Nuke Mars - Use of nukes to release Martian CO2

RobS · 2005-03-11 20:21:58

One millibar is the essentially a measurement of weight. On Earth, the air pressure is almost exactly 1 bar, which is equal to 10 tonnes per square meter. That means every square meter of the Earth's surface has 10 tonnes of air above it.

So on Earth, 1 millibar is the weigh of 10 kilograms per square meter. With Mars's lower gravity, 1 millibar would require 1/.38 x 10 = 26.3 kg per square meter.

Mars has 144 million square kilometers, each with a million square meters, so Mars has 144 million million (or quadrillion) square meters. Multiply by 26.3 and you get 3,800 quadrillion or 3.8 quintillion (10 to the 18 power) kilograms.

It's a big place in need of a lot of air. That's why it'd be much easier to "terraform" the place one dome at a time, as financial resources were available and population demanded.

-- RobS

MarsDog · 2005-03-12 01:24:23

3.8 quintillion (10 to the 18 power) kilograms

(3.8 X 10^18 kg) X ( .5713 X 10^6 j/Kg) / (50 Megaton is 2.1x10^17 joules/bomb)

is the number of 50 megatonne bombs.

3.8 e18 X .5713 e6 divided by 2.1 e17 = 1.03 e7

Only 10,300,000 50 megaton bombs to vaporize the CO2

few more bombs to warm it up to comfortable temperature (from -70°C to +30°C)
(3.8 e18 kg) X (0.85 e3 J/kg °C) X (100 °C) / (2.1 e17 joules) = 1,540,000 more bombs

============================================

But the figure from RobS was for 1 millibar, so multiply by another 1,000 to get 1 Bar. I don't know if the total CO2 on Mars would support a dense atmosphere, such as Earth's.

Shaun Barrett · 2005-03-12 02:26:17

Thanks, MarsDog!
Nearly 12 million 50-megaton nukes.
Anybody for Perfluorocarbons and Solettas now? :;):

Rxke · 2005-03-12 02:33:54

Anyone knows how much watts/m^2 the sun delivers on the surface of Mars?

Austin Stanley · 2005-03-12 05:46:22

I hate to sound rude about all this, but some of this information is easily avaliable on the internet if you just take 3 secs. to look for it.

A quick search on google gave me results on my http://www.google.com/search?q=mars+sol … cial]first page.

The exact amount of solar radiation will very of course depending upon exactly how, when, and where you measure it, but for Mars a good value seems to be around 500 w/m^2. Roughly half that of earth.

The question about nuclear weapons is more complicated (you find your answer in 3 secounds with google), but still a good excersies for a high school student. Figure out the amount of energy your bomb is going to release, figure out the amount of energy necessary to convert CO2 ice into a gas, then simple algerbra will give your solution. And there you go, a rough "back of the envelope" solution.

In any case I agree with what most of the others have said here. A single nuclear weapon is going to be just a drop in a very large bucket here. You would have to employ them in mass to get any kind of real effect. It's important to rember that mars is infact REALY big, and the effect of any single weapon is realtivly small.

I think some of the concurns here are overblown however. A single nuke isn't going to throw out enough dust to seriously effect the amount of solar energy the planet recives. Especialy if it was detonate over the poles as you propose. I doubt one could even effect the global temperature and pressure in a measurable way at all. I will grant that dust loft and airtime are unknown for mars and probably much greater than that of earth, so if you did deploy alot of surface nukes... who knows.

Likewsie you are correct that the overal concurns about radiations are mild in comparision to the general hostility of the planet. You wouldn't want to stand at ground zero of course, but once it was over the horizon you would be fine. Fallout is also less of a concurn if you have to live in a enclosed life support system at least the 15 years or so it would be any kind of concurn. But again, if you were to start droping surface nukes on the kind of scale you would need to, well it might be another story.

In KSR mars trio, she talks about drilling deep wholes and setting of nukes in them to help melt the permafrost, this sound like to me like a much better idea to me, but even here it would have to be deployed on a very large scale to achive anything.

Rxke · 2005-03-12 06:02:31

I hate to sound rude about all this, but some of this information is easily avaliable on the internet if you just take 3 secs. to look for it.

No offence taken. I overslept and was still a bit woozy (lame but true excuse)
I'm normally a bit of a gooooogle-maniac myself, guess I was just feeling extremely lazy.

MarsDog · 2005-03-12 13:58:53

Recalculating I get 1,000 times less bombs.
Someone please recheck.

===================================

Mars diameter: d=6794 km

pi d^2 =145,011,342 = 145 e6 km^2 = 145 e12 m^2

On Earth an 1 m2 column of air would weigh about 100 kilonewtons.

The newton is an SI derived unit, Newtons=kg × m × s-2
kg=Newtons / 9.8 meters per seconds = 100 e3/9.8 = 10.8 e3 kg for each m^2

Total atmospheric mass for Mars for same pressure as Earth is

Mars gravity ratio x surface area x kg/m^2
(8/3) x (0.145 e15) x 10.8 e3 = 4.176 e18 kg

(571+85) e3 j/Kg to vaporize and warm the CO2 by 100°C
656 e3 j/kg x 4.176 e18 kg = 2.739 e21 joules

2.739 e21 joules / 50 Megaton is 2.1x10^17 joules/bomb =
1.3 e4 = 13,000 x 50 megaton bombs

=======================================

Around one 50 megaton bomb for every 105 km x 105 km area ?

