Question: can we send our rubbish and waste to a nierghbouring planet?

Asked by kingofhos to Arti, Chris, Dustin, James, Steven on 18 May 2012.

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  1. Photo: James ByrneJames Byrne
    answered on 18 May 2012:

    We can but it is a very expensive way to get rid of the rubbish compared to recycling and landfill. It costs approximately $1000 a kilogram to get something into space so at the moment it is far to expensive.

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  2. Photo: Dustin WelbourneDustin Welbourne
    answered on 18 May 2012:

    Hi kingofhos,

    This is a really good question as it is actually asking all sorts of other questions. I like this game, just answer questions that you aren’t specifically asking, anyway.

    In order to launch something into space, we are launching it to about 400km above the earth, about where the space station is. If we use the Russian Proton rocket it is about $4500 per kilo of stuff we are sending, and if we use the US space shuttle it is about $60,000 per kilo. Some rockets have launch costs of $400 per kilo of payload but with these not as reliable, and smaller payload size. So it costs a lot of money just getting into low earth orbit.

    To get to the nearest body such as the moon, the cost is much greater because we have to send the item much further and also faster. The moon is about 390,000 km away.

    To get to Mars, which is about 60 million kms at its closest. That is this much 60,000,000 km. It costs more again.

    So while it is technologically feasible the cost means it is cheaper to do something else with it. So what James said, but in a longer way.

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  3. Photo: Steven TingaySteven Tingay
    answered on 19 May 2012:

    We could. Very expensive. Better to create less waste and do more recycling.

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  4. Photo: Arti SinghArti Singh
    answered on 22 May 2012:

    We could, maybe, but we’d be much better off creating less waste in the first place or recycling, rather than trying to off-load waste into space. I think that it would actually be quite irresponsible of us to do that – kind of interplanetary environmental vandalism. Right here on Earth, just throwing things into the sea has resulted in the formation of a large pile of rubbish in the Pacific Ocean (I think its located somewhere around Hawaii). It is called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and is apparently bigger than mainland USA! You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
    I don’t think sending our rubbish into space would be a good idea.

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