Re:The USSR used a nuclear charge to stop a gas well fire in...
by kalms on Thursday October 02, 2014 @05:49AM
(#8400041)
Fire that crap into the sun and be done with it.
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Re:The USSR used a nuclear charge to stop a gas well fire in...
by chadgeidel on Thursday October 02, 2014 @02:25PM
(#8402222)
You are getting downvoted without explanation here. It's a reasonable thought except for a few things. First of which is our space launch and delivery systems aren't 100% reliable. Even one failure means nuclear debris spread over a wide distance - something that would be very difficult to recover from.
I couldn't find a good document from a quick googling, but this was high on the list: http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2013.html 81 launches and 3 failures. I don't particularly like those odds.
Re:The USSR used a nuclear charge to stop a gas well fire in...
by noahhs on Friday October 03, 2014 @10:42AM
(#8405717)
Aside from safety, there's another insurmountable obstacle to space disposal: cost. You may not appreciate just how much spent fuel there is. I did the math once. Launch cost per pound, times number of pounds of waste, came out to over $1 trillion. Orders of magnitude away from feasibility, even with advancements in launch technology.