Would it be feasible to dump all the waste on Earth onto another planet such as Mercury?
“Would it be feasible to dump all the waste on Earth onto another planet such as Mercury?” No. Right now, it costs something like US $10,000 per pound to launch something into Earth orbit. Sending something into space – whether to another planet, a deep-space orbit about the Sun, into the Sun itself, or into an escape trajectory from our solar system – is even more expensive. Even with economies of scale from building fleets of so-called “big dumb boosters”, any effort to send a significant fraction of non-recyclable waste alone into space would simply bankrupt the world. But that’s not all. Think of the transportation of all that waste to suitable launch sites, and all the pollution that would cause. Think of all the energy needed to produce the fuel needed to power all those rockets. Think of the industrial infrastructure required to *build* all those rockets. It simply is not doable. It’s not even doable if you limited it, as some have suggested, to toxic and/or radioactive waste. R
