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We should send all our rubbish to Venus or to the sun. Let it burn up in them

  • 15-09-2020 12:17am
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 15,416 ✭✭✭✭
    Ms


    Well good idea or not? If course there might be alien life on Venus now so might not be allowed send our rubbish there if there is. Maybe the weird microbial alien life on it would like our Earth rubbish do.

    Live long and Prosper

    Peace and long life.



«1

Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 32,875 ✭✭✭✭Princess Consuela Bananahammock


    AMKC wrote: »
    Well good idea or not? If course there might be alien life on Venus now so might not be allowed send our rubbish there if there is. Maybe the weird microbial alien life on it would like our Earth rubbish do.

    I think they did this in an episode of Red Dwarf...? Might have been something else though. Can't remember how it worked out. Probbaly not well.

    Everything I don't like is either woke or fascist - possibly both - pick one.



  • Registered Users Posts: 13,763 ✭✭✭✭Potential-Monke


    The sun would be the better bet, not a hope there's life on it, and if there is, well, rubbish won't be the top of the worries we may have. Problem is, it's a one way trip, and sending stuff to space is not cheap. It would take a healthy estimate of 19 years at 600mph to get there. The Solar Orbitor will reach speeds of 430000 mph, and that will still take about 2 years and costs €300,000,000 for getting 200kg of mass into space to reach those speeds. Heavier loads, longer flight time, more costs. Not worth it.

    Yet.


  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 14,783 Mod ✭✭✭✭AndyBoBandy


    I think it’s eventually where we’ll send our nuclear waste (to the Sun that is), but for this to happen the launch procedure will have to be 100% reliable. Not 99.99999999% reliable, but 100%


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,313 ✭✭✭Asdfgh2020


    I think it’s eventually where we’ll send our nuclear waste (to the Sun that is), but for this to happen the launch procedure will have to be 100% reliable. Not 99.99999999% reliable, but 100%

    How about the moon....hell of a lot closer and definitely no life there....the ‘sea of tranquility’ looks like a nice big hole that could be filled.....!!


  • Registered Users Posts: 28,703 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    Incineration on this planet is probably a better idea


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  • Registered Users Posts: 653 ✭✭✭Irish_peppa


    More economical to do this :mad:



  • Registered Users Posts: 28,703 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    More economical to do this


    'Dilution is the solution to pollution'


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 348 ✭✭Trouser Snake


    There are a fair few Air Max lying idle, load them up with rubbish and compel Elon Musk to Max and Starlink alternate space launches.
    He gets rid of our rubbish and delivers broadband to the masses, its a win/win.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,331 ✭✭✭Keyzer


    Good idea, lets destroy another planet with our crap instead of taking responsibility for our actions and doing something constructive about it.

    Blue sky thinking...


  • Registered Users Posts: 18,822 ✭✭✭✭Tony EH


    Asdfgh2020 wrote: »
    How about the moon....hell of a lot closer and definitely no life there....the ‘sea of tranquility’ looks like a nice big hole that could be filled.....!!

    Space1999_Year1_Title.jpg


    Didn't work out too well in the year 1999.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 28,703 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    There are a fair few Air Max lying idle, load them up with rubbish and compel Elon Musk to Max and Starlink alternate space launches.
    He gets rid of our rubbish and delivers broadband to the masses, its a win/win.

    hes doing a good job of adding to the junk already up there!


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,474 ✭✭✭jim o doom


    Pretty expensive launching rockets into space, in fuel, man hours and equipment. Spending that much money to launch a single rocket of rubbish when we would need to launch thousands of rockets up with it every year, it's never going to be economical until a much more efficient method of escaping Earth's gravity is invented, if it ever actually is.


  • Registered Users Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    The amount of energy required to launch rubbish into orbit is considerably larger than just burning it. A Falcon 9 has a payload of 22 tonnes and each launch releases about 350 tonnes of CO2. Where just burning the 22 tonnes will release about 22 tonnes of CO2 (give or take)

    Even if you were to strip down the rocket so it could carry more, you're never going to bridge that gap that makes a launch 16 times more expensive than burning.

    Unless we come up with a more efficient method of launching rockets (nothing is on the horizon), or other methods of getting things into orbit - like a skyhook - then recycling, composting and incineration are the only way forward.


  • Registered Users Posts: 605 ✭✭✭upupup


    Maybe that's how life on earth began.Rubbish dumped into space from another civilization millions of years ago.We may be the rats of the universe!


  • Registered Users Posts: 18,440 ✭✭✭✭_Brian


    Bad enough we’re treating our own planet like a rubbish tip.

    We’ve no right to be spreading it about the rest of the solar system.

    Obviously the cost per kg to break earth gravity would be phenomenal so it’s a non runner.


  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 14,783 Mod ✭✭✭✭AndyBoBandy


    _Brian wrote: »
    Obviously the cost per kg to break earth gravity would be phenomenal so it’s a non runner.

    worth it for the most harmful of rubbish, like nuclear waste.

    And there'd be no 'spreading it' if it ended up in the sun, it would merely be vaporised into nothing.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,407 ✭✭✭✭gimli2112


    I think it’s eventually where we’ll send our nuclear waste (to the Sun that is), but for this to happen the launch procedure will have to be 100% reliable. Not 99.99999999% reliable, but 100%

    Nuking the Sun doesn't sound very safe. What scientist school did you go to?


