Elon Musk - Dropping Nuclear on the poles of mars to terraform - Actually genius.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

So the topic of people living in mars came up and Elon talked about how there's 2 ways to terraform mars to habitable environment, that is to heat up mars to create atmosphere. 

 

the fastest way was to drop nuclear bombs on both poles of the mars, that's actually a nice alternative, the more you think the more it make sense. 

 

TO BE CLEAR, this is not ELON didn't come up with the idea.

if the video is blocked in your country (outside of US) use either Zenmate and set it to US or Proxymate and download the youtube addon. 

 

ALSO,this is the first time i'm seeing Elon, never seen him before. didn't imagine him older as he looks in the video.

 

Adverse effects -

 

You have to wait 1,000 years for the radiation to reach levels where Mars would be habitable.

 

If there is any kind of life on Mars, anywhere, there probably won't be when you're done. Maybe in a billion years or so some microbes would have evolved into something intelligent.

 

The benefits -  

 

In theory, Mars would be habitable in 1,000 years. Which is not really that long compared to when other plans would create a habitable Mars. Certainly much shorter than "never", which is the current timeframe.

It's the cheapest possible way to terraform Mars.

 

We'd be getting rid of a bunch of nuclear weapons.

 

If there is any kind of life on Mars, there probably won't be when you're done. So introducing terrestrial life forms incurs no risk of killing anything off (because we already killed it) or having it get killed by local life forms (since current theory seems to be that any microbial life on Mars originated on Earth this is at least remotely possible).
 

 

 

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For more understanding i found an nice article explaining in detail

 

Once A Wet, Warm Planet
 

To understand how Mars might have a habitable future, it's important to understand a bit about Mars' past.

 

Mars' geological history is divided into three ages, which are from oldest to youngest the Noachian, the Hesperian and the Amazonian. The Noachian epoch, ranging from about 4.1 to about 3.7 billion years ago, is characterized by heavy asteroid bombardment and abundant surface water. This is the so-called "warm, wet" period. The Hesperian, ranging from 3.7 to somewhere between 1.7 and 3.0 billion years ago, is characterized by heavy volcanic activity and massive water flow. The Hesperian was an intermediate age between the warm wet Noachian and the the cold, dry Amazonian, which is the Mars we know today as being not the kind of place to raise a kid.

 

It is this unique history that makes Mars such an attractive candidate for terraforming. Unlike the other bodies in the solar system, Mars has a history (ancient though it may be) of being far more Earthlike than anywhere else in the solar system short of Earth itself. The proposals for terraforming the other bodies in the solar system are all highly theoretical, involving massive energy flux and near magical technology like changing planetary orbits, speeding up planetary rotation, sequestering hundreds of bars of atmosphere (1 bar = atmospheric pressure at sea level on Earth) or constructing planet-wrapping Dyson spheres to prevent atmospheric escape.

 

By contrast, Mars, with its 24 hr 37 minute day, relatively abundant water ice and history of warmer wetter conditions seems more within the grasp of near future human civilization to terraform. Add to this the fact that not-too-crazily-optimistic estimates of Mars' current conditions suggest that increasing the atmospheric pressure and temperature to more life friendly conditions may be more a matter of a nudge than a shove and it's easy to see why this world holds such fascination for would-be planetary engineers.

 

Jumpstarting a Greenhouse Effect

 

Okay, so how do we warm up the Martian poles? Several approaches have been suggested, from spreading dark material on the poles to lower their albedo, to industrial ice farming to good old fashioned thermonuclear detonations. In Technological Requirements For Terraforming Mars, Chris McKay and Robert Zubrin suggest a more elegant scheme: orbital mirrors. Constructed in high orbit above Mars, the mirrors would reflect sunlight back onto Martian surface. In McKay and Zubrin's model, the mirrors would not exactly orbit Mars. Rather, they would reside directly above Mars' night side, held in place by a balance of forces between Mars' gravity and the solar light pressure. The orbital mirror plan has the advantage of continually introducing extra heat into the Martian climate long after the poles have sublimated. Even in the later stages of terraforming, Mars' distance from the sun will make the increased insolation from the orbital mirrors desirable.

 

Another key to stabilizing Mars atmosphere is the activation of its hydrosphere. Water promotes ecopoiesis not only by providing a vital element for life, but also stabilizing the climate. Water retains heat and reduces the drastic swings in temperature over the diurnal cycle and water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas which will help hold thermal energy in the atmosphere.

