Let's Nuke Mars! Says Elon Musk

[Cowabungaa]

The Mars Trilogy [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy] is my personal favorite Martian terraforming story, and iirc they do heat the poles to start thickening the atmosphere, but they don't use nuclear weapons to do so. Probably because radioactive fallout would spread over Mars especially quickly given the especially fine Martian sand along with extremely strong wind patterns.

Neither does irradiating the water you'd like to use sound like a good idea to me.

Er... IIRC to maintain the atmosphere on Mars one must not only melt the ice caps, but also to heat up the core, 'cause otherwise the newly refueled atmosphere will be lost the same way previous one was.

Yeah that's what I wonder too. Mars' lack of a magnetic sphere means any atmosphere we'd create by terraforming would get stripped away by solar radiation. So if we can't somehow create a magnetosphere on Mars to protect it, it'll be a pretty pointless endeavor in the long run. Not to mention that our bodies aren't fond of a lot of UV-radiation.

 

[Strazdas]

well, that could work in theory i guess. i wonder how is he going to keep sustained fission reaction above the planet though. it has to be close enough to heat the atmosphere and gravity would be quite in force in that height. also requiring to be on poles centrifugal orbit is out of the question.

Wouldn't the radiation be a problem for settling down the road? Or are we speaking in terms of tens of thousands of years? Making Mars habitable is a pretty important process we should start as soon as we understand how to; I'm not sure this is the way. I could very well be wrong though.

Modern nuclear weapons (they are really mostly hydrogen bombs nowadays though) are designed to make large denation impact, not to seed the are with radiation (those are "dirty bombs" and were never employed by anyone and in theory noone should have any of them). Radiation after nuclear explosion from a modern ICBM goes down quickly. think - safe to walk without hazard suit in 2-3 days quickly. Also there is probably way more background radiation on mars than earth due to its thin atmosphere to begin with (sun rays are actually radioactive, Earth has a filter.). so its really not as big of a problem as it sounds.

Of course, this is only one of many problems to solve, such as kickstarting magnetic sphere.

 

[Zero=Interrupt]

Further evidence that Elon Musk is a James Bond villain.

 

[happyninja42]

I seem to recall hearing once that the atmosphere is so thin on Mars, that it will constantly be evaporating off into space, partly because the gravity is too low to maintain the heavier gases we want in an atmosphere to be habitable. So tossing nukes at the poles to melt the water (and thus having it evaporate off instead of staying as ice), seems to be contrary to making Mars habitable for humanity.

Anyone more familiar than myself on atmospheric fluid dynamics able to chime in on this. Because this guys plan not only seems silly to me, but also ultimately contrary to the final goal.

 

[Ukomba]

A better idea might be to grab an idea from the Star Wars EU. Coruscant solved the problem of cold climate through multiple orbital mirrors. Would be a bit easier to control than Nukes.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Orbital_Solar_Energy_Transfer_Satellite

That doesn't solve the larger problem mars has though, it's just too small. This has caused it's core has cool and prevents it from holding a dense enough atmosphere. Any real terraforming would require mining the asteroid belt and moving the materials to Mars.

 

[JonB]

0/10 article. did not contain phrase 'earth-shattering kaboom' and was not tagged 'earth shattering kaboom'

 

[Lightknight]

Interesting, that would actually work.

I suppose this all depends on the timeline. If we want to build up to this gradually then we can put astronauts in place to work on discovering things directly and getting a baseline for the planet, then we can always do this later.

If we want to get there fast and furious then nukes away. The thing is that they wouldn't be dropped directly on the polls themselves. The climate change would impact life there but so too would the slow method.

 

[Arqus_Zed]

Reminds me of something Nelson Muntz once said.

"I dunno, gotta nuke somethin'."

 

[Thaluikhain]

Wouldn't the radiation be a problem for settling down the road? Or are we speaking in terms of tens of thousands of years? Making Mars habitable is a pretty important process we should start as soon as we understand how to; I'm not sure this is the way. I could very well be wrong though.

To add to what has been said, the fallout you get depends on how you use the device. It's mostly stuff sucked into the fireball and spat out as radioactive material. Initiate the device on the ground, and you'll dig a big hole, and that stuff comes back hot. Initiate high above the surface, and there's not much matter to be affected, beyond dust and the device itself.

 

[Kuratius]

The answer is clearly that you should use hydrogen bombs.

