Is it ethical to launch trash into space?
Given that technology would reach the point where it would be cost effective to launch things into space that we didn’t want on earth; would it be ethical to just shoot something into oblivion.
For instance, spent nuclear fuel, which poses a potential danger to us, could just be shot into deep space.
I would say shoot it into the sun, but maybe that would start changing the suns chemistry??
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The problem with shooting spent nuclear fuel into space isn’t that it’s not ethical—you could theoretically throw it into the sun without any ill effects. The problem is actually getting it up there. Rockets fail for any number of reasons and if a rocket exploded with spent nuclear waste on board it would be an ecological problem. Better to bury it deep with rock like in Yucca Mountain or some other such place.
It depends how safe it would be. I don’t think it’s particularly safe to have it up there orbiting Earth in some giant satellite-ring of trash that might fall back down again and land just anywhere.
If there was a way of getting it into orbit round a different planet it might be ok. It can’t be unethical if there’s no-one that can be harmed by it. But it’s such an immensely expensive project it would never happen.
I don’t see anything especially wrong with this idea, assuming it became cost-effective. To be entirely ethical, it would be better to know where something is though (e.g., the moon). Sending it to who-knows-where probably isn’t exactly ethical either, since there’s some unknown potential for problems later. (Of course, that problem exists with the moon too, but to a lesser extent.)
Yeah, the cost is where I see a big problem playing into this. It costs millions just to launch satellites in space. Building the rockets… All the fuel… It’s a very expensive endeavor.
Ok, the cost isn’t the issue…because that is the first given I gave…
Trash ought to be fine, ethically. Though rather than deep space, I would try for an orbit around, say, Jupiter. After all, we may want that stuff back some day. I’ve never been too comfortable with shooting bits off of the planet that we may never see again.
Since no launch system is without its flaws, you’d have to face the possibility (eventuality?) of, say, fuel rods getting blown to smithereens at takeoff.
Hopefully you wouldn’t accidentally hit an alien spaceship and piss them off enough that they came gunning for Earth.
@Dr_Dredd precisely! Or one day we get so advanced that we can map out and visit the far reaches of the universe like going to Paris. We could find that some very beautiful world was destroyed by our “trash”
@Nullo has a good point…maybe the stuff we think is trash, ain’t trash!
Maybe @Nullo has the worst hoarding problem in the universe
It depends on how safe it would be to get the trash up there. Space goes on forever, so all your doing is sending the trash on a really long trip…as long as it doesnt hit anything.
Sounds like a plan!
Shoot all “trash” into space.
Keep the Planet clean.
@mcsnazzy You might like this, especially right around the 0:51 mark.
It would be too expensive and too dangerous to launch it into space. Better to drop waste into a subduction zone
@flutherother We’re talking about a Clarke- or Heinlein-grade future here. Luna is the new Paris. Heck, there might even be a New Paris on Luna.
It would be cost-prohibitive to throw trash into space.
It’s not a good idea even if it were affordable. We should get over the idea that things are “trash” to be thrown away. You never know- spent nuclear fuel might be the most valuable resource of the 25th century. I say store it somewhere safe-ish until we find a use for it.
Remember, gasoline used to be a “waste product”!
There’s already a lot of trash out there. e.i. all of the old satellites and stuff floating around not being used.. all of that stuff’s going to have to get cleaned up eventually.
When I was about 10 and learning about space and the Apollo missions, I was appalled to find out that they just left their spent rocket boosters and stuff out there. After being taught not to litter my whole life, it just went against everything that I was ever taught. Now, it still seems like a terrible idea, although I don’t think we are advanced enough to yet understand the full implications of it.
Definitely shouldn’t use rockets. I costs $20,000 per pound to get stuff into high orbit, and there is a 5% chance of kaboom.
What about throwing into volcanos?
I agree with @robdamel…volcanoes would just melt the trash.
I’m with @Nullo and @koanhead on this one.
Space is a big place, so I wouldn’t worry about the ethical implications of “astro-littering”. But there is a finite amount of matter on this planet, and in this star system. Shoot stuff away, and that’s so much matter we’ll never get back. Lost forever. Probably.
Better to keep it somewhere distant but reachable, in case our descendants figure out a way to turn nuclear waste into something useful.
it blows my mind how many people keep bring up the cost of this whole thing…..
I would say shoot it at a black hole and be done with it.
then we find out black holes are actually worm holes to other dimensions and they are just getting shitloads of our trash thrown at them :P
Change the suns chemistry? what the hell?
Worrying about changing the Sun’s chemistry by sending spent uranium is like worrying about causing a tsunami in Japan by pissing in the ocean in San Francisco.
Either that or bury it here. I say put it out there. Does anybody really believe that the sun is going to “know” if humans throw a few scraps of trash into a cosmic fusion inferno. I suspect in the history of the universe, whole planets have disappeared into stars without a twitch.
@Ltryptophan Don’t worry, it’s well below the will-ruin-your-life threshold – I can reliably judge when something is of no further use and dispose of it. Except for my older writings. They are too horrible to read, but I cannot bring myself to delete them.
Well, if the Alpha Centauri system is unpopulated, accelerating trash to the escape velocity of 617.5 km/s might be considered ethical. Otherwise, little green men over there might send it back with a note telling us to use biodegradable plastic.
@mattbrowne It very probably is. If I recall correctly, Alpha Centauri is part of a binary star system, and that binaries are even less hospitable than regular ones.
Wouldn’t it just pass through the Alpha Centauri system and go right on to whatever place is next in its path?
As the bloke in @Nullo‘s amusing vid points out:
“It keeps going ‘till 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 are ruining someone’s day, somewhere at some time.”
If you’re planning to shoot it at something so it hits and then stays put, why bother with all the complex calculations required to make it hit something all the way in Alpha Centauri? Just shoot it at the sun, it’s right overthere, you can hardly miss it.
Yes, binary, but there is a third star called Proxima Centauri which is likely gravitationally associated with the binary stars.
Pass through and go right on? Well, it depends. The total mass of the binary stars is about twice of that of the sun. So it depends on the exact trajectory. It could be a fly by with a change of direction or it could hit one of the two stars straight on.
Yes, aiming for the sun make far more sense. The change to our sun’s chemistry is minimal. While it’s mostly hydrogen and helium it’s still a so-called metal-rich star with plenty of other elements. Our sun has at least two ancestors which were metal-poor and metal-deficient.
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