Could we shoot spent nuclear fuel rods out into space?

[cbdo2007]

toward a distant star or something?

[Warren Stupidity]

1. yes exactly that is what we should do

crank up the interstellar space cannon!

[trotsky]

2. Two big problems

1) They're very heavy. Would take a lot of energy to launch them.
2) Fallout suddenly takes on a very literal meaning should the rocket fail.

[kristopher]

8. ++1 for #2 and spewed coffee.

[Generic Other]

37. Ah the devil is in the details

I was thinking unmanned shuttles jettisoned forever out of our solar system....

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. They may not appreciate our shit.

Do you have any idea
HOW FUCKING FAR OTHER STARS ARE?

Voyager has been flying for several decades, and it STILL has not reached the edge of our solar system. Sometime, maybe in the next year or two, it will reach where the sun's solar wind ends and the galactic winds begin.

Simply put, no we can not shoot them toward a distant star.

Shooting them to the sun is virtually impossible. It takes too much energy. The best we could do, with current technology is ship the 600 tons of crap half way to the moon. (assuming the rocket does not blow up, or fall into our ocean, or fail to escape our atmosphere - something which still happens every 70 or so launches) and hope we aimed it right so it falls to the lunar surface. Of course, that would mean that we could not safely use the moon in future generations because we fucking made it toxic to human life.

[Statistical]

13. It doesn't take anymore energy to go to the sun than the moon.

It just takes longer.

We have sent many spacecraft to the sun, the far planets, even outside the solar system.

The real issue is the one of launches. Eventually a launch will fail and the release from that would be far worse and far harder to manage than a cooling pond failure.

[cbdo2007]

25. That's the point - shoot them at something thousands of years away....

and by the time they get wherever humans on Earth probably won't exist anymore anyways. It even seems like they could just shoot it out to infinity....just point it at nothing and it'll go for millions of years.

The sun is too close. Even though I know the amounts would be insignificant compared to the giant sun, why take a chance. Shoot it at Vega and make them deal with it.

[Wait Wut]

44. !

"Shoot it at Vega and make them deal with it."

Aaaahahahaha!! You think people are pissed about the NFZ in Libya, wait until you start an intergallactic war!

:hi:

[NeedleCast]

29. Don't really need to aim it at anything

Others stars are a really long way away but space is really, really big. Launching spent rods into space wouldn't be any more difficult than encasing the waste and getting it to escape velocity. The smart money would be on sending it outside the plane of the elliptical in our solar system.

You don't need to launch the waste towards anything.

[Generic Other]

38. With our luck we'd hit the earth the next time we orbited past

Dead eye.

[Scuba]

4. No, we should shoot them up the asses of hedge fund managers. n/t

[OneGrassRoot]

5. !!!

:spray:

:rofl:

:applause:

[Xicano]

24. Fourth here!!

:rofl:

[Le Taz Hot]

15. LOL!!!!

I'll second that! :rofl:

[Aerows]

22. I'll third it!

:rofl:

[Junkdrawer]

6. Set the controls for the heart of the Sun.... n/t

[pokerfan]

7. What could possibly go wrong?

:(

[One_Life_To_Give]

9. Was proposed decades ago

Rocket failure during launch is still statistically more probable than a failure of the containment pool from Natural and/or Human disasters.

[BlueIris]

10. Call me crazy, (and not an engineer or other scientist, obviously) but

wouldn't that expose the astronauts and other space flight personnel to tons of radiation?

[Statistical]

12. Astronauts are exposed to significant radiation. Space is very inhospitable.

Still the plan isn't viable because eventually a rocket will fail.

[BlueIris]

20. Yeah, I get that the mechanics of it don't check out, but even if it were possible,

I just don't know how we'd justify cooking the pilots.

[NeedleCast]

32. You don't need pilots to launch a rocket

[backscatter712]

43. For this purpose, I'd suggest an unmanned rocket.

The payload would likely have to be loaded using robots.

[Statistical]

11. What happens when you have a mid air explosion?

Statistically we know the success rate of rockets launches is not 100%.

Thus it isn't a matter of if but when you have a rocket exploded at 50-60 miles up and disperse thousands of pounds of highly radioactive material over thousands of miles.

