Are we alone in the Universe? Is it OK to send garbage into Space?

Question

Are we the only ones here in the Universe? Most smart people think that there MUST be somebody else out there somewhere.

If we even THINK that there might be others out there, is it morally OK to send hazardous waste out into space, not knowing, really, where it might end up?

What if it hits some alien on the head a million years from now? And what if the alien is a boy whose Dad died when he was only 10 (Fifth Grade, Miss Morrison's class) and he had to take care of his Mom and and his sister (Piret, funny name, I know), because his Dad always said If anything happens to me, you're the man of the house and the boy promised and Dad said I know I can count on you son and wouldn't it be unfair to hit that Alien boy on the head with a bucket of Earth Garbage and prevent him from keeping his promise?

This is a question about ethics, not economic feasibility.

Eventually what is not economically or technologically feasible (like having two TVs and two cell phones) will become feasible.

I should have put the question under philosophy/ethics, but please try to give moral reasons. This will help me with a project. THANKS EVERYONE!

Answer 1

I do not think you quite understand the stupefying vastness of space.

Take the Sun, shrink it to the size of a basketball. The next closest Star, Alpha Centauri, would be 140 miles away.

The fastest man-made object that is leaving the solar system is Voyager 1. It was launched in 1977, and in 40 years has travelled 103 AUs. One AU is the distance from the sun to the Earth, 93 million miles. A single light-year is 63,240 AUs. Alpha Centauri is 4 light-years away. That means that if Voyager 1 was aimed at Alpha Centauri, it would take it 96,000 years to reach that star. But Voyager 1 is not headed towards Alpha Centauri.

It is not aimed at any particular star, but is headed in the direction of AC+793888, which in 40,000 years, will be about 1.7 light years away from it. That's 126,500 AUs away from it. In all likeliness, Voyager 1 and the rest of the interstellar probes that man has sent beyond the solar system (Pioneer 11 and 12, Voyager 1 and 2, and soon to be New Horizons) will almost certainly outlive the solar system itself.

So don't worry. Even in the laughably, stupendously, ludicrously improbable chance that one of our probes intercepts a planet, it would probably burn up in the atmosphere before it hit any poor alien 5th grader. That poor guy doesn't need to worry about alien space garbage hitting him on the head, which is fortunate because the poor fellow already has enough to worry about.

Answer 2

If it is about ethics then I say we should be sending our trash into space so maybe one day when the alien gets hit in the head by our crap they'll be like wtf there are aliens from another planet and here's proof, he would be responsible for the greatest finding of their entire race and he would probably name our race of aliens as whatever his fathers name was in dedication to him so therefore he'd probably end up being rich and at the same time with the money he'd be able to provide as the "man of the house" so he'd make his father proud X2 lol

morally it is wrong to send our trash and litter the universe but it is for the greater good of finding someone else out there

Answer 3

Uh, the question of life in the universe aside...

It would be several million times more expensive to send radioactive waste into space than to just dispose of it properly right here. Just launching things into orbit costs thousands of dollars per pound. Sending things on an escape trajectory from the Sun is even pricier.

Answer 4

Eh, as long as the garbage goes into a star, it will be incinerated before it hurts Ms. Morrison's little brats. People tend to forget that radioactive waste tends to be the worst thing we can produce, and guess what the sun is? Yeah, a big nuclear reaction in space. It will happily consume our little bit of radioactive waste if we really needed to get rid of it.

Answer 5

Gee, this is one of the sillier questions we've had in a day or two.

1. Many smart people think that during this point of time there may NOT be any other intelligences. Intelligent species may very well destroy themselves soon after discovering nuclear energy.
2. It is far too expensive and risky to ship garbage into space.
3. If we did ship radioactive waste into space, by the time it got anywhere, it would have long since ceased to be significantly radioactive. Just another piece of space junk.
4. The chances of our hunk of once radioactive waste hitting anything, much less little timmy, are so seriously low that my pen would run out of ink before I finished writing the requisite numer of zeroes.
5. If we actually manged to brain little timmy with our hunk of radioactive waste, he probably deserved it because he didn't believe in Jesus.

Answer 6

just sending trash out to a random point in space is pretty unthoughful I agree.......

because life surely exists out there, in the millions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcBV-cXVWFw

more than likely any trash would be sent to the sun. Sending hazardous material to the sun would incinerate the material till it was harmless. most of the material will be absorbed into the sun and converted to helium.

we might increase its mass by a very teenie tiny bit, which would in turn only allow the sun to burn longer.

I would have no ethical or moral conflicts knowing we used the sun to dispose of our waste.

Answer 7

why send it deep into space when we can send it into the sun?

but scientifically speaking that would be a horrible way of getting rid of matter. For one alot of garbage can and will over time degrade and provide necessary nutrients for life. over time sending garbage off of earth would be quite costly and shorten what little resources there is on earth to work with

Answer 8

What is this?

If we sent gabbage into space there's a possibility that it will come back to the planet. Look what happened to Sputnik... somehow that rubbish can will find a way back to the planet due to gravitational force and will get red hot and fall on to your grandson's house which will catch fire and no one will succeed you.

so for now... trash goes were trash goes. End of a very good story.

Answer 9

no it is not ok any type of waste should not go into space , I guess the human race is really a bug "A litter Bug that is.