nutwit2:

parkaposy:

Dear science side of tumblr;

What would happen if to get rid of shit, we burnt it all, but did it in space. Like far enough where it wouldn’t get pulled into Earths orbit or atmosphere?

Well, there’s a few problems with that…

For one, things don’t burn in space.

Also, the mere cost of sending all that weight into space is just insane. It took us over 6 billion dollars just to get three people into space, let alone all our garbage.

And, as probably the most important point, it would be really poor planning to just get rid of stuff. Here on Earth, all we have to ration out to every living thing is the stuff we’ve already got. Think about in a hundred or a thousand years, when the technology to break down objects and reprint them on an atomic level is commonplace (we’re already testing that now, btw). If we start rocketing stuff off to Neptune now, at the very incipience of the technological age, what will that look like to the people of the future, who have barely enough resources to feed the 80 trillion humans in the Solar System? It would be something akin to our flagrant use of unfiltered automobiles in the early 20th century that gave rise to the climate issues of today.

The point is, even though it would technically be POSSIBLE to get rid of stuff with rockets, ‘stuff’ is gonna last a lot longer than me or you, and we have to be prepared for that.

Hope that helps!

Thank you science side of tumblr!