Radioactive Wolves.

[Schneibster]

Why not send it on a sunward orbit? that's the ultimate in garbage incineration after all.

You crazy fool! You'll irradiate the Sun!

And pollute space!

[Schneibster]

Why not send it on a sunward orbit? that's the ultimate in garbage incineration after all.

Sounds even more expensive than the Moon.

Nope, because we wouldn't have to land it on the Moon. Just get it going and let it take it's own sweet time to get there.

I wouldn't advocate this for unreprocessed fuel. Waste? Maybe. Still sounds dangerous and expensive. Most of the expense is involved in getting it out of Earth's gravity well.

It would be less dangerous than trucking it around the country.

So you're going to teleport it to the launch facility?

[Svartalf]

Well, Romans did, and it's still in perfect state 2500 years later in several places... Roman concrete floorings and foundations are often the best preserved parts of many buildings, regardless of general state, and even in thoroughly ruined buildings, said flooring often has remained intact in spite of hard, heavy things falling onto it from above and soil shifting and roots trying to dig through below.

Different kind of concrete. For starters, the Romans didn't know how to make Portland cement. Moving right along, they also didn't know about reinforcing it. Their concrete wasn't very plastic, like modern concretes are. Even given all that, the stuff has lasted two and a half thousand years in the weather. It's really tough.

They hadn't perfected the technique, and operated from empirical know how rather than also knowing the theory, and being able to precisely modulate the product to specs, but you'd be surprised how much the ingredients in modern concrete resemble those of Old Roman stuff... after all, a lot of our technology with concrete, cement, stucco and whatnot started with techniques used in Italy in the 1400s-1700s.

[Svartalf]

Why not send it on a sunward orbit? that's the ultimate in garbage incineration after all.

You crazy fool! You'll irradiate the Sun!

And pollute space!

Not as much as our satellites already do, since the launch would be designed to let it go toward something that would vaporize it, after which it would just be a bunch of heavy element atoms in the void.
Unlike our various space debris that are cluttering earth orbit and making it dangerous for the useful stuff and transit around the planet.

[Schneibster]

You can have the blade shatter and kill bystanders if you try to jackhammer modern superstrength concrete. You need carbide sawblades to deal with it, and even then its a long, expensive, and dangerous job that will likely eat several blades. There's no comparing the Roman stuff with it.

[Schneibster]

Why not send it on a sunward orbit? that's the ultimate in garbage incineration after all.

You crazy fool! You'll irradiate the Sun!

And pollute space!

Not as much as our satellites already do, since the launch would be designed to let it go toward something that would vaporize it, after which it would just be a bunch of heavy element atoms in the void.
Unlike our various space debris that are cluttering earth orbit and making it dangerous for the useful stuff and transit around the planet.

I was kidding. Space is really huge. You can't "pollute space."

[Svartalf]

You can have the blade shatter and kill bystanders if you try to jackhammer modern superstrength concrete. You need carbide sawblades to deal with it, and even then its a long, expensive, and dangerous job that will likely eat several blades. There's no comparing the Roman stuff with it.

I did say they hadn't perfected the technique like we have, and you were talking about Portland cement stuff, not specially devised superhard material.

[Svartalf]

Why not send it on a sunward orbit? that's the ultimate in garbage incineration after all.

You crazy fool! You'll irradiate the Sun!

And pollute space!

Not as much as our satellites already do, since the launch would be designed to let it go toward something that would vaporize it, after which it would just be a bunch of heavy element atoms in the void.
Unlike our various space debris that are cluttering earth orbit and making it dangerous for the useful stuff and transit around the planet.

I was kidding. Space is really huge. You can't "pollute space."

In case you haven't noticed, the space around Earth IS polluted.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It would be less dangerous than trucking it around the country.

So you're going to teleport it to the launch facility?

Temporary launch facilities near the storage units. Mobile launchers like they used for ICBMs.

[Schneibster]

You can have the blade shatter and kill bystanders if you try to jackhammer modern superstrength concrete. You need carbide sawblades to deal with it, and even then its a long, expensive, and dangerous job that will likely eat several blades. There's no comparing the Roman stuff with it.

I did say they hadn't perfected the technique like we have, and you were talking about Portland cement stuff, not specially devised superhard material.

I was contrasting their knowledge with ours. Now I've changed the subject back to what we'd use in a sarcophagus for containing nuclear waste.

[Schneibster]

I was kidding. Space is really huge. You can't "pollute space."

In case you haven't noticed, the space around Earth IS polluted.

I don't think that means what you think it means.

[Svartalf]

If you solely mean chemical/radiological pollution, indeed it doesn't, especially since anything outside the atmosphere gets irradiated to degrees we can hardly imagine.

[Schneibster]

If you solely mean chemical/radiological pollution, indeed it doesn't, especially since anything outside the atmosphere gets irradiated to degrees we can hardly imagine.

There is that, but it's not what I meant.

When they talk about "pollution," what they mean is dropped tools or nuts and bolts or other fragments of old spacecraft, or even whole old spacecraft, in retrograde or eccentric orbits, that pose an impact hazard to missions. And that's only in low Earth orbit; the risk further up is less than that from asteroid or comet material.

I was actually invoking a meme you may not be familiar with: "pollute space" is one of the more amusingly totally wrong ideas I've seen anti-technology idiots deploy.

[Schneibster]

It would be less dangerous than trucking it around the country.

So you're going to teleport it to the launch facility?

Temporary launch facilities near the storage units. Mobile launchers like they used for ICBMs.

ICBMs can't make LEO. Not enough oomph.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It would be less dangerous than trucking it around the country.

So you're going to teleport it to the launch facility?

Temporary launch facilities near the storage units. Mobile launchers like they used for ICBMs.

ICBMs can't make LEO. Not enough oomph.

"like they used" The missiles could be trucked in, assembled, and launched from the parking lot next to the storage facility. (Just a little exaggeration.)