On The Late Show he told Colbert that the “fast way” to warm up Mars is the nuke the poles. It’s actually not a bad idea. The idea is the there’s frozen carbon dioxide at the poles (dry ice) and if you release it then it will cause some global warming. Then you might get the equator above freezing long enough to support some plant life. Probably something genetically engineered to grow on Mars.
Also a thicker atmosphere might allow more protection fro meteors. On Earth they burn up in the atmosphere but on Mars the atmosphere is so thin that less burn up. So more is better.
I wonder if you could build aircraft that would work on Mars. Certainly more atmosphere would help with that.
A hydrogen bomb is what you need. More energy and almost no residual radiation. And you can get the hydrogen from the frozen water.
Releasing co2 will cause warming? ELON said that??????
Tell me it ain’t so.
Please read some chemistry textbooks or something.
Only someone in Alabama wouldn’t know carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. So is water.
Then read a astronomy textbook so you know why Venus has a massive greenhouse effect.
Its atmosphere pressure at the surface is 256 atmospheres, which would feel like 10 cars dropping on your head for the split second you could survive it.
To call the atmosphere of Venus thick is understatement.
But don’t let your ignorance of science prevent you from telling your equally illiterate knuckleheaded peers on the right — the science deniers — that you know a lot about science.
Who knows, maybe in that context the one-eyed man is king!
Well!!!!!! I never……………
I’ll just wait for Marc to explain to you that co2 is a green house gas but you don’t have to worry about it actually heating up any atmosphere.
You really suffer from reading comprehension. Are you a Binar?
Seriously…… what did I miss?
Your sarcasm means you never understood anything Marc said.
I’ll take a pass on critiquing your post.
I know you have a strong interest in science.
The backbone of science is explaining a process. Skipping out on doing that and just citing cherry-picked goofy numbers isn’t how science works.
No one has to cite goofy and highly suspect survey numbers to explain how evolution is proposed to work and how it is a good fit with what we see.
Humans screw up the environment, and I bet we can screw it up more. But so far the “man-made global warming” argument has not produced a concrete way or any solid evidence that we are doing that specific crime against nature. So far. Given enough time, humans are capable of screwing up anything.
I wonder if this is the sort of thinking by another planet in earth’s formative years?
The 2nd problem is that atmospheric density on Mars is next to nothing.
You would still need to wear a pressure suit, like you do in a vacuum/space/The Moon because the atmospheric pressure isn’t high enough. You obviously wouldn’t die from de-pressuration as quickly on Mars — it’s not going to be the 90 seconds it is in a vacuum — it would be more like 10 minutes.
So Mars sucks. Literally. Unfortunately.
You mean Arnold got it wrong?
Ziggy Stardust and the spiders from Jupiter.. Hmmm
Really? Nuke Mars and risk the wrath of the Martians?
Elon, please go watch World of the Worlds and reconsider…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=MJYnHA2OzfA
(Was Elon a stand-in double for Tom Cruise??)
A nuke wouldn’t do a damn thing to a polar ice cap.
The Sedan crater, made by a 104 megaton fusion bomb — is 100 meters deep with a width of 300 meters.
You could do 10,000 of them on a polar ice cap and it would make scant difference. 5 years later you’d struggle for evidence it even happened.
Nuclear bombs have very little surface penetration.
That’s 104 *kilotons*, not megatons.
They laughed at Dan Quayle for saying the water on Mars meant you could get some oxygen. Can he get an apology from all the liberals who are taking this Musk idea seriously?
According to The Martian, “potatoes” grow great on Mars.
What an IDIOT!
Yes, atmosphere is important to help deflect or burn up meteors. BUT! so too is a good planetary MAGNETIC FIELD! Only problem is, Mars does NOT have this quite the way the Earth does. And when there is a weak or non-existent magnetic field it’s rather pointless whether or not you can breath or grow plants when there’s still that little matter of potentially overdosing on LETHAL SOLAR RADIATION!
In case you failed high school science, the “northern lights” and “southern lights” on earth are evidence of naturally occurring solar radiation. This “solar wind” comes from the sun and periodically spikes so intensely that it has been known to disrupt power line transmission (it’s referred to as “magnetic induction,” if you really want to know). The reason we can see it as light is because of the earths protective “magnetic field” which is only more intense the closer you are to the north/south POLES! This very same “magnetic field” is also known to extend hundreds of miles out into space, even slightly beyond the moons orbit, which also explains why life on earth hasn’t exactly been cooked too.
