Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Would you trust Musk with hundreds of H-bombs?
Elon Musk Wants to ‘Nuke Mars’ for Humans to Live—But There Is One Problem
By Sissi Cao • 08/16/19 12:17pm
Firing nuclear weapons at Mars might have been the last idea on Elon Musk’s mind before going to bed last night. “Nuke Mars!” the Tesla and SpaceX CEO tweeted Thursday night a few minutes past midnight, prompting a Twitter frenzy with over 100,000 likes by Friday morning.
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He later clarified that the plan is not to drop nuclear bombs on the surface of Mars, but in the sky above its two poles. Specifically, Musk wants to drop hydrogen bombs (which use fusion) into the atmosphere above the Martian poles every few seconds to release the carbon dioxide trapped inside Mars’ ice caps.
Because CO2 is a potent greenhouse gas, the more CO2 Mars can release into the atmosphere, the warmer the planet’s surface will be. The effect is similar to how the fusion process inside the sun produces energy to keep Earth warm.
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Read more: https://observer.com/2019/08/elon-musk-nuke-mars-colonization-plan-spacex/
The article goes on to cite a study which concludes that the plan is not feasible.
Inventory of CO2 available for terraforming Mars
Bruce M. Jakosky &
Christopher S. Edwards
Nature Astronomyvolume 2, pages 634–639 (2018)We revisit the idea of ‘terraforming’ Mars — changing its environment to be more Earth-like in a way that would allow terrestrial life (possibly including humans) to survive without the need for life-support systems — in the context of what we know about Mars today. We want to answer the question of whether it is possible to mobilize gases present on Mars today in non-atmospheric reservoirs by emplacing them into the atmosphere, and increase the pressure and temperature so that plants or humans could survive at the surface. We ask whether this can be achieved considering realistic estimates of available volatiles, without the use of new technology that is well beyond today’s capability. Recent observations have been made of the loss of Mars’s atmosphere to space by the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission probe and the Mars Express spacecraft, along with analyses of the abundance of carbon-bearing minerals and the occurrence of CO2 in polar ice from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. These results suggest that there is not enough CO2 remaining on Mars to provide significant greenhouse warming were the gas to be emplaced into the atmosphere; in addition, most of the CO2 gas in these reservoirs is not accessible and thus cannot be readily mobilized. As a result, we conclude that terraforming Mars is not possible using present-day technology.
Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-018-0529-6
Its probably worth having a closer look at Mars before dismissing the idea. The opportunity is potentially so enormous we shouldn’t write off the plan based on an aerial survey; a ground based survey might settle the question more definitively.
But even if this daring plan gets the go-ahead, I’m not keen on Musk being the person in charge of all those H-bombs.
“Technological Requirements for Terraforming Mars” … Christopher P. McKay. NASA Ames Research Center.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mfogg/zubrin.htm
Bringing asteroids to Mars and crashing them into the poles is another terraforming plan that has been around in NASA circles for decades. See the 1989 Integrated Space Plan that was produced during the George Bush Snr presidency.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56c78acd0442626b2590f5ea/t/59eef0e2bff200b5f0aa3491/1508831458842/integratedspaceplan2color.pdf
What if we find microbes there? Do we save the Martians, or risk destroying them with a very late heavy bombardment? With enough nickel-iron asteroids, we might restart the core’s magnetic field propagation, as well as increasing the planet’s gravity.
I don’t think microbes are a problem, they will adapt or they don’t. Same goes for any Martian life, the space age is in its infancy, evolution continues without end.
Musk should look for fossil fuels in Mars. We have already demonstrated that is an easy way of increasing atmospheric CO2. Then we can add the cows for the methane and some photosynthetic bacteria for the oxygen. Looks easy enough. Or at least more feasible than buying Greenland from the Danes.
“Or at least more feasible than buying Greenland from the Danes.”
Well, he had to ask. All they could say is “no”. 🙂
How about, instead of trying to give Mars an atmosphere, just building a bunch of air supported structures, AKA tennis domes. link link The linked story describes a 10 acre structure in Vancouver, BC.
Colonizing the asteroid belt might make more sense. Build cities inside the larger asteroids, with their available water, and mine the smaller ones.
Could also live underground on Mars as well, as it has a lot of submartian water ice.
I’ve read up a little on the supposed ‘Face on Cydonia’ and the pyramidal-like structures on Mars that some say,including former NASA employee Richard Hoagland, that these structures are not natural formations and that they were built by some mysterious advanced ancient civilization on Mars ions ago when the planet was habitable but came to earth in ancient times to escape a planet wide catastrophe on mars.
