but since we have unlimited funds, I'd first build a space elevator.

Although, I've never understood what was quite so bad about keeping it here. Seriously, bury it way the **** deep down in the mountains and tell people not to go into the big doors marked "Warning, radiation danger" for the next fifty thousand years. Radioactive stuff is dangerous, yes, but it's not some magic wave of energy that'll kill you from miles away. The real danger of course lies in polluting nearby soil and stuff, but then again not all nuclear waste stays dangerous for thousands of years. Only the really bad stuff does that. So, the moon for that shit and bury the rest in the local mountain range for a century or so.

 

[Dog--]

^I know it exploding isn't just 'woops' I know it's really really bad.. A space elevator, then launch it into the sun from there would be good, I wouldn't want to put it on the moon, adding and taking away weight like that would **** all kinds of things up, and the moon affects ALOT of stuff on earth and could mess some things up.

And if it contaminates the soil you can't really just take all the affected soil and throw it away, it's ****ed forever until we clean it, which we wouldn't do, so once it's ****ed it's pretty much gonna stay that way.

 

[Eejit]

ITT Dog-- has no concept of scale.

 

[Escaep]

We should put it somewhere on the far reaches of Earth's orbit, and slowly, slowly add to it. Over time, it will form a ball and then a moon, and we will have two moons!!!!
:farmer:

 

[Dog--]

ITT Dog-- has no concept of scale.

By scale what do you mean? The tons and tons of waste and the problem lifting all of it off the earth, or the shit it contaminates?

Even on small scales it's not good...

 

[Eejit]

How much radioactive waste do you really think there is, as a percentage of the Earth's mass, or the moon's mass?

 

[Dog--]

I don't know, I'm not saying this is an immediate problem that we're all gonna die in 10 years because of it, but eventually it'll cause some shit.

 

[Eejit]

You realise only a minute percentage of the earth's mass is made up of radioactive elements, right? Even assuming we could reach all of them and fire them all into space it would have no noticeable effect on the planet's mass.

 

[Dog--]

I'm talking ecosystems and shit, life on the surface.

 

[Eejit]

How would removing that tiny weight affect ecosystems if it doesn't affect the planet as a whole?

 

[AJ Rimmer]

I'm talking ecosystems and shit, life on the surface.

Send. It. To. The. Moon. Dead. World. Nothing to pollute. D-E-A-D.

And no, radioactive waste is not gonna **** up the moon's mass, not until we're talking about several hundred million tonnes of it. And at the moment, we're at maybe 200,000 tonnes, world-wide.
Launching into the sun would be a lot harder than just shooting it into space. It'd actually be more cost effective to just shoot them out of the solar system. But, again- The Moon! Closer, safer (easier to hit), we'll be able to keep an eye on it and everything!

 

[FISHY CRACKERS]

You start moving in space you wont slow to a stop, just fire away with minimal fuel i say.

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

wouldnt the radioactive waste give life to the sun and turn it into a giant pacman like fire monster?

WHY HAS NO ONE GIVEN THE GREENLIGHT FOR THIS

 

[AJ Rimmer]

You start moving in space you wont slow to a stop, just fire away with minimal fuel i say.

Yeah, but ya still need to overcome Earth's gravity. And this is assuming we have a space elevator. If we don't, we're talking a rocket substantially bigger than the Saturn Vs, to launch just a couple of tonnes.

 

[Eejit]

Remember the top of the space elevator allows you to fling things away pretty easily due to its angular momentum. You shouldn't need much extra force, if any.

Still, best to keep it somewhere we can lay our hands on it in case it might be handy for Future Tech VI

Edit - just checked wiki

The velocities that might be attained at the end of Pearson's 144,000 km cable can be determined. The tangential velocity is 10.93 kilometers per second, which is more than enough to escape Earth's gravitational field and send probes at least as far out as Jupiter. Once at Jupiter a gravitational assist maneuver permits solar escape velocity to be reached.

 

[kupocake]

If we get enough radioactive waste, we can use it to roll up the sun. That's how I've been lead to believe that this stuff works anyway.

Really? SCORE!

 

[swan_song1973]

EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Space_disposal

Wikipedia points out the obvious: that rockets carrying waste might explode on launch and scatter radioactive shit across the sky.

no biggie.

 

[Danimal]

We can build these underground bunkers that keeps pockets of us safe at a time.

We'll call them Vaults.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

Remember the top of the space elevator allows you to fling things away pretty easily due to its angular momentum. You shouldn't need much extra force, if any.

Still, best to keep it somewhere we can lay our hands on it in case it might be handy for Future Tech VI

Edit - just checked wiki

Woah, 144,000 km? Geostationary is, like, 36,000 km, what the hell?

 

[Eejit]

Yeah without a large counterweight at the orbital end the cable would have to extend well beyond geostationary orbit.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

Yeah without a large counterweight at the orbital end the cable would have to extend well beyond geostationary orbit.

That... sounds... like an anti-Clarkeian idea! You'll die for this, heretic!

 

[Baserape>]

I don't know if this has been mentioned but we should have a fantastic voyage to the centre of the Earth. Big hole to centre of the Earth=No more landfill or crematoriums. Win win for everyone. Plus we could tap into the cores energy and have roasted chestnuts 24/7.

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

A win for everyone would be if your dramatic squirrel avatar finally turned around. And I'm not a big fan of all that nuclear waste ending up churning about in our planet's mantle. I know there's a lot of it but that's not something you really want to mess with. Burying it in the crust is good enough for now.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

Yes, good idea- let's come up with something even harder than space travel!