Why can’t we detonate nukes in space to dispose of them?

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I’m aware that it’s illegal to put any kind of weapon in space, for the sake of the explanation assume there’s no legal reason why not.

My Grug Smash brain has me wondering that if nuclear weapons are so difficult to properly dispose of, surely the easiest option would be to set them off somewhere where they can’t cause any damage.

In: Physics

21 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Launching anything into space is incredibly expensive- the higher the weight that you need to send the more expensive it gets. It’s not financially reasonable to launch any waste into space.

If we ignore cost- there would no reason to set them off at all. Just give them a push- there’s no friction in space so they’d travel in the direction we pushed them forever and millions of years later they’d be someone else’s problem.

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