nuke mars?

[Rick Law]

...
The magnetic core has gone, letting the solar winds further strip the planet of atmosphere.
...

Worst than just mere lack of atmosphere.  Lacking magnetic core, there is nothing stopping cosmic ray which also can cook you.

Forget the tiny nano amount of radiation from bombs, just the cosmic rays, which is radiation, will cook you many times over.  Add to that the solar winds, micro-meteor, extreme cold...  Radiation from a dozen bombs or so really is the last thing you need to worry about living on Mars.  The radiation from the solar winds and cosmic rays just from the trip there would probably be enough you cause severe damage to your health getting there, let alone living there.

Below is a link to an analysis/study at Duke University on how radiation form Cosmic Rays and Solar Winds may harm you just on the way to Mars - mind you, that is just the trip alone and not extended stay.  In this analysis, it also shows on a pie chart how small our on-earth "bomb caused" radiation is.  It is unclear if the  "bomb cause" radiation is in the 1% "Other" or in the 8% of total radiation form Terrestrial Sources (Uranium & Thorium).  Uranium & Thorium are natural.  So that 8% could be natural and from dragging it up in making bombs & nuclear plants - they are fuel for the bomb or power plant, and not product of using the fuel.  Thorium is in every brick we make and in many other things made from earth.  So, the bomb/power-plant resulting emission from consuming Uranium and Thorium likely would included in the 1% "Other" instead of the 8% Terrestrial Sources.  But even at 8%, it is the same as our muted (by magnetic core) Cosmic Rays, 1/2 that of medical, and just 1/7 of what we got from our natural Radon.
^{Mission to Mars - Encounter with Radiation, Duke Univ: https://sites.duke.edu/missiontomars/the-mission/} 

Bomb-caused nuclear winter may be a good thing, not for Mars but for Venus.  If we can keep create the nuclear winter "blanket" Venus from the Sun and keep at it for a long long while, it just may cool down enough for some terraforming to finish the work

[MosherIV]

Yes, Venus is a better match to our Earth and therefore a better candidate for teraforming.
It is just harder to do.
However, the fact that it is closer to the Sun may mean that it is still too hot to be useful.

People seem to be fixsated on Mars becuase they think it can be easily teraformed.

[Rick Law]

We should do both.  Mars is the last refuge.  Come real global warming (Sun going red giant), Venus is no help.  Venus will be part of the Sun.  Mars will be the only place for humans if we are still around.

Before red giant, Venus being closer to the sun is no problem.  Since by the time we can cool down Venus from the current over 400 C surface temperature to do further terraforming, we already know how to cool down the planet.  So until the red giant phase, Venus could be a nice place...  Blue sky, rain only as much as we need, plenty of Solar Energy...

Now we need flexible GPS, one that could work on Mars, Venus, and Earth.  Otherwise, there will be a lot of people getting lost on Martian highways.

[Mr. Scram]

Yes, ok, you want to try and terrform a planet.

However, terforming Mars is pointless.
Even if you succeed in thickning the atmosphere and warming it up and get enough water on the surface.
The problem is that Mars no longer has a magnetic feild to protect the atmosphere.
The atmosphere is literally being blown away by the Sun's solar wind because there is no magnetic feild to deflect the solar wind!
If you do terraform Mars, it is only a matter of time before all the work is undone and the atmosphere is thined by the solar wind.

Did I mention that Mars only has 0.3G ?
Do you really want to create generations that are too weak to stand up in a 1G environment?

It's not exactly pointless if you can replenish the atmosphere. Apparently the loss is about 1500 g/s. We pump 761 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each second. Not quite apples to apples but it shows it should well be within the technological reach of man if we can find substances locked within the crust of Mars. Not being able to stand up in 1G environments is as already discussed not an issue as people aren't expected to zip back and forth between planets.

[coppercone2]

why would you build it here, if you are building it to colonize mars you can spend the money to assemble it in space without reach to earth

It doesn't matter if you assemble it here, the impact if it explodes on take-off would be the same regardless (i.e. it's trivial to ensure it can't go critical)

people are making it out to be some kind of planetary destruction weapon, better its assembled on mars without a return trip (I guess this is like a gigaton bomb?)

there is like no good reason for something that powerful to be on earth at any time. It should be completed in sub assemblies, shipped to mars, so its like completely separated. Like some magic shit from indiana jones

or better yet, build a reactor on mars that melts it in a controlled manner and not have some crazy greenhouse effect mars doomsday shit go down because some climatologists got it wrong, at least you can turn that off. Maybe you can even get the fissile materials on mars so you don't need to blast radioactive material into orbit on rockets. That could turn into a radiological nightmare.. the military does not launch livenukes in ICBM tests. If you can arm it remotely or its on a timer.. its not disarmed. Disarmed means a military technician needs to do something physically to turn it on. You would need to send an astronaut along with it to insert a core for it to be considered disarmed. Like undo some bolts, insert something, get a torque wrench, etc. How can it be disarmed if you can remotely arm it?? That can always malfunction.

