Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site dciem.UUCP
Path: utzoo!dciem!ntt
From: ntt@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: nuclear waste products
Message-ID: <904@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 3-May-84 13:01:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: dciem.904
Posted: Thu May  3 13:01:43 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 3-May-84 14:04:21 EDT
References: <454@burl.UUCP>
Organization: NTT Systems Inc., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 28

Bill Buie asks why it is impractical to send nuclear waste into the sun.
One reason is that in a few decades or centuries we might have more efficient
techniques for using the remaining energy, and we might want it back.

A more immediate reason is that rockets are not all that reliable a form of
transportation.  Constructing a worst-case scenario of what happens when
it crashes (or is blown up in mid-air because of the even worse effects of
where it was going to crash) is left as an exercise for the reader.
Another case is that it might go into orbit around the Earth or Sun;
presumably Bill feels that such "space pollution" is likewise undesirable
or he would have proposed that easier feat in the first place.  I agree.

Finally, a direct trip from Earth to Sun with a payload of any size is
infeasible.  It requires a speed of about 70,000 mph*, as against only
18,000 to put a satellite into orbit around Earth or 25,000 to escape Earth,
because you have to cancel the Earth's speed around the sun.  However, I've
read** that there is a way around this; by cleverly aiming the vehicle to
pass near Jupiter, it can be made to fall into the sun from there.  But the
trip takes two years each way, and a failure on the way out would likely
make the accurate aiming needed near Jupiter difficult.

*Earth's speed in its orbit is 66,000 mph and escaping Earth needs 25,000.
 Square each, add, take the square root.  At least, I think that's right.

**Arthur C. Clarke, "The Promise of Space", citing a NASA study.
 They were talking about scientific probes, not garbage disposal.

Mark Brader