If we had something like a space elevator that might be plausible but not with rockets.

[originalpckelly]

16. Yep, this was a big concern with Cassini-Huygens.

It has an RTG on board, and people were worried about the damn thing blowing up and releasing the radioactive part of the generator.

[Cleita]

14. I always wondered, if we got the technology to do so,

to shoot them into the sun after we pass global laws banning all uses of that type of nuclear fission.

[Statistical]

17. There are no such things are global laws. Countries are foreigner entities.

Some countries will continue to pursue nuclear power.


Japan for one. They have essentially no fossil fuel resources, and are heavily land constrained. High population densities make solar less viable. For example you can put solar panel on a house large enough to power one family but you can put enough solar on an apartment building to power that building.

China is the other one they won't give up on nuclear power. They are going to need to triple their electrical power over next 30 years. That will be difficult even using nuclear (and sadly massive amounts of coal).

France has huge vested interest in nuclear power generating 70%+ from nuclear energy, and exporting power to other countries. The design, and construciton of reactors for other countries is a huge industry for the country.

So even if everyone else agreed to a comprehensive nuclear ban these three countries wouldn't.

[Cleita]

18. Yes, there isn't NOW, but with our new global economy

and communications, it can't be far behind or this planet will really be headed for chaos.

[Bluerthanblue]

19. we could, but it wouldn't be good- or safe.

This idea's been around for decades, but has been shelved for the reasons other posters have mentioned, primarily the calculated risk of a catastrophic failure to launch. My father talked about this back in the 70's, the idea was to shoot the waste into the sun where it would burn up and not be a danger any longer.

We really have no creating more and more of this toxic stuff, that we have no clue how to dispose of responsibly.

[PufPuf23]

21. Problem: some rocket launches fail

Lots of heavy nuclear waste.

[grahamhgreen]

23. And then nukes would be even more expensive, edpecially after

A few of the rockets misfired....

[Baclava]

26. I say throw them down the mouths of active volcanoes.

Radioactive lava - it twinkles

[Snoutport]

27. um...rockets explode and fail and fall in tiny pieces all over the planet

or just explode soon after take off.

[Locrian]

28. welll....

Aside from the risk... which is significant, what does a rocket, fuel, program, etc COST? Seems like it would make alternative energy costs REALLY attractive.

[CreekDog]

30. Are you nuts? That's how General Zod escaped!

[CreekDog]

31. on edit, why is the tall guy wearing extra tall shoes?

:wtf:

alerting.

[MadHound]

33. Challenger, Columbia, Apollo 1,

That should answer your question.

[pokerfan]

35. I also did some back-o-envelope calculations

and determined that it would take the equivalent of 100 Shuttle launches just to launch the spent fuel at the Dai-Ichi plant into low earth orbit.

[bikebloke]

34. The intergalactic cops would ticket the planet

for littering.

[pokerfan]

36. Don't want to piss off those guys

[LibertyLover]

39. I've told this story before, but it seems very appropriate here

25 years ago a friend of mine was working on his PhD in Materials Research at Penn State University. As with many other good grad students he was also a teaching assistant. One semester he taught under grad "baby" physics for non-science majors. At this time Princeton University's Gerald K. O'Neill was proposing using mass drivers to propel nuclear waste into a Sun impacting orbit as a means of getting rid of it. My friend mentioned this to his section as an example of how physics can and does impact everyday life. One of his students became visibly agitated and finally burst out with, wait for it, . . . it's coming. . . . it's almost there . . . ok, here it is: "That's just wonderful. First we pollute the Earth with that stuff and now you want to pollute the Sun with it."

As I said, it was a science class for non-science majors.

Except for the problem of what do you do if the rods do not achieve escape velocity, it is an interesting idea. I don't think it's at all viable, but it's an interesting idea.

[arbusto_baboso]

40. And piss off the Narn or Centauri?

You want interstellar war on your hands?

[Rex]

41. Bury the whole thing in clay then make a radioactive monument

and ship it to the moon, as a warning and a reminder.

[backscatter712]

42. Assuming the rockets make it into space, it's a great idea.

If a rocket blows up during the launch, like Challenger, you just made the problem worse.