Yes. We're _already_ launching nuclear waste into space, in the form of RTGs with Pu-238. So there's been a lot of work towards making them passively safe, although the weight constraints for deep-space craft necessarily limit the amount of achievable safety.
> Even if a capsule could survive reentry, surely it wouldn't survive impact.
It'll be moving at a terminal velocity, and can be engineered to not fragment on impact.
For example, I remember reading about a proposal to alloy the nuclear waste elements with a carrier metal like iron or nickel, and then cover them in an ablative graphite shell.
> Even if a capsule could survive reentry, surely it wouldn't survive impact.
It'll be moving at a terminal velocity, and can be engineered to not fragment on impact.
For example, I remember reading about a proposal to alloy the nuclear waste elements with a carrier metal like iron or nickel, and then cover them in an ablative graphite shell.