Moon Management

That sounds exactly like an early 70's TV programme in the UK called "1999"

Where the moon had been used for nuclear dumping and it detonated, sending the moon off on its travels together with the moon colony of intrepid actors...

totally unbelievable!!!

John.

Actually, it reminds me of this show - and I think I'm the only person on the planet who remembers it.

I never watched it, but I remember the premise - the space garbage collector.

Ahhhh you've brought back memories now...

This is the programme I was thinking of "Space 1999" started in 1975 according to Wiki...

John.

There are many problems with the scheme. Here are just a few (excerpted from a previous post).

1. The cost of shipping materials into space is extremely prohibitive. I remember reading somewhere (I don't have a link), that NASA's costs for shipping 1 lb of material into space is something like $15,000. The space shuttle has a carrying capacity of approximately 50,000 lbs. To remove just that much waste would cost $750 million.
2. Scale - There aren't that many launch vehicles available so the process doesn't scale very well. There are just three space shuttles, and they tend to average about 1 launch each per year. Soyuz spacecraft have very little carrying capacity. General rockets are out of the question because there has to be an unloading option.
3. The failure rate on space launches is still pretty high. Depending on the type of waste in question, explosion even in the upper atmosphere would lead to catastrophic scattering.

Better to solve those problems here on Earth (IMHO).

let's continue to scratch our heads then..

I suppose there's always the popular(?) view of our planet succumbing to annihilation with domino effects gripping ever tighter on our delicate systems' balancing act. Boom goes the planet, possibly in a slow cancerous death, possibly in something more stunning(Heaven on earth...). Problem solved. I claim no clear alternative. If it's as simple as a cleared cheque then hey, PRINT MORE MONEY.

I'd venture to guess people would embark on this challenge for food and a bunk on board. I would.

In the interim, what do we do? Continue to push green incentives while populations suffer impoverished circumstance? The reality is overwhelming. I say it doesn't work to leap a twenty foot chasm in two ten foot jumps.

Nice platitudes.

Look, start by defining the problem space clearly and at a high enough level that we can see the big picture.

Break the problem space down into a series of manageable chunks that you can work on without getting lost in the woods.

Then, maybe, you can see what you can come up for answers.

Doing it any other way is like trying to find diamonds out of horse dung.

Also, don't forget there are many, many other minds working on these problems that are generally brighter (or at least more informed) working on the subject, so when you have a brain flatulence moment stop and think if this really is truly a novel idea or have I missed the something. Not that I am trying to discourage you, but you need to do due diligence first so you don't get derailed along the way.

Hold up a second PB. You need to be able to divorce yourself from your post a bit.

The idea you put forward is infeasible for all the reasons that the respondents have put forward (and more). Yes, gas is expensive, yes, we have pollution issues here on Earth, but that does not mean we should accept ideas that make no sense on face value. Nor does it give you the right to claim that those who do not see value in your idea, simply don't care.

Almost every day, we receive posts from folks with ideas for perpetual motion machines, cars that run on water, etc., and when it is pointed out that such machines are impossible, the rote reaction is not to prove why they would work, but to attack those who point out the flaws by saying that "you don't care about (take your pick) the cost of fuel, the cost of food, other people, the planet earth, etc."

Be happy that people are interested enough to tell you why sending waste to the Moon will not work. It shows that they are willing to contemplate the problem.

Ah you are in luck.

I happen to be in the unique position of being authorised to actually sell you the moon...

Yes indeed, KrisDel^TM Products happen to have a worthless piece of paper fully authenticated title deed to the satellite in question.

Now if you send the full remittance of $10,000,000 (US, Canadian, Australian...or whatever you and a few drinking buddies can scrape together before the weekend) to us by registered mail we will forward the deeds as a matter of urgency.

Del

"Anybody on board?"

No. Here is why:

1. The cost per pound would be outrageous!
2. Why go to the Moon when you could just launch it toward the Sun?
3. The Sierra Club (which is run by "loonies") would never permit landfills is such pristine lands.

Right now it costs between $21,000 to $35,000 to launch just one pound into LEO (that's low Earth orbit). Forget about getting to the Moon. So just how much cheaper would it have to get to make it viable? One order of magnitude? Two orders of magnitude? Okay, what if we could, by some miracle, drop launch costs to 1,000X cheaper (after all, we are talking quantity discounts here), then the cost would only $20 to $30 for every pound you throw away. If you toss 50 pounds a week out the door, then your local trash pickup would only be $2,000 a month.

Finally, all those launches are going to create a HUGE amount of air pollution.

