Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!iuvax!bobmon
From: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium)
Message-ID: <12123@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 29 Aug 88 01:06:18 GMT
References: <1255@netmbx.UUCP> <2818@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: bobmon@iuvax.UUCP (RAMontante)
Organization: malkaryotic
Lines: 16

Actually, I don't think we HAVE to get the dangerous stuff all the way to
the sun.  An orbital radius of maybe .7 AU  (just inside Venus) should be
plenty far enough away.  Of course any orbital decay would be gratefully
accepted.

Still prohibitively expensive to launch the stuff on chemical rockets,
I suspect; and I'd hate to be the Range Safety Officer if a launch
went awry....

How about an electromagnetic launch and a fission motor to boost to "final
orbit"?  Let the waste be its own propellant.  Southern Indiana and the
Love Canal in Albany, New York could contribute some toxic payload, as
well.
-- 
--    bob,mon			(bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu)
--    "Aristotle was not Belgian..."	- Wanda