 

Current models suggest that there are large quantities of water stored in permafrost aquifers. Release of this water will require a good deal more energy than will be required for the release of carbon dioxide. Nuclear mining, even with high-yield devices, would produce far too much fallout. Another approach to releasing Martian water is controlled asteroid impact, simulating the hydrosphere-promoting bombardment of the Noachian epoch. This would require a great deal of energy, however, and would be very difficult to control with any precision. Zubrin and McKay suggest that the orbital mirrors used to melt the poles could be refocused on smaller areas of the permafrost. Water melted out of the southern highland permafrost would be directed into the northern lowlands and into the Hellas basin in the south to create shallow planetary seas.

 

The Building Blocks of a New Environment

 

So the good news is that much of the material we need to give Mars a thicker, warmer atmosphere are still present on its surface and buried in its regolith. Despite these promising circumstances, however, it's clear that one does not simply walk into terraforming Mars. In his definitive text, Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments, Martyn Fogg laid out five critical challenges:

 

1. The surface temperature must be raised

2. The atmospheric pressure must be increased

3. The chemical composition of the atmosphere must be changed

4. The surface must be made wet

5. The surface flux of UV radiation must be reduced

 

Fogg suggests that the engineering of the Martian environment will proceed through ecopoisis, a term coined by Robert Haynes for the process of making a planet more hospitable for primitive microbial life, to something approaching full terraforming, in which the climate of Mars will more closely resemble that of Earth's.

 

The most promising approach to dealing with the first two items is to reverse the runaway freezeout of the Martian atmosphere by initiating a runaway greenhouse effect. Current atmospheric pressure on Mars is between 6 and 7 millibars at low elevations. That's less than 1% of Earth's pressure at sea level. The inventory of frozen carbon dioxide remaining on the Martian surface is estimated to be between one hundred and one thousand millibars, with a good deal of it existing frozen on the surface at the poles and the rest underground in the regolithic permafrost. Increasing atmospheric pressure and temperature is a matter of warming the poles to the point where they sublimate into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, being a greenhouse gas, will retain more of the sun's heat and promote the melting of yet more carbon dioxide out of the planetary regolith, which will retain more heat and promote further degassing. This concept of creating a runaway greenhouse effect to release Mars' reserves of frozen carbon dioxide has become known as "the standard paradigm" of Martian ecopoiesis.

 

Making the Air Breathable

 

These alterations to the Martian climate would go a far way to making Mars more habitable for microbial life and more easily explorable by humans, but the remaining challenges of reducing UV flux and making the atmosphere breathable will require considerably more time and effort. Mars' thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide would block a good deal of the incoming UV radiation, but carbon dioxide does not significantly block UV radiation in the 190 nm to 300 nm range. Current UV flux on Mars is about 6 Watts per square meter, which would be enough to kill most organisms. The plan here would be to introduce highly UV resistant lifeforms, such as lichen, directly on the surface or to grow cyanobacteria in soil which would protect the organisms from UV, and in mats on the newly formed seas, with layers of dead cells protecting the living cells beneath. These organisms would release oxygen which would slowly build to breathable levels and would form ozone in the upper atmosphere, which would reduce the harmful 190-300 nm UV flux. These organisms would also provide nutrients to help build the Martian soil up to the point where it could support more complex plants.

 

The difficulty with this biogenic approach to ozone formation is that Mars simply doesn't have enough nitrogen to support large scale life. Atmospheric nitrogen is at trace levels. Contrast this with Earth where 78% of the atmosphere is nitrogen. Nitrogen is an essential element for life and its scarcity on Mars presents a serious challenge to ecopoiesis. Unlike carbon dioxide, which disappeared both into carbonates and frozen carbon dioxide ice, Mars' nitrogen is pretty much all stored in mineral form as nitrates in the regolith, which means that the energy required to free Mars' reserves of nitrogen will be massive. It may be possible to introduce significant atmospheric nitrogen from extraplanetary sources, such as ammonia rich asteroids. One especially fun idea would be to introduce large quantities of nitrous oxide (yup, WhipIt good!), which is a powerful greenhouse gas and would help warm the planet. Unfortunately, N2O photodisassociates rapidly in the presence of UV. But once we get that ozone up and running, it's party time on Mars!

 

Another problem with making the Martian atmosphere breathable is that even with adequate levels of oxygen, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide above 5% are lethal to humans. If the inventory of CO2 turns out to be on the low end of the estimated range, Fogg suggests a more modest approach to CO2 release than the standard paradigm coupled with the rapid introduction of nitrogen. This process would be slower in generating initial ecopoiesis but would leave Mars with an atmosphere that would be more conducive to full terraforming.
 

