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

Sources, BTW:
Oh and, BTW, to get 1 gram of water from 0 °C to 100 °C, you need to give it 418 Joule. And then you need more than 1.6 kiloJoule, IIRC, to turn that same gram of water at 100 °C to a gram of steam at 100°C. So your energy expenditure isn't going to turn a lot of ice to steam.
Note that any water on the surface of Mars will be under far less pressure than under Earth's atmosphere, so it wouldn't need to be so hot to turn gaseous.
 
Note that any water on the surface of Mars will be under far less pressure than under Earth's atmosphere, so it wouldn't need to be so hot to turn gaseous.
The enthalpy of vaporization will still be a bitch. And you need to melt the stuff. The important thing to remember is that the ideas of a geek who use his money to roleplay a comic book supervillain are not necessarly scientifically viable.
 
Detonating a few nukes on Mars would provide a lot of interesting data for scientific study. It is possible that detonating a large explosive on Mars would reveal new information about the composition of its crust and icy poles.
 
Note that any water on the surface of Mars will be under far less pressure than under Earth's atmosphere, so it wouldn't need to be so hot to turn gaseous.

That works against the concept not for it. Yes the water would 'vaporize' easier but it would also (being hot and vapor) rise to the limits of the atmosphere where the majority would be broken by intense ultraviolet light from the sun into hydrogen, (which would escape into space) and oxygen which would fall to the surface and be absorbed by the oxidizing soil. Net result is the reduction of available "water" on Mars with a 'gain' of more 'rusted' soil. This is literally not "rocket science" but is basic physics and chemistry. There is a valid reason why no competent Mars scientist or activist has suggested such a silly idea and why Musk has.

Randy
 
Note that any water on the surface of Mars will be under far less pressure than under Earth's atmosphere, so it wouldn't need to be so hot to turn gaseous.

That works against the concept not for it. Yes the water would 'vaporize' easier but it would also (being hot and vapor) rise to the limits of the atmosphere where the majority would be broken by intense ultraviolet light from the sun into hydrogen, (which would escape into space) and oxygen which would fall to the surface and be absorbed by the oxidizing soil. Net result is the reduction of available "water" on Mars with a 'gain' of more 'rusted' soil. This is literally not "rocket science" but is basic physics and chemistry. There is a valid reason why no competent Mars scientist or activist has suggested such a silly idea and why Musk has.

Randy
 
Detonating a few nukes on Mars would provide a lot of interesting data for scientific study. It is possible that detonating a large explosive on Mars would reveal new information about the composition of its crust and icy poles.

Sending a 'simple' impact (kinetic velocity) probe (aka a Mars version of Lacrosse or MIP) would yield better data with less contamination of the ejecta plume.

Randy
 
Modern Imperialism wrote:
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?

Doesn’t work that way and we happened to know it given we did testing in the late 50s to confirm the theories. (“Over” as Musk has since said would not work as you’d need ‘giga-ton’ levels for anything over a couple of dozen miles to be effective) Secondly you’d need several Saturn-V equivalent launch vehicles to send the nukes to Mars AND it’s not all that likely they would work once they got there. (Nuclear weapons are badly effected by radiation both the control circuits and the nuclear material itself) You’d need to arrange for the nukes to arrive, (and detonate) only a few miles above the ice caps to have any effect and both the energy release and atmospheric effects of the available weapons would be minimal.

Musk has since tried to backtrack what he said but even his ‘new’ idea of “small pulsing suns” is pretty silly given we don’t know how to sustain the needed nuclear fusion reactions and (again) using thermonuclear weapons is not going to be effective enough for the reaction he wants.

Randy
 
Peebothuhlu wrote:
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 expended into 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?

If it’s the one I’m thinking of the video proposed using nukes near the edge of the atmosphere to ‘blow off’ chunks of it to reduce the atmosphere. And it won’t work. The ‘idea’ was to reduce the atmosphere to a lower level but doing so would require enough bombs (energy) that the whole surface of Venus would be irradiated lava to even get any notable effect.

“Casaba Howitzer” is actually worse as it is effectively a ‘directed energy weapon’ it would punch right through the atmosphere with negligible effect and while it would impact the surface it would not impart significant energy to effect Venus’ spin.

Oh yes! Definitely , indubitably.

However 'Waste not, want not.' and all that.
raw


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

Not how it works though. The only elements that ‘decay’ are some of the ‘booster’ elements which have to be replaced every couple of years. The other ‘replacement’ component is the high explosives which degrade over time due to age and radiation and some of the circuitry which degrades due to radiation.

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.
raw


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

Despite it tending to be a “thing” associated with nuclear weapons, (from what I can gather being a ‘staple’ of bad science fiction in the 50s and 60s) not even the Tsar Bomb, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba, which was only 50 megatons as opposed to its theoretical 100 megatons or 1 gigaton yield) wasn’t powerful enough to marginally effect the Earth’s rotation and/or tilt. You’d need thousands of (full yield) bombs to even marginally effect Venus’ rotation or atmosphere. And most weapons are only a few kilotons rather than megatons, let alone gigatons.

Randy
 

CalBear

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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.
Ease back.
 

CalBear

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Damn, I am glad AH.com attracted the very best xenobiologist of the planet, who knows how life can or cannot exist outside our planet in any possible form. It's a really good thing this field of research has been settled by your forum post, we won't need all these researchers mooching money out of taxes now. And I'm so glad to also learn here the super-duper secret that the total nuclear arsenal of humankind is actually powerful enough to initiate a terraforming process on a planet with so little atmosphere orbiting much further from the Sun than Earth.

Are you, by any chance, a world-class specialist in a few other fields to turn decades of research over its head elsewhere too?
Dial back the snark.
 
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