Oh, let's not forget diminishing Earth mass as more and more material is ejected into space. Would the Earth's rotation speed up, seas rise, nights get colder, days get hotter, Cindy Crawford's mole fall off, and a whole ecosystem that lives off of landfills finally collapse?

Then, finally, finally, look at some pictures of the Earth at night and look at the distribution of lights. You will see vast areas of the planet that are uninhabited. No shortage of land mass for people.

okay, in theory; a terrific idea! Seems though a condition we call finance is of paramount concern so do we develop a massive slingshot and hurl our trash toward the Sun? We couldn't possibly expend ships. I think the moon's far more practical a destination. With a shuttle service in effect we could reuse our trash can vessels...With new fuel developments and new material construction who says building a big tin can has to be so costly? Discussions on colonizing are ongoing.. why is this idea so unfathomable?

Before we go on, how about you answer a few questions as to why you think this makes sense:

How much waste is generated daily in the US? In Canada? In the world?

What percentage would we try to send into space?

How many space shuttles would be needed to service the program? How many would be required based on the first two question?

Once you answer these questions for yourself, I think you'll get an idea why this doesn't work. And that's before we get to on earth transportation, local , national and international politics, pollution from the launches...

I decided to have a little fun here.

1. Current estimates for the amount of garbage produced by US citizens - 4.5 lbs./person/day.
2. Current US Population (July 2007 estimate) - 304,479,414
3. Carrying capacity of a US Space Shuttle - 50,000 lbs.
4. Total number of daily shuttle launches required to keep up with waste produced in the United States - 304,479,414/50,000 = 6089.588
5. Daily cost to send garbage from the US to the moon - 6089.588 x $750,000,000 = $456,719,210,000 US.

That's $456 billion dollars per day....

I think you're off by a factor of 4.5 in #4, no?

You're right, thanks, and under the 15 minute edit rule, so I was able to change it. It's only $456 billion per day instead of $205 trillion.

heh - you corrected a different error than the one I saw. Total trash = US population x 4.5 pounds/person.

oh man, I guess I should go back to my loom.

OK, let's try that again:

I decided to have a little fun here.

1. Current estimates for the amount of garbage produced by US citizens - 4.5 lbs./person/day.
2. Current US Population (July 2007 estimate) - 304,479,414
3. Total garbage produced in the US per day - 4.5 x 304,479,414 = 1,370,157,363 lbs.
4. Carrying capacity of a US Space Shuttle - 50,000 lbs.
5. Total number of daily shuttle launches required to keep up with waste produced in the United States - 304,479,414/50,000 = 27,403.147
6. Daily cost to send garbage from the US to the moon - 27403.147 x $750,000,000 = $20,552,360,250,000 US.

That's $20.5 trillion per day (I think)....

"Blimey - this redistribution of wealth is trickier than I thought!"

-- Dennis Moore

A good bit of what you call trash can be burnt for fuel to generate electricity. Why waste it by sending it to the moon. Lets reclaim what we can. Once reduced to ash it takes up little room in land fills. The problem is most areas do not have the facilities to do so. I think it would be cheaper to work on that.

You are a bit late for the moon!

Mugabe already promised it to the war (election) veterans. He said it would save them a lot of time starting with a barren place.

Money is no problem he will just print Z$ 1,000,000,000,000 notes on 10 rolls of toilet paper.

I'm concerned about how little space we have down here Actually, despite all else, your basic premise is flawed. There is plenty of space "down here" - the earth is nowhere near as 'crowded' as certain groups would have you believe. If you look at population densities in various locations around the world, you'll see that there are some major problems with the "the earth's population is exploding, we have to do something" crowd. Number one, it only seems to be exploding in areas with black-, brown- or yellow-skinned people.

Many would say that Bangladesh is "teeming with people" or "overpopulated", but no one notices that San Jose, California has TWICE the density per square mile. No one talks about California's Silicon Valley in the same manner as they do with Bangladesh or Africa. Jumping on the overpopulation bandwagon is a way for white liberals to be racist and still feel good.

Yes, many of our major cities are 'crowded' with lots of people. But once you leave the cities, there is plenty of room out here. We tend to think it's crowded because we LIVE in the crowded part - we drive on the roads and see the development on either side, but don't realize that half a mile off the roadway, it's barren wilderness, more or less.

Mind you, I'm not suggesting that we build a high-rises in Grand Teton, or put cliff houses in the Grand Canyon. But there is plenty of space on this earth for all of us. Our biggest problem is not space, but getting along together.

About handling garbage problem I worked a slogan long time ago. The BEST WAY TO HANDLE GARBAGE IS MAKE NO GARBAGE.

