nuke mars?

[coppercone2]

https://science.slashdot.org/story/19/08/17/2032255/elon-musk-begins-selling-25-nuke-mars-t-shirts

So we can put a cancer center on mars when we colonize it in the future?

It's so dirty compared to a reactor.

[SiliconWizard]

 

We're really ready to blow up the whole universe if that could help our economic growth.

[Mr. Scram]

Why did I know this is a coppercone thread before seeing who the author is?

[themadhippy]

How about letting mankind finish off the job of fucking up 1 planet before we start ruining another.

[SiliconWizard]

How about letting mankind finish off the job of fucking up 1 planet before we start ruining another.

Don't worry, we'll do both.

[Bud]

Why did I know this is a coppercone thread before seeing who the author is?

    

[MosherIV]

on mars when we colonize it

Why do people think we can colonize mars 

It has almost no atmosphere. Not enough for humans to survive.
The magnetic core has gone, letting the solar winds further strip the planet of atmosphere.
The temperature is too cold for humans.
There is not enough water  on the planet to survive on.
The gravity is only 0.3G meaning anyone living on the planet will loose bone mass. Anyone growing up on the planet will be too weak to ever come to earth.

It would be easier to build giant space stations like the 2001 or Elysium than it would to try and live on Mars

[Mr. Scram]

Why do people think we can colonize mars 

It has almost no atmosphere. Not enough for humans to survive.
The magnetic core has gone, letting the solar winds further strip the planet of atmosphere.
The temperature is too cold for humans.
There is not enough water  on the planet to survive on.
The gravity is only 0.3G meaning anyone living on the planet will loose bone mass. Anyone growing up on the planet will be too weak to ever come to earth.

It would be easier to build giant space stations like the 2001 or Elysium than it would to try and live on Mars

People wouldn't likely be expected to travel back and forth. It's not as if the South Pole is that much more hospitable. A bit but not a lot. You'll die within minutes without adequate protection.

[wraper]

How about letting mankind finish off the job of fucking up 1 planet before we start ruining another.

As if there is anything to ruin. IMHO there is nothing wrong in nuking it as long as it does the job.

[Red Squirrel]

I think all the effort going towards colonizing Mars should go towards trying to save this planet instead.  They have some basic tech out there to strip CO2 from the air.  Wonder how much it would cost to further research it and implement it at large scale, compared to the total cost of what would go towards colonizing Mars.

[MosherIV]

I do not disagree about spending the money to save our planet first.
However, why do people jump to the conclusion that technology is the answer.
We already have things that will suck CO2 out of the atmosphere and safely lock it up long term.
It is called a tree !!!

Stop wasting money researching useless technology and spend it on actully reducing CO2.
Both digging it up and releasing it and on natural ways to lock it back up.

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah reducing CO2 should be a big priority too of course.   Moving towards green energy etc.  All this needs to happen faster.  Need to put more money into storage tech research as well.  If we can find a battery or other storage tech that is higher density than fossil fuel it would be a good start.   Ex: we should make even jumbo jets electric but need better storage tech for that.  If you look at a map of all the planes in the sky that's a crazy amount of pollution.   Big ships are bad too.

[NiHaoMike]

If we can find a battery or other storage tech that is higher density than fossil fuel it would be a good start.

That's called hydrogen, unfortunately the fuel cells to make use of it are really expensive right now. Biofuels are probably as close as we get for a drop in replacement for fossil fuels.

As for storage, I think thermal storage is one to really invest in. Far cheaper than batteries and no inherent wearout mechanism, plus very safe and entire capacity can be used without affecting lifetime. Energy density isn't all that important for most stationary applications, but even then, ice based storage for air conditioning is not too far behind lithium batteries (after accounting for the COP of the heat pump) and ahead of lead acid. Make that "on par" and "way ahead" after accounting for the derating needed to get a good lifetime with batteries.

[Black Phoenix]

What I find funny in all of this is NASA for years had taken the position of exploring Mars but at the same time not trying to "dirty" the planet with bacteria and micro-organisms on their own exploration rovers, because they don't want to alter the measurements their machines do on the planet:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2014/05/21/curiosity-rover-may-have-carried-bacterial-life-to-mars/

https://www.space.com/13783-nasa-msl-curiosity-mars-rover-planetary-protection.html

Scientists don’t want to contaminate other planets with Earth life forms. They also don’t want contamination in their own instruments, which could make it appear that they have detected alien life when they’re really only measuring Earth-origin hitchhikers.

And now this crazy rich guy wants to nuke a planet in the assumption it will work, changing the atmosphere of the planet with radioactive particles... 

[wraper]

And now this crazy rich guy wants to nuke a planet in the assumption it will work, changing the atmosphere of the planet with radioactive particles... 

It's a way how to free CO₂. So what if there are radioactive particles as a byproduct. With current situation on Mars nuking poles will make barely any difference to total amount of radiation you will be exposed to. Also by the time Mars will be terraformed, vast majority of radionucleides will decay anyway.

[Brumby]

We just need to send Arnie to find this....

[EEVblog]

https://science.slashdot.org/story/19/08/17/2032255/elon-musk-begins-selling-25-nuke-mars-t-shirts
So we can put a cancer center on mars when we colonize it in the future?

You mean like we did here? Not much rise in the cancer rate after all those nukes..

[Black Phoenix]

It's a way how to free CO₂. So what if there are radioactive particles as a byproduct. With current situation on Mars nuking poles will make barely any difference to total amount of radiation you will be exposed to. Also by the time Mars will be terraformed, vast majority of radionucleides will decay anyway.