I can't believe a PAUL VERHOEVEN movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger is more sane then one of the most promising companies CEO's in America ! It sounds like Clarence Boddicker came up with this plan in a haze of cocaine fueled insanity!

[SiliconWizard]

Oh sure, but people should really stop reading random tweets and taking them seriously.

It looks like even the most reputable persons (not that Elon Musk is really one) end up tweeting utter crap for no obvious reason (other than getting some attention?)
Twitter has become a crap machine really.

[Gyro]

Let's face it, the whole Musk thing is vanishingly less likely than err.. Trump buying Greenland.  It ain't going to happen.

We are doomed to spend the remainder of our existence as a species on our current, rather damaged, planet. We live on the only planet in our solar system capable of supporting human life on a meaningful scale. Maybe some of the moons of the outer planets might prove in the future to have some chance of providing the necessary life sustaining elements for long term survival but they are physically small. I fear that our most likely future usage of the other planets will be as 'nasty' waste dumps (for which the moon would be much more convenient anyway).

Mars is a dead planet, its atmosphere was stripped away long before life on earth evolved. Any feeble attempt to create a new one will go the same way. At best, we may achieve insignificantly small scientific, or maybe mining, colonies under artificially maintained domes but that's it. Even then solar bombardment will make long term habitation unlikely - unless you dig holes and live underground but who's going to want to spend their life like that? Its proximity is also too close to make a realistic 'lifeboat' for the human race.

Short of any speculative missions in the future to find new habitable solar systems (if we can ever develop the technology to sustain multi generation 'seed' populations to venture that far out into the unknown), here's where we were born and here's where we will die (sooner or later).

We often fall into the trap of thinking ourselves supremely evolved and invincible. In truth, we are no more durable than any of the species that became extinct in the recent or very distant past (who's traces are all but obliterated). The only relevant survival difference between these extinct species and ourselves is our self-destructive nature.

To paraphrase something someone famous said (David Attenborough?) Long term, the Earth will be just fine, it's survived far worse in its history. It's the Human race that needs to worry (as in sh*t-scared).


Sorry if this sounds gloomy, but I think this assessment is probably the closest to the real situation here. 


P.S. Of course, Mr Spock might just stop by and offer us a lift but I wouldn't pin your hopes on it!

[Bud]

Oh sure, but people should really stop reading random tweets and taking them seriously.

It looks like even the most reputable persons (not that Elon Musk is really one) end up tweeting utter crap for no obvious reason (other than getting some attention?)
Twitter has become a crap machine really.

What do you mean has become, it has always been like that.

[Electro Detective]

   it should be called 'Twatter' > mostly generic twats, imposter twats, and attention seeking shock jock twats tweeting BS,
stirring pointless intrigue, drama and waffle = wasting internet bandwidth   


Going by many opinions here, it's no surprise that Mars eavesdrops a lot,
and makes the first aggressive moves in B-Grade flicks

"Let's invade and stamp out those pesky sabre rattling earthlings, before their space tech and weaponry improves,
and serve to remind the Venus and Uranus dudes to think twice about hitting on Mars.."   


i.e. stay here, be happy,

space travel is a no go money pit/black hole, 

"get out and fix some something..."   

[Mr. Scram]

   it should be called 'Twatter' > mostly generic twats, imposter twats, and attention seeking shock jock twats tweeting BS,
stirring pointless intrigue, drama and waffle = wasting internet bandwidth   


Going by many opinions here, it's no surprise that Mars eavesdrops a lot,
and makes the first aggressive moves in B-Grade flicks

"Let's invade and stamp out those pesky sabre rattling earthlings, before their space tech and weaponry improves,
and serve to remind the Venus and Uranus dudes to think twice about hitting on Mars.."   


i.e. stay here, be happy,

space travel is a no go money pit/black hole, 

"get out and fix some something..."   

I see the Old Man Syndrome is rearing its head again.

[BrianHG]

Now I am not against colonizing Mars, we will eventually get there, however with today's technology, this is what we are up against: (meaning, we will still be waiting a few decades for a truly successful functional colony...)