Now might be a good time to remind you that these same, albeit weaker, poles on Mars are where Mister “Iron Head” (since he’s not the real life Iron Man) wants to nuke. Sound smart to you? I don’t think so.
It may also be noteworthy that most of the meteors we find on the earth are primarily made of IRON too — a known good ferrous material that’s also highly susceptible to MAGNETISM! (So, do you really think nuking the poles is such a good idea there, Mister Stark?)
In the 70s we called it ‘terraforming.’
“A hydrogen bomb is what you need. More energy and almost no residual radiation. And you can get the hydrogen from the frozen water.”
A “hydrogen” (i.e., fusion or thermonuclear) bomb certainly emits radiation, given that it needs an atomic (fission) bomb to ignite it. Most of the yield comes from the fission part, the fusion part being basically a booster. The 1954 Bravo shot on Bikini (15 megatons) caused enormous radioactive contamination to Marshall Islanders and Japanese fishermen. And it doesn’t use hydrogen as a fuel but a compound of lithium and deuterium so all that frozen water wouldn’t be of any use for bomb-making.
So nuclear winter is no longer an issue?
And how much subsidy will Elon collect for this idea?
‘One hundred billion dollars.’
Ha, puny extortionist! I am asking for 10 Brazilian dollars.
aaaand, that would be about $2.57 american.. i don’t know currencies.
http://google.com/finance?q=BRLUSD
Not much to worry about until (unless?) his space craft begin to actually work. Meanwhile, Obama and company should draft a treaty to make sure Elon’s facilities don’t start making bombs. Perhaps the Iran inspectors can cover him in their spare time.
Meanwhile I think I’ll start referring to him as “Mad Man Musk”. Anyone old enough to get the reference?
This makes sense.
That is, if Elon meant we could warm Mars by basking in the cozy glow of radioactive fallout.
You know? You can’t put too much water into a nuclear reactor…..
…. Beutiful, is it not? You know? You can’t stare too long at a radioactive cloud….
What does Elon have against Bruno?
Dr. Morbius had found this climate and magnetic field power reactors in the 50’s.
https://youtu.be/HHXfMjp2zqI
I seem to remember that the US, and some other nations, signed a treaty to ban using or sending nukes into space. And ever since then, it seems factions have been inventing fanciful reasons to violate that treaty. Destroying killer meteors and such. The treaty was to protect the world from yet another arms race, in space. And as soon as we toss that treaty aside, and start putting nukes on top of Saturn 5s. You can bet Russia and China will start doing it too. And then we’ll be right back to where we were on the Doomsday clock. We’ll destroy ourselves, long before any big meteor does the job.
Best case scenario, we’ll waste billions of tax dollars, lining the pockets of the weapons manufacturers. By creating a new use and excuse to build new nukes. In some pie-in-the-sky scheme to “terraform” another planet, by nuking it to pieces. Without the slightest bit of hard scientific evidence, that it would have any significant effect. But we can’t let science get in the way of making a profit, can we?
Worse case scenario. The nukes done make it to Mars, and go sailing out into space. Orbiting back to us, like meteors, every few decades or centuries. Threatening future generations with nuclear death from space. Unless we send out spacecraft, to clean up the problem we created. And hopeful capture them, before someone else does. And that could lead to a war.
It’s just an insanely dumb idea, on so many levels, for so may reasons. And it’s got nothing to do with making Mars livable.
NewFormatSux says:
9/17/2015 at 4:58 pm
Your sarcasm means you never understood anything Marc said. /// Both of being honest…I now know what you mean. You totally got me and this post…but I think the failure to understand what Marc has consistently posted in this forum is yours.
Marc: my understanding of your many posts is that you don’t deny that co2 is a greenhouse gas and even is heating up Earth, but for reasons never made clear, you just don’t think its an important subject.
In my mind, that position can only be explained by thinking that co2 sensitivity is many times over extimated by the IPCC.
Unless you disagree, that is the understanding that justifies my sarcasm. Perhaps Elon has pulled you towards Science?
And he said some global warming for Mars. He has it right.
The latest IPCC report is 3-4 years behind current science, and even that reduced the estimates for medium term warming by half. The long term warming estimates are also down; by their own methods and numbers, the best estimate of global warming would have been 1.6C, down from 3C in the previous report.
The activists then chose not to report a best estimate in the last report.
As for the updated science, the estimate of global warming is going down.
http://tinyurl.com/gwestdrop
Instead of reporting the good news, we have people like Michael Mann reporting doom and gloom, talking about worst case scenarios. It is the fat tail that is reduced the most in the newer studies, not the central estimate.
