Couldn't we simply shoot nuclear waste into the universe?

Question

I mean we also sent Voyager and Explore billions km into space. It won't come backand we wouldn't be dependent on oil and could live happily without having to invade middle eastern countries in order to maintain our influence to get oil.

Answer 1

Too risky. What would happen if the launch vehicle blew up on the launch pad or before it left our atmosphere? Trillions of atomically charged particals and nuclear wasted being spewed into the jetstream to be distributed over the country? No thanks!

Answer 2

Nuke waste is heavy, so the cost of a series of launches to reduce the stockpile of waste would be higher than we'd be able to pay on an ongoing basis. Also the possiblility of a lauuch failure and a crash would give a lot of people pause. Transporting nuke waste is another problem....expensive, and few communities want this stuff passing by their homes and business'. While nuke power has always been a terrific way to produce electricity, the waste angle has always been the downside. Even the cost of packaging this material for transportation is expensive. I dunno....I don't think there is a solution. Too bad, 'cause now we're stuck with this stuff!

Answer 3

From a practical standpoint, not at present--even NASA's mighty Saturn V has a limited payload, too limited for your proposal. One-way earth-to-space launches are already quite expensive, especially with the amounts of fuel and oxidant needed to clear Earth's gravity field, and the launch vehicles would need expensive GaAs-based electronics for inherent rad-hardness against depleted-plutonium by-products, as lead shielding is out of the question on account of weight.

Answer 4

Nope, its to expensive, in fact all of Nuclear associated energy is to expensive. and then the government which is the tax payers has to pay too store the waste, which is a giant subsudy for a private corporation. Its just bad in every way. The best plan is Solar, we are developing advanced Solar panels using nanotechnolgy, this is clean and over time will actually save us money. Solar is by far the best plan.

Answer 5

It's possible, but not very cost effective. To launch a space shuttle into orbit takes millions upon millions of dollars, and the shuttles and rockets we have would only carry a minimal amount of waste with them. I believe in the future this could be a more feasable option. But right now, it's not really possible or cost effective.

edit: ssupertech has a point also.

Answer 6

The way of life on this planet seems to be one species waste is another species need. As example, oxygen is a waste product of plants.
Somewhere in the universe there must be a species that needs nuclear waste to survive. Perhaps we should find them, hope they are intelligent and have some kind of economy, then sell our nuclear waste to them.

Answer 7

Nuclear waste is actually less radioactive than the fuel. And guess where we get the fuel? Right here on earth. True it's from underground most of the time but there's no reason we can't just put it back down there.

Answer 8

They are already in the universe.

If you mean "into outer space" that is a different quesion.

For one, it would cost a lot of money. All that radioactive waste weighs a hell of a lot.

The other big reason is that if the rocket crashes or explodes it will be a huge mess.

Answer 9

It would take lots of rockets, rockets powerful enough to push their cargo our of earth orbit, and be very expensive. Plus there is always the possibility that one of the rockets would malfunction. contaminating a large area.

Answer 10

no, we are going to put it in yucca mountain - and as long as the United States changes to closed fuel cycle soon - there won't be much waste to deal with