A Question about terraforming Mars

[Polishguy]

Something that occured to me. If a group of nations, such as the US and Russia, were to decide to terraform Mars, might nuclear bombs be a suitable method? I mean, detonate a dozen of them on the Southern Ice Cap and use the heat to release all that CO2. The question is in two parts. First, how many megatons of explosive would be necessary to achieve the goal of releasing enough CO2 to increase atmospheric pressure to 170 millibars, and second, how much radiation would be released?

 

[conan1975]

i'm no physicist but my inclination would be that the atmosphere is very slight on mars, and gravity very low (only double the moon) and I think it would not generate an atmosphere: i.e. if u imagine doing this on the moon you're maybe going to see where i am going on this..

you see, you set off a bomb (nuclear or otherwise) it'd probably blow outwards into space with no real effort: i.e. mars has 0.5% the amount of "gas" of earth to begin with and 1/3rd the gravity.. what's to stop things just blowing atmosphere into space what you set something off?

I say this because it's highly likely that mars lost it's atmosphere partly when it was smacked into by some object.

if you wanted to "cook" the CO2 out of the poles the best way would be a nuclear reactor not a bomb, and probably it's better to be an orbital laser than a bomb, and it's probably not enough CO2 .. i.e. I think that that mars' current atmosphere is a equilibrium derivation of it's low gravity and if you "add" to it it may well "leech" whatever you put in into space.

 

[raptorborealis]

A few dozen nuclear bombs would not even be a pin prick. Not a mote on a dot.

 

[Polishguy]

Then what of a hundred 40 megatonne bombs set off under the ice cap? Or more? What about the entire American and Russian nuclear arsenals set off under the Southern Ice Cap on Mars? Would any amount of explosive have an effect?

 

[Gravity_Ray]

Something that occured to me. If a group of nations, such as the US and Russia, were to decide to terraform Mars, might nuclear bombs be a suitable method? I mean, detonate a dozen of them on the Southern Ice Cap and use the heat to release all that CO2. The question is in two parts. First, how many megatons of explosive would be necessary to achieve the goal of releasing enough CO2 to increase atmospheric pressure to 170 millibars, and second, how much radiation would be released?

Nuclear bombs will not be helpful for what you are thinking. Actually most of an atmosphere is nitrogen not CO2 (nitrogen makes up almost 80% of Earths atmosphere). An idea that may help is to move a few big asteroids that are made mostly of nitrogen into an impact with Mars.

Whatever you do, the scale here is massive and nothing will be a quick fix. The fastest terraforming Mars ideas will take about 300 years.

 

[CAllenDoudna]

how much radiation would be released?

Enough to kill whatever life you planned on introducing. :roll:

 

[Valcan]

how much radiation would be released?

Enough to kill whatever life you planned on introducing. :roll:

Accually depending on the weapon used it wouldnt be that bad. You have to remember both sides worked on tactical nukes in the cold war low rad fallout weapons not as big but...

A single nuke isnt the world killing boogyman so many have made it out to be. Ever been to hiroshima? Many have been living their for awhile now. PLants grow etc and that was a very dirty poor nuke.

But nukes wouldnt work anyways..

If you plan on colonizing mars your best bet is to seal off such features as canyons or craters and such pump in the air,water etc and begin to colonize there in a few decades it might be easier to do something more drastic and meaningful but for awhile atleast mars is gonna be a land of colonies.

 

[SteveCNC]

I thought the problem with trying to make Mars have an atmosphere was it's magnetic field needed to be kick started first or the solar wind would strip any atmosphere you did create .

 

[JonClarke]

There seems to be a Strangelovian mind set that thinks than any problem can be solved with sufficient megatonnage. It appears to be especially prevalent in Holywood and amongst some space enthusiasts.

 

[aaron38]

I thought the problem with trying to make Mars have an atmosphere was it's magnetic field needed to be kick started first or the solar wind would strip any atmosphere you did create .

There's no way to kick start the mag field, it is what it is. Over very long time scales yes this is a problem, but not in the short term. By redirecting comets to burn up in the atmosphere and getting the polar caps and regolith to outgas, a significant pressure atmosphere could be created that would last for thousands of years before the solar wind striped it away. Comet bodies would be needed from time to time to replenish it, but the oort cloud has them to spare.

 

[raptorborealis]

There seems to be a Strangelovian mind set that thinks than any problem can be solved with sufficient megatonnage. It appears to be especially prevalent in Holywood and amongst some space enthusiasts.

True. it it reinforces a myopic view and perpetuates ignorance of just how 'big' geological events, planets, etc. are.

'Nuclear' bombs are pretty puny on Nature's scale. Mt St Helens had over 20,000 minor shocks before the eruption....each shock one releasing more energy than several nuclear bombs.

 

[SteveCNC]

What would be the point of terra forming mars if you don't re-heat the core to start the magnetic field again , pour enough nukes on it and ... ohh yeah NVM :roll:

Without a magnetic field you wouldn't survive the radiation for long so why bother with an atmosphere when your going to have to wear a full suit to shield you from the radiation .

