A Way To Rid The Earth Of Nuclear Waste!

Ive just thought of a great way to dispose of nuclear waste.

Disposable rockets that are used to launch sattelites into orbit such as the Ariane 5 and Soyuz series could be loaded with waste and simply sent to the sun.

By the time the capsule burnt up it would be millions of miles from Earth and pose no threat to us.

It may cost millions to send it up but wouldnt it be better than throwing it in a concrete container under the ground that will break up one day and spread radioactive waste all over?

Always a good idea, but always the same problem...

Cost, cost, cost....and nobody's going to spend millions when they can spend hundreds or thousands......

LoL, but what would happen if that nuclear waste came back to earth ? Its just like that episode on family guy with the garbage ball.

LOL

Always a good idea, but always the same problem...

Cost, cost, cost....and nobody's going to spend millions when they can spend hundreds or thousands......

But one day we will run out of space for all the waste and have to send it into space.....probably.

Cost isn't the only problem. Imagine a tragic scenario, where a rocket laden with Nuclear waste blows up like the Shuttle did. Oh man. That would be dire indeed..

By the time we start filling up the earth with nuclear waste we will be so advanced that we wouldn't even need a planet. We would be spread out over the entire universe. And to different dimentions.


We will be with the Aliens in a Peaceful Universe, free of hate and hostility towards others. There will be no killing of any kind. I hope I live to see those days.

but thats like saying what if a nuclear powerplant blew up.....oh it did.
Remeber Chernobyl???

Theres just as much chance of a rocket blowing up as there is a nuclear powerplant exploding.

And if it was to be done the launch pad could be in the old Nevada nuclear testing range where it doesnt matter as much if it blew up as the US has already blew nukes up there anyway!

Why don't we just make an anti-matter explosion..... as we will be soon, seeing as the US Gov't is developing anti-matter weapons.

Why don't we just make an anti-matter explosion..... as we will be soon, seeing as the US Gov't is developing anti-matter weapons.

But we wont see the weapons for 20 years, its always the same with the US.

P.S love the Avatar.....nearly as good as mine!!!

is there a way to reverse engineer Nuke Waste?

and change it to useable goods or some other good use.

Originally posted by mwen
is there a way to reverse engineer Nuke Waste?

and change it to useable goods or some other good use.

Not that i know of!

I may be wrong though!

Why not just dump all the nuclar waste ever produced on.........hmm........North Korea!!!!!!

Originally posted by MickeyDee
but thats like saying what if a nuclear powerplant blew up.....oh it did.
Remeber Chernobyl???

Theres just as much chance of a rocket blowing up as there is a nuclear powerplant exploding.

And if it was to be done the launch pad could be in the old Nevada nuclear testing range where it doesnt matter as much if it blew up as the US has already blew nukes up there anyway!

I would say there is a much greater chance of a rocket blowing up.

April 18, 1986 - A Titan missile believed to be carrying a military satellite explodes shortly after launch from the Vandenberg Air Force Base launch site in California.

May 3, 1986 - A Delta rocket carrying a $57 million weather satellite explodes shortly after lift-off from Cape Canaveral.

February 22, 1990 - Western Europe's 36th Ariane rocket, carrying two Japanese satellites, explodes less than two minutes after lift-off from Kourou, French Guiana.

June 18, 1991 - A 46-foot (15-metre) Prospector rocket carrying 10 science experiments for the U.S. space agency and several universities is destroyed after veering off course after launch from Cape Canaveral.

August 2, 1993 - A Titan 4 rocket believed to be carrying an expensive military spy satellite explodes after lift-off from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

December 1, 1994 - Western Europe's 70th Ariane rocket crashes into the Atlantic with the $150 million PanAmsat-3 telecoms satellite after launch from Kourou, French Guiana.

January 26, 1995 - The Chinese-designed Long March 2E rocket carrying a telecommunications satellite explodes after blast-off from Xichang in southwest Sichuan province.

October 23, 1995 - An unmanned Conestoga rocket whose satellite contains 14 scientific experiments explodes 45 seconds after blast-off from a NASA facility in Virginia.

February 15, 1996 - A rocket carrying an Intelsat 708 communications satellite explodes soon after take-off from China's launch site in Xichang.

May 20, 1996 - A Soyuz-U booster rocket carrying reconnaissance satellites explodes 49 seconds after lift-off from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome.

