> Will this ever be safe enough to use as a hazardous waste disposal system? Can we just send the worst of the worst into the sun without too much risk of just spreading it out through the atmosphere in case of an explosion.
I don't think it is impossible that launch capabilities become safe enough to lower the risk to something some people might consider acceptable. However the physics of it won't change. To even get into earths orbit we have to accelerate anything going up to an average of 7.8 Km/s, where to escape orbit to anywhere else it's 11.8 Km/s.
I think the amount of energy to do that will always be the primary reason why this just isn't practical. Assuming you are advanced enough to be considering this, I would hope that your society is stable enough for long term containment and processing.
A space elevator could fling it out to escape velocity if you can build the containment vessel to survive a fall at terminal velocity (way lower than orbital velocity). Energy wouldn't be a problem for a civilization with the capability of building such an elevator, as there's plenty of solar, and raising 1 ton to GEO uses a trivial amount of energy.
I don't think it is impossible that launch capabilities become safe enough to lower the risk to something some people might consider acceptable. However the physics of it won't change. To even get into earths orbit we have to accelerate anything going up to an average of 7.8 Km/s, where to escape orbit to anywhere else it's 11.8 Km/s.
I think the amount of energy to do that will always be the primary reason why this just isn't practical. Assuming you are advanced enough to be considering this, I would hope that your society is stable enough for long term containment and processing.