Reply To: Energy Output – MW & GW

[JimmyT]

Brian H wrote:

…

To shoot an object into the sun you need not only to overcome the escape velocity of the Earth, but also the much larger orbital velocity of the earth around the sun. If you launch at the roughly 11.5km/s Earth escape velocity your object will have an orbit roughly equal to Earths, risking a re-entry many years later.

To launch into the sun you need to add another 29.8km/s on top of Earth’s escape velocity, to stop the object “dead into the earth’s orbit” so it starts the long drop straight into the sun. Any other velocity is undesirable since your waste will orbit the sun rather than plummet into it.
And then there is the risk of the Sun catapulting vaporized nuclear waste back to earth in a coronal mass ejection.

Actually it takes much less velocity to shoot the waste into a solar escape orbit to disappear forever into deep space, about 20km/s, like they did with the New Horizons spacecraft toward Pluto. This is much less than the velocity needed to launch an object directly into the sun, since the 30 km/s earth orbital velocity can be used as an advantage.

Why take it beyond the moon? Just pick a particular crater, and crash your n-waste loads into it. With no atmosphere, any “splash” will fall back down quickly. That crater could be used by any any and all nations. It would never be a problem until the moon is terraformed and given a dome or atmosphere, by which time the tech to manage a few tons of isotopes would be readily available. 😉

Or if you really want it gone with no return, drop it into Jupiter. It’ll never notice.

Ya’ know, Brian. I bet you could work that Jupiter thing into a decent science fiction story:

Spacetugs (powered by focus fusion devices, of course) around the mining colonies in the asteroid belts start disappearing near Jupiter. This happens soon after we start disposing of our nuclear waste there. Turns out Jupiter is inhabitated by gasesous thingys, and they think we are at war with them.

Throw in some gory reports of the damage. A love story or two. Maybe a Judus, either gaseous or human.

know any writers?