throw trash in the sun?

[masluxx]

anything appreciable less then our orbital speed will have a decaying orbit if as close as us tot he sun.

[fetymann]

it would burn of course... going into our air... would you like to breathe that? NO

[camorramerda]

Gravitational lift would maybe solve the problem. That, or another very cheap way to produce energy. I read about these atomic engines usable in space that would cut the costs and the time for space travel. The huge problem is to bring the wastes out of earth. I also think that we shouldn't do that with reciclabe wastes, just with very toxic things like incinerators' ashes, nuclear wastes etc.

[loudenvier]

This is a pseudo-scientific explanation. We already have the technology to do a Sun Flyby as the Ulysses did back then in 2008. Accelerating in space is easy, despite the initial 30 km/s velocity. Even more taking into account the Sun's gravitational pull is helping us. It is in fact much harder to find a feasible way to put our waste in orbit, than to send it to the Sun. The space elevator may be the answer, but it lies in the future.

[kwakhed23]

Ulysses used a gravity assist from Jupiter to do a solar polar flyby, and even then, it was not closer than 2 AU. 30 km/s is 2.72 times greater than Earth's escape velocity, and thus requires 2.72^2, or 7.4 times more energy to achieve than an Apollo launch did. It is absolutely accurate to state that the orbital angular momentum of any object about the sun must be completely counteracted or negated for that object to fall into the sun.

[loudenvier]

Not at all, you only need to slow it down little by little. Just enough so that the Sun's gravitational pull is strong enough to guarantee the desired effect.

[kwakhed23]

I would continue to argue, but you need to learn some orbital dynamics first. Start with Kepler's second and third laws to start, then move on to a Newtonian description of motion in a central force attractive potential (i.e., a gravitational field). Kepler's second law alone should show why the minimum change in angular velocity you will need is 30 km/s. If you're proposing an ion engine, why would you waste that technology on garbage? Again, grab an introductory physics text.

[DoctorXProducer]

Thank you so much for your explanation. Very informative on the cons of such a seemingly simple solution (which turns out not to be so).

Do you have any ideas yourself on potential alternatives if it were to come to the point of us having to dump our filth into the Final Frontier? Would it be plausible for a low velocity trajectory towards other deep space targets (assuming no collisions with asteroids or even a 're-flinging' of the trash back to us) which would destroy our refuse? Thank you.

[kwakhed23]

Jupiter is probably a better target than the sun, from an energy expended point of view. Of course if you miss, who knows where Jupiter might fling it. There's also the possibility of contaminating the Galilean moons, some of which could potentially harbor life. So that's not a good idea either.

Personally, I can think of many better uses for rocket technology than garbage detail.  We'd have to make it quite cheap for that to be otherwise.

[mmsmstudios]

Not a good idea. We reuse plastic.... If we send it to the sun, then there is a less recyclable

[Maxsapd]

What about non-recyclable matter?

[XioNilrem]

Yes, when explained how many factors there are, it does seem extremely difficult. But the thing is though, those factors are constants. So figuring when, how, etc. to shoot would be hard, but it can be done. Just look at how we got photo's of pluto. Had to calculate the gravity pull and slingshot pass many planets. So it would not be a matter of planning it, but actually doing it. The rocket, cost, weather, those would be the most difficult issues. Since they are not very constant.

[kwakhed23]

the portions of apollo 14 that made it to the moon had a mass of 45000 kg. in any one day, new york city alone produces 1200000 kg of trash. so to handle the trash of one city for one day, we would need more than 25 launches more powerful than a saturn v launch.

the problem is more than difficult -- any solution is energetically wasteful.

[H3RM3S78]

Our trash is actually transformed resources (transformed into waste) from our planet. If we are to simply send it off to the sun, your ball-point pen would get smaller and smaller and our chance of re-using trash as fuel or recycled goods will be forever lost. Oil is not the only finite resource, so is our planet.

[TheBadAstronomer]

Nicely done!

[freireib]

Good point. This subject poses a few good Fermi questions, I like it.

[AjaxtheGoat]

People need to start thinking outside the box, I for one am hoping for a real Mr. Fusion like in Back to the Future, I do believe that there is a vast amount of untapped energy in our trash, and I don't mean the simple heat energy most might think of, I mean the energy that we have yet to realize the true potential of, I guess we'll have to wait for the next Einstein, Newton or Hawking to come along and show us how wrong we really are.