I have personally heard Michael Mann agree with a questioner who asked him if his talk meant that warming in climate models is ‘vastly overstated’.
“I agree with that actually. I have a reputation out there as some sort of climate alarmist, but I think there is a missing negative feedback.”
A close reading of his book Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars shows him saying the same thing there, though I doubt you have the reading comprehension to notice it.
The latest IPCC report is 3-4 years behind current science, and even that reduced the estimates for medium term warming by half. /// It did? I’ve read it in some detail, didn’t see that. Can you copy and paste?
Your link is unauthorized for IPCC Alarmists like me. Got any other “new science” links?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/01/ipcc-silently-slashes-its-global-warming-predictions-in-the-ar5-final-draft/
Its a small world. I’m currently disputing Climate Change positions with an ecologist who contributes to that website.
Its a rather flakey blog that will publish anything anti global warming.
Any reference to what the IPCC has done should have the appropriate link …. and there is none. I won’t take the effort to hunt for it.
HOWEVER: in any and all cases, such predictions are NEVER A HARD NUMBER, and are always a range.
Sadly, a good number of qualified scientists think at 400PPM already that we will suffer terrible damage. Worse is only worse.
I’m not surprised that you are uninterested. The author gave specific citations to the charts and pages he was using from the IPCC report.
Nor am I surprised that you were ‘unable to open a link’.
Ha, ha….NFS…you post just like whatsupwiddat:
I’m not surprised that you are uninterested. /// where did I indicate I wasn’t interested?
The author gave specific citations to the charts and pages he was using from the IPCC report. /// Yes, I saw that…but still no link to the information itself. So easy to do when posting information from a website. In fact, I think you have to erase that info to get it to post without it…..but I’m just guessing as such info appear every time I have posted without doing anything else.
Nor am I surprised that you were ‘unable to open a link’. /// I use current firefox that opens most links. To not be surprised, …. then thats what you intended? Very whatsupwiddat move.
I’m using Firefox and the link opens just fine. No need to even be logged into Yahoo. I’ve noticed a tendency from you to be ‘unable to open’ links that skewer your arguments.
If you can’t locate IPCC reports, that’s a problem for you. They didn’t webify the most recent report like they did with AR4, so you just have to go thru the PDF
Good God Marc. Did you read this before you posted or were you just so excited to post something about Elon that your fingers were shaking as you typed and quickly hit the submit button?
Has Elon said anything about feeding energy back to the grid from your Tesla?
AGW on Mars is real!
You could also steer a passing comet to impact, get lots of gas and water.
In the vernacular of space, this is T minus one hour. Sixty minutes before a human being named Major Robert Gaines is lifted off from the Mother Earth and rocketed into the sky, farther and longer than any man ahead of him. Call this one of the first faltering steps of man to sever the umbilical cord of gravity and stretch out a fingertip toward an unknown. Shortly, we’ll join this astronaut named Gaines and embark on an adventure, because the environs overhead – the stars, the sky, the infinite space – are all part of a vast question mark known as the Twilight Zone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parallel
Thirty years before, in 1991, an expedition to the hellish desert planet V9-Gamma was stranded, and the people had no choice but to begin their own small settlement there. The group’s leader, Captain Benteen, has maintained a totalitarian grip upon the group; he believes that this strict discipline prevents them from giving up hope in the harsh, unyielding environment. When a rescue mission from Earth finally arrives, Benteen is at first as jubilant as the others, but then he begins to raise objections to his loss of control over them. When he realizes that the colonists do not want to stay in a group on their return to Earth, he tries to persuade them to stay. Everyone else chooses to return home, but Benteen announces that he will remain behind alone if he must.
On the day the people board the ship, the rescue mission’s Colonel Sloane and Benteen’s second-in-command, Al Baines, search for Benteen to give him one last chance to change his mind, but he is nowhere to be found. After they give up and leave, Benteen emerges from the top of the cave that had sheltered his people. As the ship prepares for takeoff, Benteen talks to his people as if they are still there. Then, remembering the beauty of Earth, he realizes that he is alone and wants to go home. He rushes out screaming for the ship to come back, but it is too late. He is now stranded on V9-Gamma for the rest of his life, completely alone in the barren, lifeless deserts.
William Benteen, who had prerogatives: he could lead, he could direct, dictate, judge, legislate. It became a habit, then a pattern and finally a necessity. William Benteen, once a god, now a population of one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Thursday_We_Leave_for_Home
It could all go wrong, just like on Earth.
I just watched the movie ‘Red Planet’ (2000). They discussed this very idea. I guess Elon saw the same movie.