Can anybody help me out with this assessment because while the formations look interesting,I don’t know for sure they’re real.NASA says that they’re natural formations .I must admit they do look striking and it sort of makes you wonder what the fetch is going on.Please anyone out there ,share your thoughts and imput on this.I’d like to know what you guys think about all this.Thanks. – Dan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydonia_(Mars)#Later_imagery
From other angles at higher res, the “face” fades.
John,thanks for the link.Interesting stuff.
You’re welcome.
Do you think we really landed on the Moon?
Thanks D.
Absolutely.All these conspiracy theorist minded ‘flat earth’ narrow minded mentalities who say we never went to the moon is ludicrous.They’re living in LA LA land.It does an injustice to the memory of our astronauts,their amazing achievements and to all the hard work of the scientists, engineers and all the other technical people involved through the years leading up to man’s greatest achievement – landing man on the moon not once,but several times and safely returning him to earth.
Just checking. I have found that people who believe in one nutty thing often believe in multiple nutty things.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/08/15/moon-rock-mineralogy-qedirt/
Faking those Moon rocks is a lot more difficult than going to the Moon and getting them. And faking them so that they tally with rocks subsequently returned by Russian unmanned probes requires supernatural abilities.
Hoagland is so far a field even History Channel’s “Ancient Aliens” series does not even use him in any of their episodes.
I worry you self-label yourself as non-serious student by even mentioning his name. Information is out there as to the character of the Hoagland.
PS: Northern ice cap is lower in elevation than southern.
I’m surprised he didn’t propose a pipeline to pump CO2 from earth to mars and “fix” two planets!
I might actually support this project. On one condition. That Elon rides the first one down, like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove…
Mars has been hit by objects in its past resulting in more energy being released then what has been proposed. Apparently those past energy releases have failed to terraform Mars. To terraform Mars, what is needed is to first increase its mass of the planet to what the Earth is and then to add H2O , N2, and O2 to provide oceans and about twice the atmosphere that is on Earth. Mars would need a surface pressure that would make up for its greater distance from the sun. There is probably enough CO2 on the planet. We could probably get much of the required mass of material from the asteroid belt. Considering what it costs to send a robot lander to Mars, the cost is currently quite prohibitive.
The mass of the largest asteroid Ceres is 8.958 × 10^20 kg.
The mass of Mars is 6.39 × 10^23 kg. So we need a lot of asteroids to get Mars into the Earth class.
Yes, we may need to includes some of Jupiter’s moons adding to the expense.
Borrow one to give Mars a big moon, which might jump start its core again to produce a magnetosphere.
Or use Ceres in that role.
You would think that someone with Musk’s general technical expertise, enough to at least *communicate* with his engineer employees, would know better than to suggest such an ineffectual, dumb idea?
Mars isn’t some little place, it’s one of the major rocky planets, with a diameter half the Earth’s and a total land area comparable to the Earth’s land area! Even if Musk had a bunch of nukes and all the extra rocket power needed to throw them at Mars, the lasting effect on something that size is going to be a kind of fizzle, essentially.
… but then, the ‘oberver.com’ article in the head posting already said something like that ,,,
In addition to how much surface CO2 could be released into Mars’ atmosphere is whether its atmosphere has the proper temperature gradient to produce much greenhouse warming (GHW). Most GHW occurs, not because of the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, but how cold is the atmosphere at the emission height where IR emission from CO2 escapes to space, and that emission rate is slowed because of colder temperature. Earth has the required temperature gradient; does Mars? Further, there is the fact that most GHW on Earth is produced by water vapor, not CO2. And at Mars’ current temperature, it would be difficult to get much water vapor to dwell in its atmosphere.
Then there is the issue of total atmospheric pressure, even if considerable CO2 were released. Mars has lost most of its nitrogen, which makes up the majority of Earth’s atmosphere. Unless significant oxygen could be produced somehow, Mars’ atmosphere would remain that of a modest vacuum.
Also, there is the fact that the lack of a magnetic field on Mars does not prevent it s atmosphere from being stripped away by solar energetic irradiation. That is how Mars lost its nitrogen, much of its argon, and likely much of its water.
I forgot to mention that Mars’ thin atmosphere and lack of ozone (made on Earth from oxygen) does not filter out ultraviolet radiation. Living organic tissue, plant and animal, is very susceptible to damage from UV radiation.
The nukes could heat up Mars beyond merely melting the polar caps (the gasses from which would then retain the heat).
Think bigger, Elron!
Good summary, Mr. Worrall.
Might be a good idea, but it’s way too early to know.
