Why Can't We Launch Garbage Into Space?
Written by Fraser Cain
Question: Why Can't We Launch our Trash Into Space?
Answer: Now wouldn't that be a tidy solution to a big problem? Gather together all the garbage, bundle it up and fire it off into space. Maybe just dump it into the Sun. We could live in a world without trash.
There are just two problems: humans produce an enormous amount of garbage; and rocket launches are extremely expensive.
It's been estimated that launching material on the space shuttle costs about $10,000/pound ($22,000/kg). Even if engineers could bring down prices by a factor of 10, it would still be thousands of dollars to launch the garbage into space. Let's imagine a wonderful dream world, where launch costs could be brought down to $1,000/kg - a factor of 1/20th the cost to launch on the space shuttle.
It has also been estimated that the United States alone produces 208 million metric tonnes of garbage per day… per day! So, to launch all that trash into space would cost the United States $208 trillion per day… per day!
The gross domestic product of the United States was $13.13 trillion in 2006, which works out to be about $36 billion a day. In other words, the United States would need to spend 5,800 times its daily gross domestic budget, just to launch its trash into space.
What about nuclear waste? A nuclear reactor releases about 25-30 tonnes of spent fuel every year. With our dream budget of $1,000/kg, that would cost about $25 million to launch a single reactor's waste into orbit. According to Wikipedia, there are 63 operating reactors in the US, so it would cost about $1.6 billion/year to dispose of the nuclear waste generated.
It's been estimated that Yucca Mountain - the United State's current plan to store nuclear waste - will cost about $58 billion to store waste over the course of 100 years. So storing waste in Yucca Mountain will cost about 1/3rd the price of launching that material into space. Not to mention the terrible risk of launching rockets full of nuclear waste into space - imagine what might happen if a rocket exploded in mid-flight…
I'm sure I've made some math errors here somewhere…
Filed under: Questions, Space Flight
April 29th, 2008 at 1:47 am
You would need something like the Space Elevator before you could start to think about shifting nuclear waste into space. Even then, they would have to have a decade long proven track record before anything like that would be considered.
In the very long term, it might be an option. A long enough space elevator would be able to jettison its payload at the far end with enough velocity to launch it into the sun.
Irrational fears of the sun being blown up aside, that might end up being the final solution for high grade nuclear waste (50+ years from now).
April 29th, 2008 at 1:52 am
"I'm sure I've made some math errors here somewhere…"
Well, pilgrim, just let me check…
Let's see, "launch costs could be brought down to $1,000/kg" and "the United States alone produces 208 million metric tonnes of garbage per day…" and "would cost the United States $208 billion per day… per day!"
I get $208 trillion per day using those figures, unless you're using the alternate definition of billion–but that would disagree with the next calculation.
April 29th, 2008 at 4:04 am
Hi Brian
Dumping nuclear waste is stupid because it's not waste. Most of the so-called waste is potential fuel, but current reactors aren't designed to burn U238, just U235 plus whatever Pu239 it "breeds" from the U238.
Sticking it in Yucca mountain means when we have fast reactors burning U238 the whole stash can be pulled out and burnt up for good. What's left will be real *waste* but it doesn't need geologically stable storage as it's safe within ~ 300 years.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:54 am
Wow - Yucca Mountain has been promoted to planet? Don't let Pluto hear that…
April 29th, 2008 at 6:39 am
April 29th, 2008 at 6:41 am
Why would we even think about launching trash into space? That's ridiculous. Who is contemplating this? They need a wake-up slap in the face. Trash sounds like a useless commodity, but it isn't. That 25-30 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel per year can actually be reprocessed and used again. It's funny. All of those Anti-Nuclear fanatics actually caused a huge problem for the US. Their ignorance and fear helped close the Reprocessing plant in Barnwell South Carolina. As a result, we have about 40,000 metric tonnes of spent fuel just itching to be reprocessed.
One man's trash is …
April 29th, 2008 at 7:36 am
Waste reduction, population control and recycling here on Earth seems like a plan.
April 29th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Has anyone considered how this will reduce the mass of the Earth? WIth the reduction in mass will the orbit of the moon change? Will this reduce the intensity of the lunar tides? Placing this trash in orbit around the Earth could provide a shading from the Sun and help reduce Global Warming. If we could shade the Earth and bring about the return of the glaciers we might be able to save the polar bears. We should launch the lightweight fluffy stuff first like kleenex and Qtips to get the most shade per launch. Then move on to old mobile homes and junk pickup trucks. This could certainly change the landscape in Arkansas.
April 29th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Interesting article–thanks for crunching the numbers–had always wondered about the cost of sending trash into space. Now what about drilling a hole to the center of the earth…a sort of bottomless pit if you will…and simply dropping all our waste down the old chute? We certainly can't consider the alternative of reducing our consumption. That would be too inconvenient.
April 29th, 2008 at 8:25 am
The biggest assumption is that getting launch rates up won't bring down launch costs more. The biggest problem with high launch costs is the fact that we don't fly enough to properly amortize the sunk costs; that and the standing army of people NASA insists are required to run the shuttle program.
SpaceX, http://www.spacex.com/ is already selling lower cost launches than anyone else, and that's primarily by improving the infrastructure, so they can bring the launch pad crews down to about 10 people and total launch crew of maybe 30.
Our current approach to spaceflight is akin to buying a 747, flying it about once or twice a year, throwing away the fuel tanks and rebuilding the engines every time we fly. Very expensive way to run an airline.
April 29th, 2008 at 9:32 am
April 29th, 2008 at 11:47 am
[...] En esta ocasión, Fraser Cain, de Universe Today, responde ¿Por qué no podemos enviar la basura al espacio?:
¿No sería esa una solución satisfactoria para un gran problema? Juntar todos los desperdicios, cargarlos en un cohete y lanzarlos al espacio. Quizá sólo arrojarlos al Sol. Podríamos vivir en un mundo sin basura.
Hay dos problemas con esa propuesta: [...]
April 29th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Garbage? There is no such thing. Unrecycled waste? yeah, there is lots of that laying around.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:44 am
I'm surprised you (or any of the commenters) didn't mention the Futurama connection from the episode "A Big Piece of Garbage"