Finally, if we cannot restart Mars' volcanoes or otherwise promote geological demineralization of bound volatiles, a terraformed Mars will have to be maintained with constant re-introduction of volatile elements and restoration of the atmosphere lost to the solar wind. But since the loss of atmosphere to space and to mineralization would take place over centuries, we might have time for some more radical planetary engineering, such at the construction of deep moholes to release gas trapped in the Martian crust and even the construction of an artificial moon to provide tidal force to reactivate Mars' geological process.

 

It may, however, be ultimately impossible to fine tune Mars' climate to support human life as we know it today. In the centuries it takes for us to get to this point, it might just be easier to engineer humans to tolerate the conditions that we can produce on Mars. As Kim Stanley Robinson pointed out in his Mars Trilogy, humans do not just terraform Mars, Mars aeroforms us.

Sources : 

 

http://io9.com/5868115/how-we-will-terraform-mars

[pjm0925]

Just tell Fox news to start reporting that we need to go to war with Mars and we'll get public support.

[Real_PhillBert]

Might as well start terraforming it now. 

[Sauron]

Orbital mirrors seem to me like a much better solution than nuking the poles and having to wait 1000 years. But that would assume somebody cares for space exploration. Instead we're too busy buying weapons instead of even attempting a lunar base.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

Orbital mirrors method 
 
Make a Venus orbiter. The job of the orbiter would be to collect Venus' greenhouse gases (mostly CO2) then cool and compress them into dry ice projectiles. The orbiter would fire the projectiles at Mars as conditions were right.
 
 
The projectiles would crash on Mars, sending more CO2 into the Martian atmosphere. Gradually, more heat would be retained and Mars' own CO2 ice would start turning to gas, speeding the process.
 
 
Meanwhile, Venus would be cooling as CO2 was removed. Once enough gas was sent to Mars, Venus would still be too hot, but the orbiter could continue collecting and firing CO2 blobs at Mercury, the sun, Jupiter, deep space, whatever.

[ZetZet]

But, but, but Mars has no magnetic field and the gravity is too low for sustained human life as far as we know...

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

But, but, but Mars has no magnetic field and the gravity is too low for sustained human life as far as we know...

that will be a hurdle, but evolution should take over due time if humans live there long enough for our DNA to make changes.  

[ZetZet]

that will be a hurdle, but one evolution should take over due time if humans live there long enough for our DNA to make changes.  

Evolution needs thousands of years. If only Venus didn't spin the wrong way, we could terraform Venus 

[spartaman64]

Evolution needs thousands of years.

we can make the changes ourselves then 

Alt+MAlt+N

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

Evolution needs thousands of years.

the catch was, if we live long enough.

We're alreayd changing, humans born in the now were the not the same genetic make up of the people who were born 500 years ago, and industrial revolution has a lot to blame for that, and we are evolving as it is. you might not know it, but its happening everywhere. 

[spartaman64]

But, but, but Mars has no magnetic field and the gravity is too low for sustained human life as far as we know...

the gravity isnt much of a problem but people will need to stay indoors all of the time

[ZetZet]

 

we can make the changes ourselves then 

Alt+MAlt+N

 

genetic mutation tests on humans are banned though and probably will never be unbanned.

 

 

the catch was, if we live long enough.

We're alreayd changing, humans born in the now were the not the same genetic make up of the people who were born 500 years ago, and industrial revolution has a lot to blame for that, and we are evolving as it is. you might not know it, but its happening everywhere. 

Oh I know that evolution is happening, for example more and more humans are born without wisdom teeth.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

the gravity isnt much of a problem but people will need to stay indoors all of the time

as with time , bones degrade and cause bone matter loss, but that can be avoided by exercising, but over time, we would be adjusted to the gravity as our body mass increased and less bone density to support it, imagine if you spent a day in swimming pool, you would be adjusted to that and you'd feel more weight as you get off the pool, where in fact you just got adjusted to it. 

i'm not saying that will happen in 100 years, but it will happen in a 1000+ if we continue to live and reproduce on mars.

[spartaman64]

as with time , bones degrade and cause bone matter loss, but that can be avoided by exercising, but over time, we would be adjusted to the gravity as our body mass increased and less bone density to support it, imagine if you spent a day in swimming pool, you would be adjusted to that and you'd feel more weight as you get off the pool, where in fact you just got adjusted to it. 

i'm not saying that will happen in 100 years, but it will happen in a 1000+ if we continue to live and reproduce on mars.

yes if you return to earth you will be too weak but if you stay on mars it should be fine

Alt+MAlt+N

[Me1z]

Alt+MAlt+N

 

:huh: I don't understand, what does this mean? My keyboard doesn't have a MAlt key. 

