Looks like we've grown tired of ruining the Earth

[ObiDon]

What a great frickin' idea!

 

[Cancer12]

Why not? I'll never live there, my kids will never live there, and my grandkids will probably never live there. Unless this would cause a raise in taxes.

 

[Spoooon]

Why not send it toward the sun? If it smacks into Venus or Mercury, it shouldn't be a big deal. I don't think any amount of technology would make those planets useful.

 

[Spoooon]

Originally posted by: Cancer12
Why not? I'll never live there, my kids will never live there, and my grandkids will probably never live there. Unless this would cause a raise in taxes.

If you read the article, this sounds like a good reason why not:

Duke said that even the highest reliability attained by a space booster also comes with catastrophic launch failure probabilities. Then it?s a matter of acceptable risk of how much nuclear material might come back at Earth.

 

[diskop]

Originally posted by: Spoooon
Why not send it toward the sun? If it smacks into Venus or Mercury, it shouldn't be a big deal. I don't think any amount of technology would make those planets useful.

True, isn't sending it towards Venus better?

p.s. How about sending it to Uranus.

 

[Lucky]

Assuming technology would be available to concentrate the deposits in one central place, and the system of delivery is proven highly reliable, I see no problem with this.

 

[notfred]

I say grind it to a fine powder, put in in an iron barrel, and drop it in the middle of the ocean. the iron will rust, the waste will slowly leak out, and will slowly spread across the planet, so that there's immeasurably small amounts of it all over the place.

Before I get criticized for my idea: Where the hell do you think we got the stuff in the first place? We dug it up out of the ground.

 

[yakko]

I say we just eat it. Either that or send it to the sun.

 

[diskop]

Originally posted by: yakko
I say we just eat it. Either that or send it to the sun.

Let's get Superman to do it like he did with our nuclear weapons.

 

[Czar]

the sun is a much much better option but the reason why its not done is that you do NOT want to have an accendent.

 

[Kerouactivist]

This is a horrible idea,religion is so messed up, it makes people think that we (Humans) are basically semigods and have the right to do horrible stupid things.

 

[djheater]

....An example of the worst of man's egocentrism and typical deliberately microscopic view of the universe....

There is no good rationale by which we can justify sending waste into space. The possibilities for catastrophe and the expense alone should prevent us from even considering it. It strikes me that perhaps Gormly is interested in providing a much needed boost to the space program but this just seems silly.

 

[IGBT]

Don't sweat it. All the coal fired power plants in use have spewed forth tons of radio active elements including uranium and thorium so don't feel left out.linkit

 

[Chaotic42]

No, we shouldn't blast nuclear waste into space. People had a hissy-fit when that Xenon (was it xenon?) driven rocket was to be blasted into space. I don't know if it ever made it.

Anyway, what if it blows up in the upper atmosphere? We'd have to ship it in large quantities to be cost effective, I'd rather not have 100 tons of radioactive waste spinning in the atmosphere, especially when it can be avoided so easily.

 

[Tominator]

This is a very old idea.

It is way too expensive just to get anything into space let alone to another planet, sun or moon.

We don't even need to talk of a rocket blowing up and spreading radiation because the idea is not practical to begin with.

Radiation is a normal occurance and is one of the influences that make us different.

The only reason this type of idea gets press at all is the idiots complaining about storing waste here.

 

[Tiger]

The only reason this type of idea gets press at all is the idiots complaining about storing waste here.

Ditto, Yucca mountain could have been open 10 years ago but for the tree hugging morons.

 

[BD231]

Pretty horrible idea. I wouldn't think to send it any other place than the sun, throwing sh*t on our moon is just plain stupid.

 

[ObiDon]

The only reason this type of idea gets press at all is the idiots complaining about storing waste here.

I'm okay with storing waste here. It's our waste and we should learn how to deal with it instead of just sweeping it under the rug.

 

[MacBaine]

Originally posted by: Czar
the sun is a much much better option but the reason why its not done is that you do NOT want to have an accendent.

I don't see any difference between sending it one direction or sending it the other, besides the fact that the moon is about 93,000,000 miles closer to us. The same potential for a pre-orbital explosion exists, which is one of the only risks.

 

[apoppin]

If we every get FUSION reactors working here, we could feed radioactive waste into them.

If you disagree, then sending waste back to Uranus is a good idea.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: IGBT
Don't sweat it. All the coal fired power plants in use have spewed forth tons of radio active elements including uranium and thorium so don't feel left out.linkit

i've long suspected that trace amounts of radioactive materials in coal outweigh the radioactive waste from nuclear plants. nuclear plants also have the benefit of keeping all that radioactive waste in one place so you can then do what you want with it rather than spewing it into the air. my only real concern about nuclear reactors at this point is terrorist attacks.

the only reason to not fire this stuff into space is that rockets aren't reliable enough.