After the Cold War instead of dismantling some of the Nuclear Weapons they fire them at Mars?

The Grand High War Master is sure to retaliate. We'd certainly be looking at an all out cylinder bombardment and heat ray attacks on several cities.
 
If @Histor32 above is correct, the global nuclear arsenal is 36E3 nukes big.

If @Rufus Shinra above is correct, that global nuclear arsenal could release 6E18 joules, which is big enough to melt 20E12 kg of water ice, which is 20 cubic kilometres of water ice

If the wiki article "Water on Mars" is correct, Mars has five million cubic kilometres of water ice.

So I think there's not enough energy to have anything close to the effect the OP requires.
Firmly agree the idea is not grounded in real life..
 
Instead of dismantling some of the nuclear weapons and dealing with deposing of them they just fire some of them at Mars polar caps to see if it will help terraform it. World leaders just think this is a more productive way to get rid of some of them. It might show terraforming results over 100 years if they do it over the next few decades. They can't get there effectively in person yet for probably the next half century at least so why not and the radiation should die down by the time they do get there. Hopefully by the time they get there the caps will have melted to create water and caused a greenhouse warming effect on the planet. If it doesn't it is still better to send the nukes there then have nuclear waste on earth. Also it could still provide useful scientific research and knowledge. Thoughts?
Because it's an incredibly silly idea.
Firstly ICBMs don't even reach Earth orbit, let alone posses the deltaV needed to reach Mars.
Secondly they'd have no terraforming effect.
Finally there would be an accident.
 
At work.

Just a point.

I know the energy gradient is higher to acheive BUT would it not be better to dispose of said atomic emitters into Venus?

My memory fails me atm, I think it was a Youtube vid, which explained that the energy etc expendedinto the Venusian atmosphere would be good at helping reduce the current 'Greenhouse' CO2 effect.

My addendum would be to modify said devices into 'Casaba Howitzer' type detonators to try ans add spin to said rotational period.

Thoughts?
 
At work.

Just a point.

I know the energy gradient is higher to acheive BUT would it not be better to dispose of said atomic emitters into Venus?

My memory fails me atm, I think it was a Youtube vid, which explained that the energy etc expendedinto the Venusian atmosphere would be good at helping reduce the current 'Greenhouse' CO2 effect.

My addendum would be to modify said devices into 'Casaba Howitzer' type detonators to try ans add spin to said rotational period.

Thoughts?
As I explained, the entirety of the nuclear arsenal of our nations is little more than a half-fart from an elderly housefly when it comes to atmospheric systems. Actually, probably less than said half-fart.
 
At work.

As I explained, the entirety of the nuclear arsenal of our nations is little more than a half-fart from an elderly housefly when it comes to atmospheric systems. Actually, probably less than said half-fart.

Oh yes! Definately , indubitably.

However 'Waste not, want not.' and all that. :)

I mean..... other than the items just 'Sitting on the shelf' untill the elements decay and they have to be rebuilt back up to snuff.

The OP did ask about 'Recycling' said items and dropping them on Mars.

My point is that Venus has better options for terra-forming due to it being closer to Earth in its surface gravity.

It's the slow 'Top spin' that's a bit of a bugger to deal with if we do thin out the clouds. :)

Hence why I asked about adding energy to help increase Venus' wayward rotation.
 

Glyndwr01

Banned
Want to Terra form Mars, you will need a few things such as how to make the atmosphere usable, Increase the temp, water, possibly soil that is usable.

But nuking Mars with 36,000 nukes isn't going to do much

Hell krakatoa was like a 200 megaton bomb going off at once. And honestly compared to the rest of the planet it was like a pimple.

Yellowstone was magnaritudes beyond that on a whole other scale.


Terra forming Mars will require, solar arrays, mirrors, diverting lots of comets, and will take an incredibly long time.

Mankind simply doesn't have to capability to do that on another world.

Hell we have only done it here. Because well . We live here and even then it's taken a fair amount of time and 10 billion people working daily at it

Biggest problem with terraforming Mars is it does not have a molten rotating core!
 