[Thunderpup]

Problem with nuking the polls and making it unlivable for 1000 years is what if in 100 years we develop the technology to do it without the huge side effect? We would have nuked ourselves in the foot.

 

Also the magnetic field problem is still a problem.  The reason mars hasn't much of an atmosphere right now is because of the lack of an EM field. Whatever progress we make would be stripped away eventually. 

Here is a good video on the subject.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F1iWp4Gl3k

 

 

 

Evolution needs thousands of years. If only Venus didn't spin the wrong way, we could terraform Venus 

Venus spinning the wrong way isn't that much of a problem.  The fact that it takes 224 earth days for venus to rotate once is the problem.

Well that an the pressure cooker atmosphere where it rains acid, and crushes steel.

[ZetZet]

Venus spinning the wrong way isn't that much of a problem.  The fact that it takes 224 earth days for venus to rotate once is the problem.

Well that an the pressure cooker atmosphere where it rains acid, and crushes steel.

Yeah, well I didn't consider that, I thought it takes Venus longer because it spins the wrong way AND slowly. Apparently it's just slowly.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

Problem with nuking the polls and making it unlivable for 1000 years is what if in 100 years we develop the technology to do it without the huge side effect? We would have nuked ourselves in the foot.

 

mentioned on the post. 

 

 

 

the fastest way was to drop nuclear bombs on both poles of the mars, that's actually a nice alternative, the more you think the more it make sense. 

 

Adverse effects -

 

You have to wait 1,000 years for the radiation to reach levels where Mars would be habitable.

 

If there is any kind of life on Mars, anywhere, there probably won't be when you're done. Maybe in a billion years or so some microbes would have evolved into something intelligent.

 

[techswede]

Orbital mirrors seem to me like a much better solution than nuking the poles and having to wait 1000 years. But that would assume somebody cares for space exploration. Instead we're too busy buying weapons instead of even attempting a lunar base.

Still not getting why we don't have a lunar colony..

[Tech_Dreamer]

won't there be radiation still lingering afterwards? assuming this is a heavy payload for complete terraforming, we go there we will look like an alien in 2-3 years

[KemoKa]

Just tell Fox news to start reporting that we need to go to war with Mars and we'll get public support.

Not even that, just say that there's oil on mars, tons and tons of oil on mars. We'll be there tomorrow.

[KemoKa]

The problem I have with this is that even if you could restart Mars' volcanic system, from what I understand, Mars has a really weak magnetic field. Rovers that go there have to have hardened circuitry and redundant systems in order to not die on mars. This isn't going to be like Core where we use nukes to restart the magnetic field. We're going to have to figure out a way to shield mars from the radiation coming from the sun. Maybe huge solar-powered electromagnets in orbit?

[Thunderpup]

Yeah, well I didn't consider that, I thought it takes Venus longer because it spins the wrong way AND slowly. Apparently it's just slowly.

 

Well technically its still wrong way as well.  Scientist believe the reason Venus spins backwards, and soo slowly, is that something hit the planet a very long time ago and basically flipped it as it is upside down.  This caused it to spin in reverse as well as slow down.

 

That being said PBS has a really good video about colonizing venus using airships to stay aloft just above cloud level. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ5KV3rzuag

[Trik'Stari]

The problem I have with this is that even if you could restart Mars' volcanic system, from what I understand, Mars has a really weak magnetic field. Rovers that go there have to have hardened circuitry and redundant systems in order to not die on mars. This isn't going to be like Core where we use nukes to restart the magnetic field. We're going to have to figure out a way to shield mars from the radiation coming from the sun. Maybe huge solar-powered electromagnets in orbit?

I question whether or not mars has the density and gravity to keep a viable atmosphere.

[KemoKa]

I question whether or not mars has the density and gravity to keep a viable atmosphere.

This is true, although there's quite a lot of evidence that it was once capable of supporting life. Mars got its atmosphere smashed off it by an asteroid or something. The thing is, we need to keep the atmospheric pressure at 475 millibars at the very least. That's the lowest atmospheric pressure that humans can permanently live at. And whoever you send has to be accustomed to that level of pressure. I don't know if Mars can support that. Where are we going to get all that gas from? because it's not coming from space. Mars is pretty freaking huge, and sits at about 7.5 millibars.