  • Registered Users Posts: 28,703 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    worth it for the most harmful of rubbish, like nuclear waste.

    And there'd be no 'spreading it' if it ended up in the sun, it would merely be vaporised into nothing.

    ...or would we be creating an even bigger problem for future generations, baring in mind, nuclear power generation is slowly being wound down, and apparently modern nuclear tech produces less waste than before


  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 14,783 Mod ✭✭✭✭AndyBoBandy


    gimli2112 wrote: »
    Nuking the Sun doesn't sound very safe. What scientist school did you go to?
    Wanderer78 wrote: »
    ...or would we be creating an even bigger problem for future generations

    Sending all the nuclear fuel we have ever used, and will use in future into the sun would be the equivalent of pi$$ing into the Atlantic Ocean after drinking 7 pints of water.

    The problem is getting it safely off the earth first, that's where the risk is.....


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,146 ✭✭✭✭cj maxx


    It’s cheaper to recycle, ie send it to the Far East to be burned, buried.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,474 ✭✭✭jim o doom


    seamus wrote: »
    Unless we come up with a more efficient method of launching rockets (nothing is on the horizon), or other methods of getting things into orbit - like a skyhook - then recycling, composting and incineration are the only way forward.

    I seem to be remember being sent looking for a skyhook when I was a young lad in my first job :pac:


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,831 ✭✭✭Gregor Samsa


    Wanderer78 wrote: »
    ...or would we be creating an even bigger problem for future generations

    main-qimg-62cf4dbfc05e996eaaed03e401a27675

    Even if the entire Earth was made of spent nuclear fuel, sending it into the Sun - which is one giant fusion reactor itself - wouldn't pose any danger to anyone. It's fookin massive.

    The problem, as noted already, is that it's incredibly difficult, expensive and environmentally damaging to get stuff off earth and into space. Doing so for any waste on earth - nuclear or not - would be a total waste of resources for absolutely no benefit. If we were to get to the point of having a power source efficient enough to allow it, we would by definition have stopped using (fission) nuclear energy long before we had the rockets, and all our other energy issues would be solved.

    Plus there's the risk of something going wrong with the launch - although it should be noted that most space probes already contain plutonium. The Curiosity rover which was sent to Mars, contains roughly 4.5 kg of plutonium-238 in its batteries.


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,715 ✭✭✭✭Earthhorse


    seamus wrote: »
    Unless we come up with a more efficient method of launching rockets (nothing is on the horizon), or other methods of getting things into orbit - like a skyhook - then recycling, composting and incineration are the only way forward.

    Not only that but a safer way too. Not all rockets into space make it into space.

    Also, you've left our reuse. This is possibly the most underutilised of our tools in combating waste. It amazes me that we just through away bottles and containers that could be reused by the companies that made them in the first place.

    Hopefully, refilling stations in supermarkets for certain goods will reach these isles sooner rather than later.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,779 ✭✭✭1o059k7ewrqj3n


    We could build a space elevator - much cheaper than rocket launching into space.

    I say we just keep burying it under ground. Nobody will find it.


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,416 ✭✭✭✭AMKC
    Ms


    Steyr 556 wrote: »
    We could build a space elevator - much cheaper than rocket launching into space.

    I say we just keep burying it under ground. Nobody will find it.

    That's where you are wrong. Either future generations in a hundred or thousands of years time will find it or Aliens will and neither I would say will be impressed by it.
    Ok so some great points made here by posters that space waste company would just not be viable or good for the planet as it would just make the problem worse. So I guess we just have to continue with the 3 Rs of reduce, reuse and recycle if we want the planet to survive for future generations.

    Live long and Prosper

    Peace and long life.



  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,980 ✭✭✭s1ippy


    Any reason we can't chuck it in a volcano?


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,831 ✭✭✭Gregor Samsa


    s1ippy wrote: »
    Any reason we can't chuck it in a volcano?

    Anything that goes into a volcano comes back out as soot, ash and gas. All you'd be doing it turning solid waste into atmospheric waste - which is much more dangerous and virtually impossible to clean up. Remember when the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland shut down European airspace for almost a month in 2010? You'd have that on a constant basis globally. And that's not to mention the effects of the chemical pollution it would cause.

    Chucking stuff into volcanoes is fine for the odd human sacrifice to appease the gods, they're not suitable for industrial and municipal waste disposal.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,133 ✭✭✭Hamsterchops


    AMKC wrote: »
    We should send all our rubbish to Venus or to the sun. Let it burn up in them.

    Well good idea or not? If course there might be alien life on Venus now so might not be allowed send our rubbish there if there is. Maybe the weird microbial alien life on it would like our Earth rubbish do.

    Or we could drill a really deep rubbish chute into our own planet, deep enough so that the rubbish would spontaneously combust as it reached the Earth's core :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,242 ✭✭✭AllForIt


    I don't see why you would have to send it anywhere specific except into space.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 16,339 ✭✭✭✭banie01


    Or we could drill a really deep rubbish chute into our own planet, deep enough so that the rubbish would spontaneously combust as it reached the Earth's core :)

    Launch it, and leave it re-enter?!
    latest?cb=20071224145455
    20061206164321%21Giant_Ball_of_Garbage.jpg
    futurama_s1_e8.jpg


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