At 02:20 PM 7/2/01, you wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Andrew Crystall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Monday, July 02, 2001 1:31 PM
>Subject: Re: Bill Moyers Reports: Earth on Edge
>
>
> > On 2 Jul 2001, at 11:15, Dan Minette wrote:
> >
> > > I'll agree that firing the waste into the sun is not practical, and
> > > should not be considered as a potential solution.
> >
> > Why not? We're talking about the less than 1% of the waste which
> > be radioactive for thousands of years...
> >
>
>There are a few problems that I see.
>
>First, which radioactive isotopes are you thinking about. I know of very
>long lived ones, like uranium(>1 billion year half life), and middling lived
>ones, like cesium (30 year half life IIRC), and maybe americium at 200
>years. But, I don't know of any isotopes offhand that have half lives in
>the thousands of years.
There's an on-line version of the Chart of the Nuclides at
<http://www2.bnl.gov/CoN/>.
>Second, the risk of the space plane crashing will be higher than the risk of
>leakage from a salt mine.
>
>Third the amount of reptatively redundant safety measures that can be
>purchased with the cost of putting something into the sun is overwhelming.
>
>Dan M.
The Earth's orbital velocity around the Sun is 29 km/sec (18.5
miles/sec). Anyone know offhand what the cost per kilogram might be for
getting something there? There's a reason why space probes launched in the
past decade or so to go anywhere further away than Mars have taken
roundabout routes involving multiple planetary flybys . . .
-- Ronn! :)