The only advantage to this proposal I see is there is no chance of a nuclear retaliatory strike back at earth.
I remember watching a documentary on this topic. It was narrated by the famous personality, Tom Cruise. The results of the Martian retaliation were quite serious, as I recall.Some people maintain that the Martian action was a preemptive strike. Opinions vary.
In the not so distant future the human body will no longer be required, absorbed into an electrical entity. Terraforming not required.
H-bombs are fission-fusion bombs.
Funny how a nuclear apocalypse would trigger warming on Mars, while causing a “nuclear winter” on Earth. Who finds the basic mistake???
The “Nuclear winter” was never a serious proposition for reasons of basic atmospheric physics.
The only real “nuclear winter” we know of on Earth was after the Chicxulub impact.
Mars on the other hand has “nuclear winters” in the form of global dust storms.
Silly question but if a hydrogen bomb was exploded above the Martian surface, wouldn’t the resulting fission raise the local temperature to several million degrees and cause the immediate atmosphere to shoot off into space along with a not insignificant amount of the surface.
It doesn’t happen on Earth, does it?
It takes one big bang to accelerate an appreciable mass to escape velocity. Big asteroid impacts can do it, but hardly a measly H-bomb.
Earth Attacks!
Never mind Mars, terraform Venus by plankton-bombing it. The upper atmosphere is Earth temperature so the plankton can live up there whilst converting CO2 into O2 via photosynthesis. Then as the CO2 diminishes, the plankton will reach lower altitudes, until all done. Somebody calculate the time this would take, then figure out how to turbocharge the process.
Remember when people like Musk wrote science fiction, a field appropriate to their starry-eyed existence? Now rich idiots give him money to pretend he can create reality from fiction…..
Mars does not have the gravity or thermal input necessary to be terraformed. It is cooler because it is further away, it has less atmosphere because it is smaller and it is barren because it doesn’t have a large moon keeping it’s core molten. A molten core combined with solar wind will generate magnetosphere.
These must be addressed by brute force.
Make the sun 28% hotter.
Increase the mass 9x.
Bring a planetary body 1/80th that new mass along with to place into orbit.
Bung 43 billion terawatts of heat energy into the middle of the new mass.
If even just *one* of these items is skipped then a terraforming of Mars would fail.
From my understanding the internal planetary structure of Mars is also very different from Earth.
There seems to be no evidence of plate tectonics on the planet. Not sure “re-moltenizing” the core would perform the desire stated function of creating planetary electromagnetic dynamo. Even, if said thing was possible.
Hasn’t Musk heard that what happens on Earth stays on Earth.
Musk wants to send H-Bombs to Mars?
Didn’t he try to put a Tesla in Mars orbit? Where did it end up?
What does he have against the asteroid belt?
No, the Roadster sent up as a proxy payload on the first Falcon Heavy launch was never intended to go into Mars Orbit. It is currently in an orbit around the Sun which will, I believe, cross the orbit of Mars on every circuit. This was known by Musk and SpaceX before the launch. Criticizing someone based on misinformation is pretty sloppy; there are plenty of valid things to criticize Musk over – like nuking Mars. So I guess you got it half right.
It wasn’t meant to go into Mars orbit? Where did Musk say that before the launch and/or it didn’t orbit?
(Don’t misunderstand me. I’m asking for a correction of what may be a false impression on my part.)
I don’t have time to look for it now, but I originally read his comments (and official SpaceX pressers) at http://www.spaceflightnow.com. It makes sense if you think about it, because in order to go into Mars orbit you would need to have, at minimum, fuel left over for orbit insertion breaking, navigation, communications back to Earth, and power for all that. Clearly that would be much too expensive for a simple test launch where the object was to test the booster. Normally for such a test, a concrete weight would be used to simulate the payload. Elon just decided to use his personal Roadster on a whim.
Thanks, Paul.
I looked also and couldn’t find anything that said he intended to have his used car orbit Mars, just orbit the Sun.
But he still missed his mark regarding his intended mark.
Let him nuke the Sun. (Using his own money.)
I doubt it will notice. 😎
Galactus devourer of worlds agrees.
make it so.
Not only an idiotic idea, but dangerous as well.
Let’s just assume the CO2 and water ice trapped in the Martian poles could be released under such a plan (forgetting about the study documented above that says that is not feasible). H-bombs need fission bombs to start the thermonuclear process. That means they use radioactive components. Those thousands of bombs would need to be launched toward Mars from the surface of Earth using chemically powered rockets with a reliability of <1.0. Anyone keen on that idea?
Musk, you out there to respond?