June 4, 1996 - Europe's Ariane-5 rocket explodes 40 seconds into its maiden flight after blasting off from the European Space Agency launch centre in Kourou, French Guiana.

June 20, 1996 - A Soyuz-U rocket carrying reconnaissance satellites explodes after lift-off at Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

May 20, 1997 - A Russian Zenit-2 booster rocket carrying a Cosmos military satellite explodes 48 seconds after launch.

August 12, 1998 - The U.S. Titan rocket programme is put on hold when a Titan 4A explodes soon after lift-off in one of history's most expensive space disasters. The cost of the rocket and its spy satellite cargo was put at more than $1 billion.

August 27, 1998 - A Delta 3 rocket carrying a U.S. communications satellite bursts into a $225 million fireball, soon after blast-off from Cape Canaveral on its maiden flight.

September 10, 1998 - A computer malfunction brings down a Ukrainian rocket carrying 12 commercial satellites, minutes after blast off from Baikonur.

July 5, 1999 - A Russian Proton-K heavy booster rocket launched from Baikonur suffers a malfunction that detaches the engine and parts of the booster, causing them to crash onto the steppe. A 200-kg (440-lb) chunk falls into the courtyard of a private house. Kazakhstan briefly closes Baikonur in a row with Russia over clean-up costs and rent for the base.

October 28, 1999 - A Russian Proton rocket carrying a communications satellite crashes shortly after take-off from Baikonur.


August 15, 2002 - NASA's $159 million Contour space probe, launched on July 3 and designed to chase comets, breaks up on leaving Earth's atmosphere.

December 11, 2002 - An upgraded European Space Agency Ariane-5 rocket explodes soon after blast-off from Kourou, French Guiana, sending two satellites worth about $600 million plunging into the Atlantic Ocean.

There may also be other un-reported Soviet and Chinese accidents.


www.members.shaw.ca...


IMO definately not a very good idea to launch radioactive waste into the sun. Look at the number of rockets that have blown up. Granted there has been a few nuclear plant accident, but overall I think rockets is very risky.


Edit to add more...


Little dated because they've flown more than 141 missions now.....

Eight of Ariane's 141 missions have failed since the Ariane programme began in 1979.
archives.cnn.com...


And to add that the list above doesn't include the October 2002 soyuz explosion 29 seconds after launch.

Soyuz Rocket Fails After Launch from Plesetsk Cosmodrome
www.space.com...




As you can see rockets don't exactly have a wonderful track record, imaginge one blowing up in flight high in the atmosphere. The radioactive fallout would be very widespread.


[edit on 12/5/05 by Skibum]

You know, they could always use their secr8 spaceship located under Denver...!

[edit on 12-5-2005 by mwen]

Originally posted by Macuser
Cost isn't the only problem. Imagine a tragic scenario, where a rocket laden with Nuclear waste blows up like the Shuttle did. Oh man. That would be dire indeed..

That's why the US government is working on storage containers that can withstand these types of environments. Though we are many years away from what they are truely trying to achieve.

Stuff big missiles with super deadly millenia-lasting materials and then shoot them into space? There's no such thing as shuttle explosions or rocket accidents right?

Not to be too harsh, but thats an old idea thats been long since rejected. It'd be nice, but the danger of a loaded rocket exploding in the atmosphere is tremendous.

But one day we will run out of space for all the waste and have to send it into space.....probably.

By then, I suppose cost would be a) far less, and b) less of an issue...

You'd never have enough rockets to make any impact on the amount of waste there is.
Spent fuel rods are only a small part of the waste that's out there and there's thousands of metric tons of them alone.

Originally posted by Macuser
Cost isn't the only problem. Imagine a tragic scenario, where a rocket laden with Nuclear waste blows up like the Shuttle did.

Laden? Hmm.

Imagine a scenario where terrorists are able to get one, or several, of the hundreds of nuke waste disposal rockets under their control.

Imagine a scenario where terrorists are able to get one, or several, of the hundreds of nuke waste disposal rockets under their control.

Very true.

Never thought that if a terrorist took one out at launch it would be catastophic!

BUT i did say that it would be launched in a remote location!

if the first rocket we send up had some sort of malfunction and then turned back to earth on a collisin corse with tokyo imagine the goverment trying to say they were sorry any way something like this will proberly start ww111

by tyipical i just mean crummy luck