[Rick Law]

...
We are doomed to spend the remainder of our existence as a species on our current, rather damaged, planet. We live on the only planet in our solar system capable of supporting human life on a meaningful scale.
...
...

We are doomed to spend the remainder of our existence as a species on our planet... That is, until the planet turns against us and once again return back to an environment unsuitable for human.

For most of the time since life started on earth, it didn't have an environment suitable for human life.  You may call it damaged planet, but the planet itself is healthy.  It has been much warmer yet blooming with life, it has been much colder yet blooming with life, it has had 2x the oxygen yet blooming with life, and it has had 2x the CO2 yet blooming with life.  It is healthy - just not suitable for us humans.

Like other life forms on earth, there was a time when those life forms were perfectly suited to live in the environment at that time.  They evolved to be seemingly perfect for the environment, almost like how well the earth and the sun seem perfect for us.  But with or without them or us, the environment will change by itself.  Some how, The Big Die Off occurs.  We all know about the Dinosaurs, but that was nothing.  There was the Ordovician–Silurian Extinction (86% of all species gone ~440 MillionYearsAgo), or the Late Devonian Extinction (75%, 364MYA), and of course the REAL big one, Permian–Triassic extinction (96%, 250MYA).  Some how, what was perfect environment just changed...

We are the first species to be capable of developing technologies to help us survive in unsuitable environment.  We damn well better start learning how to do exactly that instead of relying on keeping the status quo.  Temperature will change whether we are here or not - be it by solar cycle, asteroid strike, or by the movement of our continental shelves (volcano on the ring of fire), so on, so on, so on.  Atmosphere will change whether we are here or not.  Then there are disasters that creates quick changes: Statistically, we are overdue for Yellow Stone Super Volcano  (statistically every 600K years, last happened 640KYA).  Statistically, we are overdue for magnetic pole inversion (183 times in 83M years = 450K years, last happened 780KYA)... 

Oh, another good news: Don't forget, we developed during and are living in the Holocene "inter-glacial period".  Here on this forum, every one knows what "inter-" means.  So even if all the random stuff like asteroid strike stayed away, more than likely this inter-glacial period will end returning us back to yet another round of an ice age.  Ice sheet will go as far south as New York covering New York by perhaps ice as thick as 2 miles.  That means most of current northern Europe, Russia, China, Argentina, Australia...  will be under ice as well.  You are talking time scale of mere 10s of thousands years, not millions of years.

So, we are very lucky to have evolved and developed.  Things around us changes all the time that can send us back to non-existence.  We are here hoping to keep the status quo, same as the dinosaurs did except they were probably not smart enough to hope.  We are smart enough to hope.  We better also know that status quo is not the nature of our earth, nor is status quo being the nature of the universe.  Change could happen in the blink of an eye (geologically speaking) and without prior warning.

We need to learn to live in environment that is not friendly to us, or we go the way of the Trilobites.

[Gromitt]

Have anyone read Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson? It's about colonizing Mars and one of the things they do to make the atmosphere denser is to detonate nuclear bombs in Mars poles to release CO2. And these was written in the 90ies. So it's not an original idea from Musk.

[EEVblog]

Disarmed means a military technician needs to do something physically to turn it on. You would need to send an astronaut along with it to insert a core for it to be considered disarmed.

Not so. There are a few reliable methods to remotely "activate" a bomb that don't require a human.
One method used in real weapons is a neutron-absorbing chain or wire that is would out of the core by a motor that is remote triggered. Once the chain/wire is removed the core is "armed". The bomb can't go critical with the neutron absorber in place.

[EEVblog]

And these was written in the 90ies. So it's not an original idea from Musk.

Musk doesn't have original ideas, that's not his thing. But the media don't know that.

[EEVblog]

So, we are very lucky to have evolved and developed.  Things around us changes all the time that can send us back to non-existence.  We are here hoping to keep the status quo, same as the dinosaurs did except they were probably not smart enough to hope.  We are smart enough to hope.  We better also know that status quo is not the nature of our earth, nor is status quo being the nature of the universe.  Change could happen in the blink of an eye (geologically speaking) and without prior warning.

The problem is the timescale compatibility. Less than hundred years for a human is a trivial amount of time to notice and/or worry about geological time scale changes.

[Mr. Scram]

Musk doesn't have original ideas, that's not his thing. But the media don't know that.

Very few people have original ideas and then there's the matter of independently coming up with an idea which already exists.

[EEVblog]

Musk doesn't have original ideas, that's not his thing. But the media don't know that.

