Nuke the Red Planet?

[tampaDreamer]

Terraforming has the romantic aspect of 'really' creating another planet where we can walk around free, etc. However, consider that you're essentially make a planet-sized biosphere when you decide to terraform a planet. Not only that, but you're dealing with an environment open to variable conditions of martian crust, space, etc. Making a biosphere the size of... say.. a small town is going to be 100 times easier than making a planet-sized biosphere. The only increased variable cost of the smaller biosphere is the walls. Terraforming mars would be much more likely to be accomplished by people and industries living there than by dropping robo-factories from orbit which were launched from earth, imo.

In the long term, terraforming is also much more dangerous than making enclosed biospheres. What if we miss something, what if we are unaware of some consequence? If we screw up and contaminate all that water, or worse lose a lot of it to space, we will have destroyed the most valuable resource on mars.

A more measured approach would be saner.. but maybe not as much fun for the scientists.

 

[marsbug]

There's a big difference between creating an environment on mars where some kind of life could survive, which should be fairly easy since all the basics are already there, and creating a 'shirtsleeve' (or even 'arctic survival gear') environment for humans. Dropping a big rock on an ice rich area of mars might get you the former for a few hundred years, but it certainly won't do the latter. And yes, speculating about terraforming is more fun and involved than speculating about dropping a big rock (although thats also fun)

 

[crazyeddie]

There's a big difference between creating an environment on mars where some kind of life could survive, which should be fairly easy since all the basics are already there, and creating a 'shirtsleeve' (or even 'arctic survival gear') environment for humans. Dropping a big rock on an ice rich area of mars might get you the former for a few hundred years, but it certainly won't do the latter. And yes, speculating about terraforming is more fun and involved than speculating about dropping a big rock (although thats also fun)

I'd be happy with just enough terraforming efforts to raise the atmospheric pressure high enough to the point where you wouldn't die in seconds from vacuum exposure should you ever experience a habitat or spacesuit puncture/blowout. This would also give the colonists a much greater degree of protection from cosmic and solar radiation. The creation of a biosphere could come later, as time and money permits.

 

[damskov]

Terraforming Mars is a fun thought experiment but future generations will probably consider it a complete waste of resources to even try.

Consider the amount of materials, work, money, time to terraform a place which could only every be marginally habitable. Dropping asteroids on Mars? Why dump such a precious resource down a deep gravity well?

With a fraction of the effort humanity could build hundreds if not thousands of space habitats with those resources, each one perfectly adjusted to human living conditions. All of the them placed within easy reach of the home planet, inside the habitable zone where energy is plentiful.

 

[red67]

Someone Please tell why that very thought is totally insane?...Didn't someone at sometime in the past think about blowing up the Moon as well??..Bad idea...the moon is very crucial to Earth.

I think all of the Planets in out Solar System are very important to each other..regardless of what they are made up of or how their weather is or what gases etc., that they have on them...everything is there for a reason.

That is just one crazeee thought.... :roll:

 

[FoxholeAthiest]

Re:

Replying to:Hi all, hope you're having a good holiday season.So i've got this crazy idea to nuke the red planet, .....
Posted by Sticknmuv

Why don't we just redirect a Chicxulub size asteroid towards Mars and see what happens? I think it was only about 6 miles wide, surely we can do that! Don't let who you are keep you from becoming who you want to be!

think we could do that...by using some of the same tech that we would use to deflect an asteroid headed toward earth

 

[neilsox]

It would make an interesting study which might advance the technology. We know we can send small probes to asteroids that pass close to Earth, so likely we can find one that passes close to the Earth, Sun and Mars in the next 20 years or so. By painting the North or South pole of the asteroid white or black, in theory we can cause it to hit Mars. There is some risk. If it misses Mars by a tiny amount, it could hit Earth later, so we need calculations accurate to a few parts per billion, to insure it does not miss Mars. Obviously we should practice with about 100 meter size asteroids first, as we likely can not deliver enough paint for even a 200 meter asteroid with present technology. Neil

 

[crazyeddie]

Terraforming Mars is a fun thought experiment but future generations will probably consider it a complete waste of resources to even try.

Consider the amount of materials, work, money, time to terraform a place which could only every be marginally habitable. Dropping asteroids on Mars? Why dump such a precious resource down a deep gravity well?

With a fraction of the effort humanity could build hundreds if not thousands of space habitats with those resources, each one perfectly adjusted to human living conditions. All of the them placed within easy reach of the home planet, inside the habitable zone where energy is plentiful.

The trouble with space habitats is, they are inherently fragile structures (vulnerable to terrorism) that also require huge amounts of maintenance to keep them viable. Plus, they must be spun to provide artificial gravity, and that presents stability problems. Then there's the "island fever" syndrome that afflicts people living in constricted environments. I can see a few of them being constructed for special populations, but they will never do as a second home for humanity....and I think the survival of the human race depends on us having another off-Earth, sustainable colony. Terraforming Mars might seem like a "complete waste" to us now, but perhaps not to a future generation.

 

[damskov]

The trouble with space habitats is, they are inherently fragile structures (vulnerable to terrorism) that also require huge amounts of maintenance to keep them viable. Plus, they must be spun to provide artificial gravity, and that presents stability problems. Then there's the "island fever" syndrome that afflicts people living in constricted environments. I can see a few of them being constructed for special populations, but they will never do as a second home for humanity....and I think the survival of the human race depends on us having another off-Earth, sustainable colony. Terraforming Mars might seem like a "complete waste" to us now, but perhaps not to a future generation.

Terrorism: with the rise in power available to any one human it will always be possible to do damage, particularly on a fragile system that needs to be maintained . Any colony would be vulnerable to a blow out or someone tinkering with the life support systems. However, the danger is still limited to that one colony, reducing the amount of total damage that can be done. Consider how we live even today - most people make their living in a totally artificial way within the cities. Obviously the air is free, but cities are fragile societies as well. Break down the infrastructure and people will quickly be starving if the outside world doesn't come to the rescue.

Maintenance and stability: I think the maintenance problem will be similar on Mars - I don't think it's likely that humans will ever walk around outside unprotected or being able to live off the land anyways. The planet is just too marginal. Don't underestimate what it's possible to do with living spaces inside a 20x20 mile asteroid. I suspect it likely that humankind will solve the health problems associated with lack of gravity long before having the capability to fully terraform Mars.