Radioactive Wolves.

[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.

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.

Which is precisely what I meant... the fact that it's polluted by solid debris rather than chemical effluent doesn't make it less dangerous, given the specificities of that environment and human interaction with it.

But I have no idea what meme you were invoking.

[Schneibster]

You need more than twice as much oomph as an ICBM, and that means more than twice as much fuel, plus enough more fuel to lift the more than twice as much fuel plus rocket to contain it plus a lot more weight than a nuclear warhead plus the fuel to lift that and the fuel to lift the fuel and yet more rocket.

By the time you're done it can go about a mile an hour and will wreck any ordinary road you try to roll it on. See the launch crawler they used for the Saturn Vs. And it costs about a billion dollars.

Like I said, expensive.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Only a weight problem if you fill them first. Anyway, you could always have a fabrication plant on site, modular so it could move to the next site easily.

Alternatively, have a permanent plant in several areas, to reduce the amount of overland travel for the goodies.

[Schneibster]

Only a weight problem if you fill them first. Anyway, you could always have a fabrication plant on site, modular so it could move to the next site easily.

Alternatively, have a permanent plant in several areas, to reduce the amount of overland travel for the goodies.

Alternatively, reprocess and only have to launch a thousandth as much material. For that matter, you might not even have to launch it, saving enormous amounts of money, time, and effort, as well as being much safer since you're not throwing radioactive shit into the sky where it could get (for example) hit by a meteor in the boost phase.

[JimC]

Every now and then, launch vehicles go bang on their way up...

Not really a problem when the payload is a satellite, but if it were a load of radioactive waste, things could get interesting...

Much better to convert to Synroc, or vitrify, put in storage containers and deep bury in a geologically stable region

[Gawdzilla Sama]

We could just sink the stuff in the Marianas Trench.

[Svartalf]

it's not like the local fish weren't already glow in the dark

[Schneibster]

Every now and then, launch vehicles go bang on their way up...

Not really a problem when the payload is a satellite, but if it were a load of radioactive waste, things could get interesting...

Much better to convert to Synroc, or vitrify, put in storage containers and deep bury in a geologically stable region

Vitrify it, rubble it, and use it to make concrete. Pour it in the sarcophagus. Seal the sarcophagus and weld it, then embed it in reinforced prestressed ferroconcrete.

Like I said, a hundred guys with jackhammers- and that's after you saw the ferroconcrete open and open the sarcophagus, which requires a year each. With every modern tool at our disposal.

You can't make something that can't be unmade any more, but you can come damn close and make it damn inconvenient and expensive. Not exactly a great idea for a material we might want in not too long.

[Cormac]

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!

Oh no! I never thought of that. Does the cruelty and greed never end? Poor space creatures...

[Cormac]

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.

Nooooooooo! When will this nightmare of human foolishness end?

[Cormac]

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.

That is crazy. Radiation isn't natural. Evil scientists invented it to further their devilish secularist ways...

[Cormac]

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.

Strap 6 or 7 together?

[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.

Strap 6 or 7 together?

Strap-on boosters, like the Shuttle used.

[Cormac]

Strap 6 or 7 together?

Strap-on boosters, like the Shuttle used.

Heh heh heh. You said "Strap-On".

[Svartalf]

well, a strap on to the moon, that seems natural, innit?