Very few people have original ideas

Sure, and there is nothing wrong with that. Taking an existing idea and making it practical can change the world. But not many people get lauded by the press and credited as the originator of so many ideas as Musk does.

[A Hellene]

Nuking Mars?
Has not (something similar, but for very different reasons) happened to planet Phaethon, before that planet was eventually reduced to the so-called Asteroid Belt?

And, when are they intending to 'discover' the remaining two planets (the innermost planet called Hephaestus [being in orbit between the Sun and Hermes], and the outermost planet Pan [the last one, beyond the orbit of Pluto --that ...poor planet that some 'experts' have ...decommissioned!]) of our Solar System?

And, yes, the mystic (= of the mystes) number thirteen (13) has always been all over the place!:
-Twelve planets plus the Sun*,
-Twelve athloi plus Heracles,
-Twelve disciples plus Jesus,
-et cetera (Twelve Somethings plus their Centre)...

Ah! By the way, who knows which planet's mystic name (NOT the colloquial but the priestly one, because there have always been many ranks of naming or presenting things in the open) is the following one?:
Agseron (not sure about the correct spelling in English; in my own language it is «Άγκσερον»).

-George

[ * ] Up to the era of Peloponnesian Wars, it was (almost) common knowledge among my ancestors that our planetary system was consisted of the Sun and its twelve orbiting planets, named in their orbital order from the Sun: Hephaestus, Hermes, Aphrodite, Earth, Ares, Phaethon, Zeus, Cronus, Uranus, Poseidon, Pluto, and Pan.
And, yes, I understand that this is not common knowledge any more...

P.S.
If you do not know what about I am talking, please ignore the post! For the aficionados, it ought to be 12+1 because every single planetary orbit position strictly follows a relevantly simple algorithm based on the Fibonacci sequence, its mass and its speed; There already exist a few helical elliptic models for it, so feel free to investigate it as deep as you dare --it is not as difficult as it sounds to be!

[Mr. Scram]

Nuking Mars?
Has not (something similar, but for very different reasons) happened to planet Phaethon, before that planet was eventually reduced to the so-called Asteroid Belt?

And, when are they intending to 'discover' the remaining two planets (the innermost planet called Hephaestus [being in orbit between the Sun and Hermes], and the outermost planet Pan [the last one, beyond the orbit of Pluto --that ...poor planet that some 'experts' have ...decommissioned!]) of our Solar System?

And, yes, the mystic (= of the mystes) number thirteen (13) has always been all over the place!:
-Twelve planets plus the Sun*,
-Twelve athloi plus Heracles,
-Twelve disciples plus Jesus,
-et cetera (Twelve Somethings plus their Centre)...

Ah! By the way, who knows which planet's mystic name (NOT the colloquial but the priestly one, because there have always been many ranks of naming or presenting things in the open) is the following one?:
Agseron (not sure about the correct spelling in English; in my own language it is «Άγκσερον»).

-George

[ * ] Up to the era of Peloponnesian Wars, it was (almost) common knowledge among my ancestors that our planetary system was consisted of the Sun and its twelve orbiting planets, named in their orbital order from the Sun: Hephaestus, Hermes, Aphrodite, Earth, Ares, Phaethon, Zeus, Cronus, Uranus, Poseidon, Pluto, and Pan.
And, yes, I understand that this is not common knowledge any more...

P.S.
If you do not know what about I am talking, please ignore the post! For the aficionados, it ought to be 12+1 because every single planetary orbit position strictly follows a relevantly simple algorithm based on the Fibonacci sequence, its mass and its speed; There already exist a few helical elliptic models for it, so feel free to investigate it as deep as you dare --it is not as difficult as it sounds to be!

Does the myth of Greek oracles come from you lot living on top of broken gas mains or drinking water from lead pipes or something?

[A Hellene]

Does the myth of Greek oracles come from you lot living on top of broken gas mains or drinking water from lead pipes or something?

Though I've searched for something similar in English, that can work as a direct translation for my intended answer, I've only found the following ones:
-- Don't judge others by your own standards.
-- Don't measure other people's corn by your own bushel.

So, I'll answer you in my own language (the mother language of all the Romance languages --and, please, don't give me any little lectures about that fictional fabrication, called 'Indo-European Language Family' that was firstly sold to the public as the 'Indo-Germanic Race / Civilisation' dogmas, which did not sell very well and they were forced to be changed; just exactly what happened with the 'Global Warming' that did not also sell very well and was reduced to 'Climate Change'):
Μην κρίνεις εξ' ιδίων τα αλλότρια.