Biggest problem with terraforming Mars is it does not have a molten rotating core!
I saw a movie that used two nukes to restart a core... Maybe we could use 4 :=)

Or we could just move a planet to crash into it and in say 2 million years, presto magic :)

But the core is an issue, as well as it seems the soil/sand isn't prime meterial as well.

Not counting that the air pressure is a wee bit low and the temperatures while not bad are not exactly great as well.

:)
 
At work.

Just a point.

I know the energy gradient is higher to acheive BUT would it not be better to dispose of said atomic emitters into Venus?

My memory fails me atm, I think it was a Youtube vid, which explained that the energy etc expendedinto the Venusian atmosphere would be good at helping reduce the current 'Greenhouse' CO2 effect.

My addendum would be to modify said devices into 'Casaba Howitzer' type detonators to try ans add spin to said rotational period.

Thoughts?

Venus is certainly a better choice for terraforming than Mars, and potentially wouldn't take more than 1-2,000 years, but a bunch of nukes won't do anything, unless you can send them all to some asteroids/comets to get them to collide with Venus. That would certainly do something (although you need a couple hundred comets IIRC to do any real damage), although it's best for scientific analysis for future terraforming efforts plus just learning more about Venus in general.

Unfortunately, we once again run into the Outer Space Treaty forbidding nuclear explosions in space. Maybe this could be a joint US/Russia/ESA mission in the 90s/early 00s, following a renegotiation of the relevant treaties. But the sheer costs of it would mean you could only dispose of a few nuclear weapons in this manner.

My point is that Venus has better options for terra-forming due to it being closer to Earth in its surface gravity.

It's the slow 'Top spin' that's a bit of a bugger to deal with if we do thin out the clouds. :)

Hence why I asked about adding energy to help increase Venus' wayward rotation.

That, and the energy it receives from the Sun is about twice as much as Earth and over 5 times more than Mars. Venus's spin isn't really a problem, though, since any habitats in the atmosphere can drift with the winds and you'll need mirrors to terraform Venus anyway which can make an artificial 24 hour day. But nukes are pretty worthless for speeding up the planet. Best proposal I've seen in terms of that is shooting billions of containers full of hydrogen (since Venus is low on hydrogen and we need that to make oceans) at very high speeds to hit the planet at the right angle, over and over again for decades/centuries. Each container would possess more destructive force on impact than any of our nukes do. The huge quantities of hydrogen come from the gas giants.
 
And lets all be happy that not 3.5 Billion years ago someone decided to try this on the earth with the reasoning that killing microbes is not a bad idea.
 
Just because something doesn't make a lick of sense doesn't make it ASB.
True look at a lot of stuff the Nazis did. If you told someone that was possible in 1912 they would call you crazy. Some powerful people have done insane things. The USSR and US even shot nukes into the atmosphere to not be out done by each other until UN ask them to stop. Both the USSR and US had a idea at one time about shooting nukes at the moon. Governments and leaders will do stupid things without always thinking it through sometimes. The US government even fed special needs kids radiated food in the 50s to see the effects of it.
 
True look at a lot of stuff the Nazis did. If you told someone that was possible in 1912 they would call you crazy. Some powerful people have done insane things. The USSR and US even shot nukes into the atmosphere to not be out done by each other until UN ask them to stop. Both the USSR and US had a idea at one time about shooting nukes at the moon. Governments and leaders will do stupid things without always thinking it through sometimes. The US government even fed special needs kids radiated food in the 50s to see the effects of it.
When the accountants start asking why the flying fuck are some shitty fireworks sent with a budget higher than the Apollo program for no reason whatsoever and ask said questions on live TV, that idiocy stops. Your idea was debunked, now do like Elsa and... let it go.
 

SsgtC

Banned
The plan was proposed by elon musk. Also I personally don't consider microorganism on the same level as complex life forms so I would not care much if they contaminated them. I would only worry about contaminating a ocean or complex life but all this is just my opinion.
The bolded section is where your argument lost what little credibility it had. Musk is an excellent hype man and a marketing genius, but has no grasp at all of how shit actually works
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
I would think the fact that it couldn't be done makes it ASB.
That isn't what makes things ASB, otherwise Sealion threads would go there.

ASB requires something on the order of divine intervention, the altering a physical laws, geologic changes, time travel, etc.
 
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