Why Can't We Launch Garbage into Space?

Article:
http://www.universetoday.com/25431/why-cant-we-launch-garbage-into-space/

Why Can’t We Launch Garbage into Space?

It’s been estimated that launching material on the space shuttle costs about $10,000/pound ($22,000/kg). Even if engineers could bring down prices by a factor of 10, it would still be thousands of dollars to launch the garbage into space. Let’s imagine a wonderful dream world, where launch costs could be brought down to $1,000/kg – a factor of 1/20th the cost to launch on the space shuttle.

It has also been estimated that the United States alone produces 208 million metric tonnes of garbage per day… per day! So, to launch all that trash into space would cost the United States $208 trillion per day… per day!



My opinion:

That article briefly mentions the expensive side of why we can't launch garbage into space, but not on the ideas itself.

There are currently new inventions being made and combined in space. Where you are able to combine elements on the periodic table that normally can not be combined or fused together here on earth.

Now we know that plastic takes thousands of years to break apart; if at all. But what if we were able to take that trash into space, where the rules and laws are different; we might be able to find a way to break apart the molecules that hold the plastic soo firmly together. This might allow us to find a way of recycling with plastic in a better way rather than dumping it into the ground.

Now one certain backfiring point is that if we throw all of this garbage out into the space, that it may change the overall weight on the planet earth and then shift the orbit that earth currently follows around the sun. One possible idea, is to due a substitute program. Where you take astroids or true space debris, bring it back to earth, and then send an equal amount of garbage out of the earth to compensate for the difference.

Some other people suggest sending it out into the sun to burng the materials. Well if this were a proper suggestion for riding the world of trash, then why could we not just burn it already on our planet.

Some countries are doing just that. They burn the garbage, and then make fumes and they channel the fumes to create a heating source for the public.

I think there should be a program into research and development of creating items and taking apart items in space.

Justin Young