why don't we launch our radioactive waste into the sun?

Answer 1

Cost. Getting stuff into low earth orbit costs hundreds of thousands of dollars per pound, and that's with a velocity change of only 17,500 mph. To get something into the sun requires a velocity change of 66,000 mph -- and the cost increases exponentially with velocity. No spacecraft has ever come near that high a velocity change.

Answer 2

When you launch objects into space they may drift away from earth but they still stay in roughly the same circular orbit around the sun, and there's the chance they'll eventually drift back and hit us again in the future.

In order to send something into the sun it has to be put into an extremely elliptical solar orbit, otherwise it will act like a comet and swing around the sun but eventually head back out again. To answer your question, it's extremely expensive to send anything directly into the sun because of all the fuel you'd need to burn to make such a drastic orbital change.

As a side note, this same principle applies when we send probes to mars and other planets. Sending them in a straight line would be quicker but would require so much fuel that the rocket would be too heavy to lift off. So we instead send them up, give them a little nudge and then wait. The probe continues travelling around the sun, along with the earth, but it very gradually drifts towards the target planet, which is also slowly moving around the sun. It takes a lot longer when you send probes this way (about 7 months in the case of mars) but it requires much less fuel.

Answer 3

ok, consider that we have a way to send the stuff to the sun....now... do we KNOW what will happen to the stuff once it hits the sun and becomes part of it?.... or is there some little chance that a reaction will occur that could have serious consequences for us, like causing the sun to either heat up or cool down?..... I don't think it's worth the chance!....

the one thing someone should be working on is how to extract something useful FROM our nuclear waste... like more energy or something that would give us a way to USE the stuff rather than store it in the Nevada desert!!!....

Answer 4

it is possible and monetary resources are available to finance launching of radioactive wastes into the sun. the only risk is failure of a launching mission. in any case that there should be a premature abortion of the mission and an explosion happens in the atmosphere, it will cause radioactive pollution and may cause danger to life. developments are now being financed to produce a more effective launch mission.

Answer 5

Cost and risk.
It would be cheaper to "destroy" the nuclear waste using transmutation. You bombard it with neutrons until it is so radioactive it decays within days instead of millennia.
And the consequences of a failure during a launch could easily surpass Chernobyl which has killed thousands so far and made entire cities uninhabitable even today.

Answer 6

If you hadn't noticed, quite a few rocket launches go wrong and break up into millions of bits. Why would you want the fallout to be radioactive too?

Answer 7

It would cost a 100 million dollars to send a few truck loads to outer space.

Answer 8

Not only would it be very expensive...it would be very dangerous. It would take many many rockets to get a good amount of waste out and one of those rockets is bound to blow and it won't be pretty...

Answer 9

Still we dont have the technology to reach sun..!!! And hope its so costly too.

Answer 10

because it is too expensive....it is around 1000$ for every pound of material sent into space..