Idea #16: Garbage to Space

Environmental concerns are usually set aside. In fact, today you can count the times when a more costly solution to a problem is chosen for being more interesting in the long run. Yet you don’t always choose the cheapest car out there, you pick the best.

Think about one thing for a second. First, we invent the concept of price and cost. Our civilization starts to emit massive amounts of carbon dioxide to fuel its development (that in turn disrupt the world climate). We develop solutions like electric vehicles and solar energy. But we label these solutions more costly on the basis of the concept we develop centuries ago.

Why not develop a new concept for cost for things that are tied to our survival? Is our thinking so rigid to the point we can’t adapt? Lets head to the idea, this is clearly becoming a speech of sort.

Why not ferry all the waste products on Earth to space?

By all the waste I’m not talking about the ordinary waste that could be decomposed here on a reasonable timetable, or that can be recycled with more or less effort. I’m talking about the most pernicious waste like nuclear reactor’s by-products or extremely toxic chemical substances.

This is explored in sci-fi, not at all an idea to dismiss at first glance. On Star Trek, the Malon’s homeworld was a glistening paradise due to their exports of waste to space. We are assuming no one is out there to be bothered by it, and to best knowledge this seems to be the case.

The reason we are not doing it right now is twofold:

First. we don’t quite have the space age technology required to build anything as impressive as a garbage scow. Not saying we couldn’t, if we put our minds to it, though. It’s a great undertaking to manage the scientific missions alone, much less missions with other purposes.

This, in part, translate to the second reason: the cost of sending a kg to space is simply too high.

It’s difficult to get a solid number on this, but this source states that to simply put a mass in orbit it costs ~U$ 50,000/kg. To take it further into a suitable dispose location would take much, much more than that. It is expected to decrease with time, but it might not be as fast as our civilization needs with the current investment.

Iceberg in Greenland. Reducing emissions by making different choices now can ensure the future of the polar caps and the sea level. How much will it cost us, in the future, per m2 of land lost?  image source

There are roughly 250,000 tonnes of stored nuclear waste on the world. The math says thats to put this up there it’s more money than what is circulating in the US at the moment. Energy is not free, and it costs a great deal to make it clean. It is our unwillingness to meet this price that is usually the issue.

If we did develop a space-faring waste export industry it would probably require a shipyard in orbit, as well as something like an space elevator. I would also would take a breakthrough in propulsion technology, as I don’t see we ferrying tons of waste on these chemical rockets. The good news is that could be even as simple as an unmanned craft carrying the waste payload. It doesn’t need to return.

There is a lot of suitable places to dispose it – though it might be best to know a little more about them first. You could use one or the uninhabitable planets, or one of the billion asteroids. Just pick a barren rock without any minerals of value (or life on sight) and fill it with trash.

Or you could ship it to the Sun. Perhaps it not our sun, on which we rely completely. Though I’m pretty confident the sun woudn’t mind all the waste we could ever produce, there is the off chance it could disrupt it’s lifecycle.

I’d also leave the Moon out of the list, doesn’t feel right to pollute it until its potential for colonization is properly adressed. If you have enough fuel you could let it wander the void in some direction slowly, surely it can drift for eons without disturbing anyone. The chance that it would eventually find its way into an intelligent species world is negligeable (with information to date).

If the prospect of becoming a civilization that dumps it’s waste somewhere else seems unappealing, you should consider two rough estimates. There could be as much as 100 billions of stars in the Milky Way alone. The average distance between the stars is 347 lightyears. We don’t really fathom how vast space is. Surely there is room for this.

You should also consider that in all the past of mankind it has produced waste and transported it out of sight. It’s required for our level of technology. Maybe this technology (and perhaps more importanly, our priorities) will allow us to manage and reuse increasingly better our resources in the future.

[IMAGE: Industrial site with power lines, unknown location. image source]

 

Idea #15: Game ‘Zealots’

This is will be an idea for a game, and I’ve named it Zealots.

I always had the feeling that our sports (eg. basketball, soccer..) don’t really follow our level of technological refinement. They are often low tech – a good thing because it requires little resources, but it also means not taking advantage of our accumulated knowledge. Most games also favor physical prowess instead of strategy, rather than finding a balance.

Zealots is a game played in a special electronic court. Two teams of seven players each try to control a ball and score it, by hitting a round elevated target in the opposite side. The ball must be passed or walked (with dribbling) all the way to the target zone, where it can be shoot. Simple enough, a lot like handball so far. Let’s name the teams Red and Blue.

However at the start the game, the target for both teams is blocked (hitting it with the ball does nothing). The court has flat electronic tiles that can light up, similar to a dancefloor. When the game starts, a computer chooses a team to start at random, and a round begins.

Say the computer chooses team Red. It’s their turn to attack. Then a random tile somewhere in the court lights up in red. This tile unblocks the target of team Blue. If a team Blue player gets there and steps on the tile the target remains blocked, a defence, and the round is done.

If a player from team Red steps on it, two things happen: the target of team Blue lights up, and can now be hit for score by Red; and two tiles in the court light up blue. These tiles can defuse the blue target if they are both hit by Blue. If Red hits them it does nothing, it’s not for them. Red must protect them from Blue, as well as attack the target.

In the end of the round, the computer sorts again after a small resting break. It’s a game of chance too, but matches should be even if long enough. So both teams are always divided between defense or attack.

A Zealots round. Note that only players of the same side as the target may enter the grayed defense zone.

Above is a possible courtsize (based on the golden ratio!) with the same length as a NBA basketball court, but somewhat larger in width. A possible game situation is presented, moments after the attack tile is hit.

There is plenty of room for strategy on Zealots. The number of players in attack/defense at a time is not fixed by a rule, rather it’s meant for the team to decide. For example, after enabling the score, an attacking team could have 4 players trying to score and 3 defending the defusing tiles. Or 3 and 4, and so on. The defending team could have 4 defending the target and 3 in active defense, trying to defuse and end the round.

Tackling (like rugby) is allowed in this game, until the other player is down, to prevent a player from hitting a live tile. Perhaps helmets are a requirement for safety. After being tackled to the ground a player must return to it’s defense zone. I figured it should still retain some barbaric trait as a true sport. Expect awesome and completely random tackles.

I didn’t mention this, but players use some sort short range RF transmitter on the shoes to hint the tiles of their presence. The floor should also have a rugged layer for friction. A cool thing today is that there is tech to detect falls, like here, although a bit more of search seems to show the company is not in business anymore.

There are two problem that I though that could happen in this game:

What if, during Red’s attack, team Blue catches the ball? Well the ball is not meant for them in this round, so you could add the rule that the defending team must always be passing the ball around, to a different player every time. That is bound to return the ball to Red eventually, but also give Blue an advantage if it captures it.

The second problem is a stalemate problem. Say the teams are locked up in defensive situations. The game would become dull then. This is unlikely because eventually someone would tackle one another and the game would go on. But if this becomes an issue, timing a round to an appropriate time could solve it.

Score is kept in the usual manner, the player with most hits on target wins. In off hours, the court can be used to display maze patterns for kids or for dancing. It could help to offset the costs of building it.

If you build a Zealots court, make sure to send me a ticket for a season. Feel free to twist this idea as you please: you could base it on basketball, instead of handball, or maybe not allow tackling if you want a cleaner game. Thanks for bearing with me, have a good game!

[IMAGE: A handball player mid-air. image source]