why can't we take all our nuclear waist stick it in a rocket and shoot it deep into space or the sun?

Answer 1

This could work if we had a very dependable rocket, and if we had just a very small amount of nuclear waste. However we have a lot of it. One single nuclear reactor uses maybe a hundred or 150 tons of uranium in one fueling cycle (a couple of years). There are hundreds of nuclear reactors, so there is, all in all, mountains of radioactive waste.

If you think of how it took a huge (and hugely expensive) Saturn rocket to launch the fairly small lunar lander into the Moon, you can just imagine how many rockets we would need to launch our nuclear waste into the Sun. Earth would probably run out of metals and rocket fuel, and money, before the waste was all on the way, and besides, constructing all those rockets would use a lot of electricity in itself, which would again have to be supplied at least in part by nuclear reactors.

Answer 2

Current Rocket Technology is only capable of a 99% success rate.

So if a rocket were to explode on the launch pad, the area would be to radioactive to use again.

Worse if it detonated in the upper atmosphere the Jet stream could carry radioactive material all over the planet.

Hence all the attention when NASA launches a nuclear probe, although they try to send as little nuclear fuel into space as possible.

Answer 3

Sounds good in idea, yet to get some thing into area you want to boost up it to 11.2 kilometres in line with 2d; get away speed. With modern technologies, it takes tens of thousands of bucks to positioned each and each and every kilogram into orbit. So severe is the fee that once you're in orbit, you're effectively halfway to *everywhere*. it truly works out a techniques, a techniques more on your price range to in elementary words unload it interior the floor someplace. 2 extra objections: once you've it in orbit, then what? you could both enable tonnes of spent nuclear gas create a navigational chance because it piles up in our useful orbital area, or spend an order of importance more advantageous power to shoot it off into area. And yeah, if the spacecraft transporting it exploded, you could say so long to even with us of a it replaced into launching from. extreme-altitude fallout will reason radiation ailment and contaminate the foodstuff chain for years. To actually have a shot at doing this properly you should favor some type of area elevator, yet even this does not alleviate the ability criteria.

Answer 4

There is no 100% guarantee rockets launch are successful everytime.

All it take is one failed out of 1000 time, it will be very devastated. Consider you are trying put tons of radioactive materal on a rockets, it's contamination will be worst than nuclear bomb explosion.

Answer 5

Launching into space has a risk of explosion (Challenger e.g.) and as such the dangerous waste would be spread over a large area condemning many people and making life in the area impossible.

Moreover the costs of launching are prohibitive.

Best is to bury it deep underground.

Answer 6

because it would cost too much money. It would negate the benifits of producing nuclear power. Also the rocket could crash and distribute radioactive substances all over.

Answer 7

1) cost per pound for disposal is a lot.
2) There is too much fear that the rocket will explode as it is going in to space.

Answer 8

because to insulate nuclear waste you need to sheild it with a tremendous amount of matter like lead and the launching costs would be high and so is the risk besides nuke waste usually disintegrate over time so why bother?

Answer 9

You don't know what kind of reaction space material or the sun would have on the radioactive waste, It could blow up and send radioactive particles all over space and back to us.

Answer 10

because we need to humble our-self in realize what we are doing to our planted with this pollution in not just start polluting space because i wouldn't want to think what would become of a nuclear polluted solar system...we may even unknowingly find life out their that considers us a threat because one of those rockets entered their solar system..of course..it would make a great first impression at any rate........