World Space station crew launch cargo ship full of rubbish

Japan's cargo craft is loaded with rubbish and released from the International Space Station (ISS) to burn up as it enters Earth's atmosphere. The crew of Expedition 36 released Japan's H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-4) shortly after noon eastern time.

HTV-4 will manoeuvre to a safe distance where Japanese flight controllers will take over and safely guide the craft into a deorbit on Saturday.

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I'm assuming this is waste that was generated on the ISS? Why don't we just shoot it off into space? Too close to the Earth's atmosphere to do it efficiently?

KMilz said:

I'm assuming this is waste that was generated on the ISS? Why don't we just shoot it off into space? Too close to the Earth's atmosphere to do it efficiently?

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I understand your point.
But let's focus on destroying our own planet an ourselves instead of sending the problems away.

On a more serious note. I find it rather clever to burn the crap (which I guess is literary?) in the atmosphere.

Solu9 said:

I understand your point.
But let's focus on destroying our own planet an ourselves instead of sending the problems away.

On a more serious note. I find it rather clever to burn the crap (which I guess is literary?) in the atmosphere.

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But aren't we not supposed to burn trash? Wouldn't be much different burning up in one layer of the atmosphere than another, would it? If we are allowed to burn it, then hell yeah, it is a good plan.

I think its just cheaper to burn it in our atmosphere then to send it into the sun. If you want to send it into the sun you need to put rockets on that thing or something to get it away from the gravitational pull of the earth.
Furthermore you need to calculate the route for the vessel so it wont crash into other planets / asteroids / etc.
I guess its just much easier to send it to earth which would be hard to miss. You just give it a kick and it will be pulled towards earth anyways.

On the other hand, this way its made sure that the resources stay on earth and are not send out into space. The materials the vessel was made of will burn and fall down and can eventually be recovered and recycled at some point.

They have to literally obliterate the trash because if they just release it into space, then it becomes space junk in orbit and will damage satellites or hurt astronauts while passing through debris fields.

Just imagine Earth's atmosphere be filled with rubbish. No more heat from the sun/sunlight

FireCat said:

Just imagine Earth's atmosphere be filled with rubbish. No more heat from the sun/sunlight

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on the upside it would work like a giant trash-force-field to protect us from giant space monsters and the likes.

mushroom911 said:

on the upside it would work like a giant trash-force-field to protect us from giant space monsters and the likes.

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But they might come in peace? Hmm