What is the impact of removing items from earth (into space) and what is the impact of adding non terrestrial?

Question

I'm curious on what the scientific community's stance is on the subject of using materials from earth for space travel and what consequences it has on earth's environment (i.e taking matter out of earth's environment) and also how they feel it effects the universe. I'm also curious as to how the scientific community feels about introducing foreign non terrestrial matter into earth and how it might change or create variables in the universe.

Answer 1

Read about the sky-lab which fell in Australia in the 70's.

Answer 2

The impact is zero, or at least negligible. Rocket exhaust in the air may be some impact, but the amount of mass actually removed from Earth is too small to matter at all. You really have under estimated the size of the Earth and the size of the universe to even consider that as a potential problem.

Answer 3

Some hyper-nuclear reactions within stars bigger than ours, including black holes, create elements that we have not ever directly observed, but besides that, the rest of the universe is made up of the same stuff that our planet is, albiet in varying amounts.

That said, unless we are just tossing tons of natural resources into space for some reason, or unless it starts raining coal (solid carbon) from space, the effect of what we send into space and what is deposited on earth from space is miniscule.

Answer 4

We can stand to let some matter go because matter comes to earth all the time. Every time something comes to earth, it technically adds itself to the mass of the planetary body, causing gravity to increase slightly. Every time we send an object out gravity technicially decreases. I say technically because while those two statements are true, they are so negligable that nobody notices or cares.

Answer 5

The amount that we've taken out is miniscule and will not affect anything. We are bombarded by tons of dust and meteorites every day and the universe and earth are still around so I suspect the reverse is true also.