Current Events > so why are we still putting trash all over the planet when there's outer space?

(+) Yeah! (+)

like, we put in the ground, we dump it in the sea, it hurts animals, it destroys nature but we just keep doing it
and yet there's just this infinite void in all directions from our planet that we could be zookin trash into but we don't
why?

Wouldnt the cost of using rockets as garbage trucks be a little out of the question?

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Theres a shit load of trash orbiting the planet and its a massive fucking problem

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DespondentDeity posted...

Theres a shit load of trash orbiting the planet and its a massive fucking problem

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Sounds like a good way to accelerate the environmental crisis we already have

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i ain't talking orbit here

i'm talking, send it up, past orbit and then just let it drift into deep space

maybe instead of rockets we could use like, a giant hydraulic slingshot to just yeet the trash into the void never to be seen again

Because Earth made itself the trash heap for the rest of the universe, everywhere else is sparkly clean it might as well just be consolidated here

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LinkDaLunatic posted...

i ain't talking orbit here

i'm talking, send it up, past orbit and then just let it drift into deep space

maybe instead of rockets we could use like, a giant hydraulic slingshot to just yeet the trash into the void never to be seen again

Man, what is this? Looney Tunes?

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and while we're talking about space, space is a vacuum right? so what happens if somebody built a straw or like, a tube of some kind (like a straw) that was long enough to go into space

wouldn't space suck shit up the tube? so we could use that to yeet the trash into space. the giant space-suck straw. i'm going to patent that immediately don't steal it

Conception616 posted...

Wouldnt the cost of using rockets as garbage trucks be a little out of the question?

Couldnt we create a giant cannon that shoots the trash into space inside of metal pods or something so that the debris doesnt fall back to Earth? Then they could keep reusing the cannon to get rid of the trash and the only real expense would be producing more of the pods.

But yeah, sending trash into space isnt a good idea at all because it would still ruin the environment
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So many of the sustainability problems we have as a species originate from believing a resource is practically infinite, learning to rely on that belief, and then getting consequenced when it turns out we're wrong.

Maybe it would be better if we just learned not to be so wasteful.

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YookaLaylee posted...

But yeah, sending trash into space isnt a good idea at all because it would still ruin the environment

more than putting all the trash directly on the environment?

LinkDaLunatic posted...

more than putting all the trash directly on the environment?

We made it, we deserve it its our own filth and we decided to keep adding to it

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Sphyx posted...

Maybe it would be better if we just learned not to be so wasteful.

i mean, yeah, that would be lovely but i'm trying to be realistic here.
people can't even take a vaccine to protect each other from a deadly virus.
asking them to stop making fuckloads of trash is just not gonna go over well
they'll probably make even more trash just to spite you for having the audacity

Have any of those sites that do pointless math equations covered the hypothetical energy and resource cost that it'd take? I'd have to imagine the cost of launching even 1% of the trash on earth into deep space would like take all of the world's resources and probably speed up global warming by 10000% or something.

LinkDaLunatic posted...

but i'm trying to be realistic here.

by creating a slingshot somehow powerful enough to negate the need for rockets to escape orbit so that you can send heaps of garbage to drift in space?

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Nemu posted...

Have any of those sites that do pointless math equations covered the hypothetical energy and resource cost that it'd take? I'd have to imagine the cost of launching even 1% of the trash on earth into deep space would like take all of the world's resources and probably speed up global warming by 10000% or something.

yeah but the space straw though

DespondentDeity posted...

by creating a slingshot somehow powerful enough to negate the need for rockets to escape orbit so that you can send heaps of garbage to drift in space?

nah i'm past the slingshot already. it's all about the space straw

just put one end over the trash and the other end in space. ez

DespondentDeity posted...

by creating a slingshot somehow powerful enough to negate the need for rockets to escape orbit so that you can send heaps of garbage to drift in space?

it's not quite as crazy as it sounds (and well it's also not quite a slingshot, more like a cannon) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver

trades high startup costs for relatively low usage costs. this article does make the point though that it loses a lot of its appeal with recent advances in resuable rockets/etc for space travel.

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The moon would actually be a perfect dump.

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That space straw wouldn't work at all; the atmosphere is already in contact with space.

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The world produces over two billion tons of trash a year. The falcon heavy rocket can carry 70 tons of stuff per trip. It would take 30 million trips a year to take the trash we make into space. That's 82,192 launches a day. And this is just for 1 years worth of trash.

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Wasn't TC's idea a literal episode of Futurama?

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I'm sure there is way to make disappear the garbage.

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alright i looked it up and the straw wouldn't work

back to the slingshot thing so yeah that would probably work if we tried hard enough

Rharyx211 posted...

Wasn't TC's idea a literal episode of Futurama?

TC's idea was also the solution to that same episode of Futurama.

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justaguy3492 posted...

TC's idea was also the solution to that same episode of Futurama.

In that case, I say we should go for it. The writers of Futurama invented a new mathematical theorem that one time, so they clearly know what they're talking about.

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All this and not a single mention of a space elevator.

Mine stuff in space, use the mass of the new raw materials going down to push the next load of trash into orbit and point it towards the sun.

Two birds one stone.

Dont run out of resources, dont pile up trash.

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Why don't we just use a space laser to disintegrate all the trash?

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DUDe. YEs.

DuranOfForcena posted...

why does this topic get made like every other week

because it's kind of a big and still growing problem, DurianForCena
we need to solve this. i'm putting together a team.