 

[PiotrSatan]

In my opinion, nuclear bombs could see their use in terraforming, but in the late early/early middle stages, after increasing atmosphere level and putting gases in, to increase overall temperature and speed up ice melting, which would even increase temperature further. Maybe on Mars there will not be cool temperature as on Earth, but if we were to use nukes, then the mean temperature, I assume, including all those gases, would be ranging from 30 to 60 degrees celsius. In some places it could even be super extreme. Yes, nukes could be used to build atmosphere, but I doubt there is enough CO2 ice in the ice caps to actually increase it enough to mean something.

 

[MeteorWayne]

30 to 60 Celsius? Huh? That would be much warmer than earth (avg temp ~ 15C)

 

[Polishguy]

Without a magnetic field you wouldn't survive the radiation for long so why bother with an atmosphere when your going to have to wear a full suit to shield you from the radiation .

The radiation wouldn't kill you. If the atmosphere is thick enough, it should reduce the amount of radiation that reaches the ground enough that a few years on Mars will only increase your cancer risk 1%. Where did you get the idea that radiation would kill you?

Anyway, we don't need to use nukes for the entire process. We just need them to raise the average temperature by 5*K. This way, the CO2 in the regolith will start to outgas on its own, continuing the effect.

 

[SteveCNC]

The radiation wouldn't kill you. If the atmosphere is thick enough, it should reduce the amount of radiation that reaches the ground enough that a few years on Mars will only increase your cancer risk 1%. Where did you get the idea that radiation would kill you?

Wouldn't kill you ?? read this and tell me again it wouldn't be a problem .

 

[samkent]

I’m not trying to hijack but.

If you have your heart set on using nukes how about using them on the dense atmosphere of Venus?

 

[MeteorWayne]

Which would be designed to accomplish what?

 

[SciFi2010]

I don’t think nuclear bombs Mars will have a lasting effect. In the end you need geo-thermal activity to activate the geomagnetic fields, the green-house effect and the carbon cycle to create a durable biosphere. An artificial moon may also be needed to stabilize the axial tilt of Mars for the long-term to prevent extreme seasonal changes. There may be some solutions to mimic those effects.

The creation of a geo-magnetic field should always be the first priority if one wants to terra-form a planet. Creating a green-house effect without a geo-magnetic field will be doomed to fail, because the sun-radiation in the upper-atmosphere will ionize the water-vapour and let the water-molecules vanish into deep space. There is speculations that large underground and above-ground oceans with a high salinity could create a geo-magnetic field (Another advantage is water with a higher salinity has a lower freezing point). Because the surface temperature of Mars is too low to keep water liquid, I wonder whether it is possible to drill tunnels both on the north and south pole of Mars to create underground oceans by geothermal heat. Let us assume this effect works it would probably have to cover a whole undergound large layer (or layers) of Mars whether in porous rock, tunnels and cavaties. Then you can start to experiment with what kind of minerals and how high the salinity should be to increase this effect. (Maybe iron could be added to increase the effect which is also a vital supplement for sea-life). It may be that Mars will not have enough water to do this. Even asteroid mining may not be enough to terra-form planets. Probably (gas-) mining Jupiter, Uranus, Saturn and Venus or other planets could do the trick. Floating inflatable (unmanned) spacestations could suck up the necessary gasses to form water, fuel or other rescources in giant containers. Lasers for example could then be used to propel these containers to its destination and back again to reload. In the end huge chunks of ice made from asteroids or from the gas giants could be bombarded on the poles of Mars to release heat, water-vapour, CO2 or stronger green-house gasses to start the greenhouse effect immediatly. (An asteroid impact could even release more energy than a nuclear bomb without the radiactive waiste, but I think multiple smaller asteroid impacts for a longer period of time will be more effective).

Even with a geo-magnetic field and a moderate green-house effect an eco-system on Mars will be hard to maintain, because water and rock has the ability to absorb carbon-dioxide and without volcanism there’s no recycling of the carbon-dioxide back into the atmosphere for plants. Maybe volcanoes and magma could be replaced by geysers and hot water, which probably requires underground and above ground oceans with vertical tunnels deep in the crust of Mars to boil the water.
And last but not least a Bernal sphere or O’Neill colony (or colonies) could act as an artificial moon in a relative lower (equatorial) orbit of Mars compared to the distance between the moon and the earth to diminish the relative mass required. Or we could increase the mass of the moon Deimos with materials from asteroids or the gas-giants. (Although an artificial moon may be unnecessary, because the axial tilt of Mars and earth are almost the same, but it would reduce the axial tilt and seasonal extremes)

For the more near (distant) future I’d rather prefer transparent inflatable domes in a crater à la Bigelow with its own eco-system. http://orbitalvector.com/Solar%20System ... LONIES.htm. It’s faster, easier and a more realistic option and you would still have the aesthetic view of the stars above you. I think the domes could be build like the Eden project in the UK with hexagonal or pentagonal inflatable “cells” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_Project ). Of course you would need a “curtain” and “dome within dome” architecture made from a transparent material that is several times stronger than Kevlar or Vectran for protection against micro-meteorites and radiation. If this is combined with underground “space-bunkers”, tunnels (for shelter, transportation, com. networks, energy, water and food-supply) and geo-thermal energy you could colonize other cold rocky planets or moons with enough gravity. A large dome on Mars could be built for example on mountain Olympus Mons. Its inhabitants at least will still have dry feet if future generations decide to flood Mars for terra-forming.

This is all speculative of course and the advancements necessary in economics, science, technology and man-power are huge (or should say I say robotic/android and A.I. power), but I still like the idea…