Hi,

I'm going to take a slightly different approach on your post. I would never question our wastefulness, nor our pollution of our planet, but I question you idea that ...

<I'm concerned about how little space we have down here ...>

... because I don't agree.

Just a little searching on the 'net' tells me (and, please don't haggle the numbers ... their just a 'quick find' and a 'broad brush stroke' at best ) ...

- The planet has 385 million square kilometers of land and about 6.8 billion people

- For comparison, the US has about 9 million square kilometers of land and about 300 million people or about 33 people per sq.km.

- For comparison, China has about 9.3 million sq.km of land and about 1.3 billion people or about 140 people per sq.km.

- For comparison, Singapore has about 4.5 million people on only about 680 sq.km. of land or about 7000 people per sq.km.

- The largest 250 cities on the planet total about 260 thousand sq.km. and about 750 million people or just less than 3000 people per sq.km.

http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/largest-cities-area-125.html

Taking the largest cities from the world (mathematically, of course ... don't get any ideas ), that leaves just a little over 6 billion people in about 384 million sq.km. or about 16 people per sq.km. Okay, so we can understand that not all the planet's land is habitable (ice, desert, mountain, volcano, etc.), so, being generous, let's assume only half is habitable. That still leaves about 190 million sq.km. or about 31 people per sq.km. That's TINY.

[I grew up in Indiana, a mostly agrarian state, where there is little for miles and miles except more miles and miles ... and it has a population density of over twice that.]

Again, no argument at all that we need to (must do) a much better job of managing our intake and output, but I don't think we need to rocket stuff to the moon or elsewhere just yet. There's lots of space right here at 'home', IF we can manage it a little better.

[Just a thought ... one of the real problems is 'out of sight, out of mind'. If we all had our little space ... family of 4 on a plot about 350 meters square ... where you had to look at and personally deal with the stuff we throw away ... I'll bet we'd care a lot more.]

Your strategy, like Khan's, is two dimensional. Garbage needn't take up any room - we just make everywhere a little higher.

How many pounds of pollution do you generate sending one pound to the moon?

re: post4's (as well as others) "Right now it costs between $21,000 to $35,000 to launch just one pound into LEO..."

Lots of bright individuals would JUMP at the opportunity, to be paid that rate up-front for the first 100 lbs, to begin properly recycling (100%) said garbage.

IMHO the problem isn't the waste we generate, it's our collective attitude towards same. Somebody mentioned 'alternative solutions'. Instead of throwing billions at "launch it away from HERE" ideas, how about paying the various waste management companies to invest in greener ideas? LOTS of what we bury in landfills could actually save us heaps of money by being recycled instead.

You want radical change? Get legislators to enact REAL, tough legislation against illegal dumping, and even run-of-the-mill highway litterers! Someone takes a (cell-phone-cam will do) picture of you littering ... and testifies to it before an appropriate official ... you do highway clean-up every weekend for A YEAR. Dump something illegally...? You'll lose your job, being "away" for a year... lots of nat'l parks need work, and monuments need pigeon-graffiti cleaned off with a toothbrush.

Gotta work on our judges first, though. Too many wusses on the bench, these days. Most would say: "Aw, he's just a good ol' boy out havin some fun. He dint meen no harm, right, Bubba?" and let 'em go. (Hey, you've seen them do it for celebs, right?)

...daily cynicism fed... That is all ~

With all this talk it seems the answer is obvious!!

Its right beneath our feet!!

We sink a big shaft into the Earth's core and then pour the garbage into it...

Not only will this be free to incinerate it, but any toxic by-products would be trapped below ground in the core of the Earth and with the heat available, we can have several Geothermal power plants, situated around the shaft, to produce enough energy for the whole planet!!!

Now about location.... Hmmmmm Yellowstone park has a magma chamber very close to the surface doesn't it???

John < /thinking_aloud >

Put it in barges, ship it to Hawaii and make tourists backpack it up to the volcano.

At last a sensible suggestion!

I have a hybrid suggestion, charge people per kg for non-recycled waste and make sure the manufacturers pay as well as the consumers www.worldofstuff.com and then put this in a kitty. Use the money to stake a claim on the moon and / or rent some of that spare land we heard about from its owners until the technology develops when we can teleport it to the moon, or set the controls for the heart of the sun.

I've always thought that the Moon or L4 would be a great place to produce power and not create the mess on Earth to start with.

The power lines might be a little hard to keep from tangling

The reality is:

Solar flares are worse than most things we can manage here;

A German V-2 could send 2,000 lbs of waste to the sun from the Moon;

There is close to the same area of land on Earth as surface on the Moon;

The possibilities are there for the expansion of mankind.

time for work

Brad