-George

[enochRoot]

To paraphrase something someone famous said (David Attenborough?) Long term, the Earth will be just fine, it's survived far worse in its history. It's the Human race that needs to worry (as in sh*t-scared).

George Carlin had a bit like that too!

[Buriedcode]

To paraphrase something someone famous said (David Attenborough?) Long term, the Earth will be just fine, it's survived far worse in its history. It's the Human race that needs to worry (as in sh*t-scared).

George Carlin had a bit like that too!

I remember that standup routine!  And yes, its amazing how many people genuinely think that climate change, or even some kind of nuclear war would leave the planet a dust ball - we really aren't capable of it, not by a long shot.  A super volcano, or large metoerite impact is capable of far more damage. It's "civilization as we know it" that is potentially under threat.  That's why I've not really understood why Friends of the Earth don't change their name to Friends of Humanity - because it is really humanity they are trying to save, tree's and plants will more or less be fine, and animals are going to go extinct, and new ones to take their place.

(just to clarify, I'm not suggesting we carry on as we have, or that hunting animals to extinction is acceptable, or we shouldn't try to greatly reduce fossil fuel usage... ).

[Rick Law]

So, we are very lucky to have evolved and developed.  Things around us changes all the time that can send us back to non-existence.  We are here hoping to keep the status quo, same as the dinosaurs did except they were probably not smart enough to hope.  We are smart enough to hope.  We better also know that status quo is not the nature of our earth, nor is status quo being the nature of the universe.  Change could happen in the blink of an eye (geologically speaking) and without prior warning.

The problem is the timescale compatibility. Less than hundred years for a human is a trivial amount of time to notice and/or worry about geological time scale changes.

First, before I get in deeper, let me explain why I see this as not off-topic:  Mars is an excellent platform for us to learn survival technologies.  I am not interested in individual survival, not national survival, but civilization size (and up) survival.  That means enough left to rebuild a civilization to similar level.  Civilization would be hundreds of years to < 10K years time scale.  Homosapian time scale would be 10K to 100K years.  Sapiens time scale would be up to single digit million years.

Most of the bad stuff almost always involve big swing in temperature.  In my estimation of the bad stuff, volcano, asteroid/comet strikes, and gigantic solar wind are more likely than other bad events.  Both volcano and asteroid strike have atmospheric and orbital dust proven to cause temperature swings.

In the last few glacial cycles, human has survived warming and cooling of ~10C to 15C without going extinct and without much technology.  We have no reason (yet) to expect run-away warming (Venus level temperature) or run-away cooling (back to snowball earth), so we don't have a major problem there (yet).

But while we had survived +/- 10C and did it without advance technology, we do not yet have ready-to-use technologies for continental-size civilization survival.  Solar storm caused 1989 Quebec Blackout clearly demonstrated how incapable we with our survival-technology and with technology-survival.  We need more robust technology, Mars can help us with that.

Less than a month ago (July 25, 2019), we failed to spot a 100 meter asteroid until it was almost passing by at less than earth-moon distance.  100 meter is twice the 50M Barringer meteor that created the 1.2 KM wide hole in Arizona, and volume would be 2**3 = 8x mass.  We can't let stuff like that happen and expect human as a species to survive.  Mars can help us with that also - it will force us to learn more about our surroundings, and give us another angle to view the sky.

If nuking Mars helps, by all means.  Right now, our Mars problem is we don't have Mars in our thoughts enough.  We need M&M, not the candy, but Moon and Mars.  Get back to the moon, get a colony there.  Moon is an excellent platform to get to Mars.  Get there and all the while our technology portfolio will keep getting bigger.

[coppercone2]

Disarmed means a military technician needs to do something physically to turn it on. You would need to send an astronaut along with it to insert a core for it to be considered disarmed.

Not so. There are a few reliable methods to remotely "activate" a bomb that don't require a human.
One method used in real weapons is a neutron-absorbing chain or wire that is would out of the core by a motor that is remote triggered. Once the chain/wire is removed the core is "armed". The bomb can't go critical with the neutron absorber in place.

thats like putting a interlock that can be remotely triggered.

I would argue that you need a telepresence with a skilled human operator using a finicky robotic arm, that is all just adding 1's and 0's to stuff, as soon as you put a motor to unscrew the thing poisoning the core, IMO its armed because a malfunction can arm it. But even that is not kosher..

increasing interlock complexity is not the same as requiring a human to go to the thing and plug something in on order

not to mention you can't spoof it, unless you spoof orders to the human.. the telemetry can be rerouted to display safe