It is Okay to "Dump" Radioactive Waste Into Deep Space

Journal started Jun 25, 2002


24,360 years from now, half the Plutonium-239 in the /universe/ will be gone. Of course more is constantly being made in collapsing stars and nuclear reactors and stuff, but of what's around now, no matter if it's billions of light-years separated, half of it will be left. The only way for us to get rid of radioactive material is either cause it to break down or remove it from the vicinity. Breeder reactors are supposed to eat Plutonium and produce something else radioactive, but for the most part we on Earth are helpless to break down most radioactive elements. Throwing it in the Sun would do it, have that Plutonium ripped apart in no time.

As far as I can tell there is only one good strategy: concentrate it as much as possible then eject it into space. Unfortunately our space program gets little to no money and has a very big shopping list, so it's not likely we'll have technology to easily move things into space or give them escape velocity.

My Chemistry teacher said we'd pollute space just like we polluted our oceans. Just to dispel any myths of that, space is ((((BIG)))). It's huge! As a planet, we are a speck on a speck on a speck on a speck on a speck of dust to anything even remotely significant to the universe's size. Also, space is /terribly/ radioactive. There are gamma rays flying helter-skelter, exploding stars, high energy ionized gas. Our planet is in an extremely low radiation area of our galaxy, the very edge. The stuff we generate in our reactors is so completely pitiful, even if we dumped it into our own Sun, we wouldn't notice.

Space suits have to be made with radioactive protection because of the radiation emitted by our sun. Normally the magnetic field around the Earth pushes the radiation away, but up in orbit that really doesn't have much effect. Helmets have to be coated in /gold/ so that the astronauts don't burn their eyes out looking at the stars.

So yes, it is okay to dump radioactive waste into space (making sure it doesn't stay in Earth's orbit). It's certainly better than keeping the waste on our own planet. If only we could afford it... there's got to be a way.


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