 

[Something Amyss]

Good! Mars had it coming! *grabs raygun*

*reads article* Oh, that's an idea I've heard proposed before. I'm still not sure it's a good one or not.

 

[LetalisK]

You know that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are habitable now right? and have been for decades.

And people won't live at the poles they'll live closer to the equator so nuking the poles not a problem except in the cost rather than habitation risk.

I know those cities are habitable, its just that the scale of these reactions to have a global effect is likely going to produce a lot of material. If the debris can be controlled into just being dumped at the poles, that's one thing. If it spreads across Mars during the process, there could be fragments strewn about in the dust for centuries.

Referencing radiation being a problem with several nukes being set off, I would reference this:

Spoiler

Not saying it's a good plan or anything. I don't know that. I just don't suspect radiation is going to be an issue if we're talking about dozens being setting off at each pole, even simultaneously.

 

[Dalisclock]

Interesting idea but still doesn't solve much as far as actually getting humans to mars(hell, we don't even have the equipment to put humans on the moon anytime in the next 5 years). There's also the issue of being able to set up a self sufficient colony there and eventually having enough people to maintain a permanent population. We're a ways out from that, even if NASA did get the funding immediately.

Captcha: Why isn't "Dead babies" an answer for "Version wireless is offering you ______", because I would totally go for a dead baby plan.

 

[MonsterCrit]

Aint it cute how people think rich==smart.
Anyone who knows two licks about climatology knows that muck like nuking a hurricane you likely would not make things better, just worse. In this case mars is cold because it has a thinner atmosphere and more importantly because it is waaaaay further from the sun that earth.. Kicking up that much dust from the nukes will warm the poles.. for maybe 10 minutes and the dust it kicks up will do a lovely job of reflecting the suns rays and there by slightly reducing the temps.

 

[Elfgore]

Nukes... pft. Just send some moss and cockroaches up there. Mars will be livable in no time....

Spoiler: Well shit...

Well livable for giant, muscular cockroaches with a thirst for blood.

OT: I'm sure that sciency stuff he said makes a lot or no sense at all to varying people.

 

[Vigormortis]

If you want some Mars-themed reading, you need only turn to Philip K. Dick. The man was obsessed with Mars as a setting for his stories.

As for Musk...

He's not a Bond villain. His ideas are way too nutty for a Bond villain.

 

[EXos]

Good, good. Let's nuke the Mars Colonies before they could declare war on Earth.

Lol, good one! To which I reply: EXOSQUAAAAD!!!!
Or will it turn out all Biker Mice From Mars-ey in the end?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR7ktkOEeFw

Trump and certain others do have a bit of that plutark feel(Smell) to them. XD

 

[CeeBod]

When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail. This is just another in a very long line of very dumb ideas of how to use nukes. As with the problem of how to deal with potential earth-impacting asteroids, it's the long and slow ideas that actually might end up being useful. Fling a nuke at it and hope for the best is just bat-shit insanity.

Besides, the rate of catastrophic failures for rocket launches is about 6% (using launch data from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_orbital_launchers_families ) and if terraforming like this was even vaguely feasible, it would almost certainly require a large number of rockets being launched, over a wide span of time, each carrying nuclear payloads, and that's not really something you want to see a catastrophic failure on.

 

[Chris Moses]

I thought of this many years ago. There is but one problem as I see it. Revitalizing the atmosphere of Mars isn't going to do a lick of good unless you can create a magnetic field around the planet to keep the solar wind from stripping it all away again.

Er... IIRC to maintain the atmosphere on Mars one must not only melt the ice caps, but also to heat up the core, 'cause otherwise the newly refueled atmosphere will be lost the same way previous one was.

Looks like someone beat me to the punch. The solution I envisioned involves giant nuclear reactors powering giant electromagnets at the poles to restore Mars' magnetic field. We maybe even bury them deep under the surface. I don't know if it is possible to do it that way, but it's my idea at least.

 

[Skyrant]

You can not Terraform Mars. I thought some basic understanding of astrophysics would tell you that.

It only has 38% of earths gravity which creates a huge problem holding a dense atmosphere that needs to be 2.5 times the mass of earths atmoshpere, because you want 100kPa pressure on the surface. In addition to that, it has no magnetosphere to protect from solar winds, this is not only very harmful to life but also literally blows away the atmosphere which it can barely hold on to with it's lower gravity.

Sorry folks but Terraforming Mars is a no go.