Okay, but now imagine the following: Let's say that there is microorganisms that live in the ice available in the poles, organisms that are still to be discovered and that aren't like anything we ever saw or study on Earth.

Now you nuke the planet to release the CO₂. Radiation if I remember also alters the DNA structure, so you are basically altering the DNA of said organisms, causing mutations not made by evolution of species but by external hand. Is that what NASA really want, to analyse mutations on organisms made by us or to analyse the organisms as they are in reality after millions of years of evolution? What if said organisms have the replies to some of our problems, like a cure to our most deadly diseases?

[wraper]

Radiation if I remember also alters the DNA structure, so you are basically altering the DNA of said organisms, causing mutations not made by evolution of species but by external hand. Is that what NASA really want, to analyse mutations on organisms made by us or to analyse the organisms as they are in reality after millions of years of evolution?

Do you have your tinfoil hat ready for use? That stuff happens on Earth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation

What if said organisms have the replies to some of our problems, like a cure to our most deadly diseases?

More like they possibly can kill us.

[EEVblog]

It's a way how to free CO₂. So what if there are radioactive particles as a byproduct. With current situation on Mars nuking poles will make barely any difference to total amount of radiation you will be exposed to. Also by the time Mars will be terraformed, vast majority of radionucleides will decay anyway.

Okay, but now imagine the following: Let's say that there is microorganisms that live in the ice available in the poles, organisms that are still to be discovered and that aren't like anything we ever saw or study on Earth.

Now you nuke the planet to release the CO₂. Radiation if I remember also alters the DNA structure, so you are basically altering the DNA of said organisms, causing mutations not made by evolution of species but by external hand. Is that what NASA really want, to analyse mutations on organisms made by us or to analyse the organisms as they are in reality after millions of years of evolution? What if said organisms have the replies to some of our problems, like a cure to our most deadly diseases?

Let's do this first:

[rsjsouza]

I do not disagree about spending the money to save our planet first.
However, why do people jump to the conclusion that technology is the answer.
We already have things that will suck CO2 out of the atmosphere and safely lock it up long term.
It is called a tree !!!

Stop wasting money researching useless technology and spend it on actully reducing CO2.
Both digging it up and releasing it and on natural ways to lock it back up.

A famous brazilian photographer and her wife managed to plant 2M trees in 12 years on a farm in Minas Gerais state in Brasil. ONE Couple!!!
https://allthatsinteresting.com/sebastiao-salgado-forest

A bit more about the photographer's history: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/sebastiao-salgado-forest-trees-180956620/

[Black Phoenix]

Radiation if I remember also alters the DNA structure, so you are basically altering the DNA of said organisms, causing mutations not made by evolution of species but by external hand. Is that what NASA really want, to analyse mutations on organisms made by us or to analyse the organisms as they are in reality after millions of years of evolution?

Do you have your tinfoil hat ready for use? That stuff happens on Earth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation

What if said organisms have the replies to some of our problems, like a cure to our most deadly diseases?

More like they possibly can kill us.

I know this kind of thing happens on earth, we live here, we produce stuff to increase food yields and create new breeds of vegetables to increase their resistance to diseases. But that's here, on Earth were we live, not in a "virgin" place like Mars, that didn't had contact with any exterior life (if aliens don't exist  ) until we started landing explorers on Mars. But whatever, I can't control anything and alone I can't change anything.

I'm not a scientist, I just think that we should preserve things the way they are for the most time we can. We changed the Earth, we created global warming because of our development, and we are depleting the resources of our planet in a scale that increased to us using 1.7 earths of resources by the end of the year compared with 1970:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Overshoot_Day

Should we do the same to another planet just for the sake of our own survival or should we change our approach to everything and change ourselves. I'm not perfect, I'm for sure also someone who have a fault on that, by my own usage of resources each and everyday and never really look at it, so probably I'm a hypocrite at the same level.

[EEVblog]

Should we do the same to another planet just for the sake of our own survival

Yes!
There is no mammalian life there, so the moral argument comes down to what we do with a frozen rock, or maybe some potential microbes if we find any.
Of course we'd do whatever we have to there if it meant the survival of the human race.
In fact one moral argument is that we must do whatever we can to survive, due to the seeming rarity of intelligent life in the universe.

https://youtu.be/1vmnp7ghGPk?t=62

[Black Phoenix]

Should we do the same to another planet just for the sake of our own survival

Yes!
There is no mammalian life there, so the moral argument comes down to what we do with a frozen rock, or maybe some potential microbes if we find any.
Of course we'd do whatever we have to there if it meant the survival of the human race.
In fact one moral argument is that we must do whatever we can to survive, due to the seeming rarity of intelligent life in the universe.

https://youtu.be/1vmnp7ghGPk?t=62

Dave, yes we should survive true, probably my wording was not the right way I wanted to put. Let me try again:

Should we do the same to another planet just for the sake of keeping our own style of life and technology, do the same errors and deplete the resources (it will take lots of years true but will happen again if no change of our own way) or should we change our approach right on earth, correct our mistakes and clean our own backyard and then try to go to the others backyard?

[coppercone2]

uh, you know how many people got cancer from nuclear testing?

https://qz.com/1163140/us-nuclear-tests-killed-american-civilians-on-a-scale-comparable-to-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/

with radioactive fallout responsible for 340,000 to 690,000 American deaths from 1951 to 1973.

I mean, why risk some heavy elements getting left behind? Its a pristine planet.

trace contamination will leave bits of long lived isotopes where some military coaxed scientist will say 'its a safe level'... why let those assholes on mars?