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From: dep@cat.cmu.edu (David Pugh)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)
Message-ID: <2818@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 28 Aug 88 14:44:44 GMT
References: <1255@netmbx.UUCP>
Sender: netnews@pt.cs.cmu.edu
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 32

In article <1255@netmbx.UUCP> alderaan@netmbx.UUCP (Thomas Cervera) writes:
>....
>In my eyes the idea to dump Plutonium into the sun could become reality.
>If we can send spacecrafts to the inner planets of our solar system,
>I think, it must be possible to let something like that crash into the
>sun, or not ?
>But if it's possible, why don't we send all our dangerous (radioactive)
>garbage to the sun ? Here in Germany, they don't know where to go with
>it.
>At this time, U.S.A. and USSR destroy their expensive short range missles
>'cause they are (thankgod !) no longer needed to respond the 'threat from
>the other side'.
>Why don't they modify them to be able to leave the earth's gravity
>field ? The payload could be Pt or other dangerous stuff ...
>....

Unfortunately, it is much harder to drop something into the sun than
is it have it orbit Mercury or Venus. Someone mentioned that the
required delta-V was about 18 kilometers per second. Even ignoring
this problem, though, there are other problems with dumping nuclear
waste into space. The IRBM's (Pershing II's & SS-20's) simply don't
have enough power to reach a nice stable orbit. You also have a problem
in that you have to consider the possibility of a booster failing.

The easiest way to get rid of nuclear waste would probably be to
use hard land it on the moon. Would it be possible to build a
railgun/mass-driver/etc. which could launch small (1kg) payloads
to crash land on the moon?
-- 

						David Pugh
						....!seismo!cmucspt!cat!dep