Space shuttle flying into space.

Why Isn’t Space Our Dump?

Alex Pennington
Nov 5 · 3 min read

Trash is becoming a growing problem in our world; the average US citizen produces at least 46 tons of trash every year. 46 tons. That’s about 10 four-ton cars. If our trash has accumulated to a level where we produce trash at a rate that has to be measured in cars, then at some point we need to realize this isn’t sustainable. What we need is an eternal dump, where we can dump our trash and just forget about it. There is one right outside the atmosphere actually; so why haven’t we flown our trash into the final frontier?


The Cost

As you have heard, it costs NASA approximately 10,000 dollars per pound to send something to space. If NASA were to fund one space trip per year, it would cost 5.08e+15. In case if you didn’t know, that’s 508 followed by 13 zeroes. That’s more than the USA makes in a year.

Where Would We Put It?

Flying stuff into space and then forgetting about it seems easy at first, but there are a lot of logistical problems that we would face. To fly something into space, an optimal “launch window” has to be determined. This launch window is carefully chosen to be the most fuel-efficient and to make sure it doesn’t hit anything or doesn’t lose control and flies off. Launching trash into space holds risks such as:

  1. Hitting something. The ship that carries the trash might hit something on its way that was missed in the initial calculations. This could cause the ship to depressurize or explode, causing (literally) tons of garbage drifting around Earth. Eventually, this cosmic flotsam would hit a rocket or something important (such as supply ships to the ISS) and possibly cause malfunctions that would prevent it from functioning properly.
  2. The weight of the trash. As I mentioned before, the rocket or spaceship would have to hold tons of garbage to launch into space. The average American roughly produces 1.7 tons of trash each year. There are 300 million people in America alone, and each space shuttle can boost about 1500 tons into orbit. Thinking in bulk, that’s not very much. Especially considering how expensive it is to boost that much cargo into space. For each year, 340,000 shuttles would be needed. Imagine that number. 340,000 Space Shuttles lifting off from various locations in America to launch our garbage into oblivion, every year. And that’s only for America- think of China or India, with billions of more people to think about. The cost of boosting our garbage into space would overrule any positive aspect of this almost foolish plan.

The real takeaway here is that there is no easy solution to get rid of our trash problem- just like there is no easy out in life. We must face the situation head-on with ingenuity and expertise. With presidents such as Trump taking stances against global warming at this critical time, we must face this problem with our heads. The world only changes if we all change first.

Alex Pennington

Written by

Love science, especially biology, physics, and space. https://www.facebook.com/thepennpoint/

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