=======================================

From Sun, Mars receives 500 joules/second meter^2

145 e12 x 500/4 = 18.12 e15 joules/second
2.1x10^17 joules/bomb

= 50 megaton bomb every 8.6 seconds

would have to explode a bomb every 4.3 seconds to equal Earth 1,500 w/m^2

BobL · 2005-03-12 14:33:46

Thanks for all the input. I never though

MarsDog · 2005-03-12 15:03:08

200 x 50 megaton bombs total Earth weapons arsenal
need a bomb every 4.3 seconds = 860 seconds = 14 minutes

BobL · 2005-03-12 20:38:46

Well that just about settles it. Great information to consider. Looks like it would take the mother of all nukes to make any kind of difference, so unless any of you are willing to consider devoting earth's resources to the construction of potentially civilization threatening weapons, we can forget about using nukes to warm up mars. Thanks everyone for all the input, and thanks marsdog for such a clear picture of why this idea wouldnt be feasible.

Grypd · 2005-03-13 06:34:19

Still the biggest explosions we have seen apart from the suns are the results of asteroid or comet impacts.

We can simply use those with less radioactive fallout afterwards.

srmeaney · 2005-03-19 10:27:52

Just buy shares in the coal industry and take up the orbital dumping of Coal for the next thousand years. That will eat up our planetary reserves and make us dependent on Uranium. Why let it go to waste when you can use it to turn Mars into a trees-only paradise.

RickSmith · 2007-06-30 23:13:49

This is a great thread that basically shows that you can't use nuclear weapons to warm Mars by hitting the polar caps.

Martyn J. Fogg had a different idea in his "Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments" book. On page 281 to 283 he suggests non-fission boosted thermonuclear pipes to melt ground water and vaporize nitrate rocks. Lacking Fission products they would produce little fallout as well as being more powerful than fission bombs.

He points out that the entire nuclear arsenal of Earth (approximately 10,000 megatonnes) is equal to 1/2 an hour of Martian sunlight. However, there are things that sun light is good at (crops and general warming) and some things it is too dilute an energy source for (vaporizing nitrogen rich rocks and melting quickly deep ground water).

Fogg suggests using thousands of these fusion rods to quickly jump start terraforming. I think that some mirrors, greenhouse gasses and a several hundred years will do the job. But a few of these things for particular jobs (e.g. this city wants a lot of fresh water now) might be very useful.

Warm regards, Rick.

m1omg · 2007-07-03 12:36:09

Again, the media propagated present Mars radiation myth.
The mars is recieving only 1.777x as radiation as Earth and only 1.33x more radiation that on LEO orbit.
The nukes will introduce dangerous radionuclides and particle radiation into Mars and potentionally triggering nuclear winter because of swirled dust.

m1omg · 2007-07-03 12:37:01

Rather build some focusing mirrors or outgas some comets.

m1omg · 2007-07-03 12:38:17

Anyone knows how much watts/m^2 the sun delivers on the surface of Mars?

About 45 percent of the energy recieved by Earth.

noosfractal · 2007-07-03 17:05:53

Anyone knows how much watts/m^2 the sun delivers on the surface of Mars?
About 45 percent of the energy recieved by Earth.

Actually the 45% figure is for the top of the atmosphere. On an annual basis, the Martian surface receives ~450 W/m^2 vs. an average of ~200 W/m^2 for the Earth's surface because the Martian atmosphere is thinner. The middle of the Sahara, on a perfectly clear day, can peak at ~1000 W/m^2, but most of the Earth's surface doesn't receive that. During seasonal dust storms on Mars, light received at the surface can drop to ~100 W/m^2 (about the annual average for Seattle).

RickSmith · 2007-07-03 21:24:54

Hi m1omg,
Thanks for your posts. Altho, would it be possible to eliminate the second of your 2 posts by editing the first one?

Mars has only 1.777 time the radiation as the Earth? According to "The Case for Mars" a person would get 14.7 rem from the 500 day stay on Mars with much of their time spent in the habitat with a couple layers of sand bags on top, (to lower radiation dosage).
See page 119 of that book, where 10.6 rem come from cosmic rays and 4.1 rem come from solar flares.

On Earth, at sea level, in 500 days, people would get 0.205 rem (or ~0.40 rem if they live in Denver since it has less atmosphere to protect it from cosmic rays).

(This assumes an average yearly does of 150 milli rem per year, page 114 Case for Mars.)

When you were talking about dangerous nuclitides, were you refering to Fogg's plan of using pipes of deterium fusion and no fission bomb to start it? In that case, what nuclitides are you talking about? (The ones produced by D-D and D-T fusion are both rare and generally have very short half lifes.)

I am not a big fan of Fogg's bombs, I pointed it out as an alternative to the fission bombs others have been talking about.

As for Nuclear Winter, much of the science on it is very weak, but in any case, since Fogg's bombs go off underground, there is very little dust that reaches the atmosphere. (Which also cuts down on radiation.)

See chapter 6 of "Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments" especially pages 277 to 283.

By the way, when stating facts, please give references to where you get your numbers. If in the last couple years they have learned that Mars gets only 1.777 times the radiation that someone on Earth gets, this is very good news. However, I follow research on Mars quite closely and this is the first I've heard of it.

Warm regards, Rick.

m1omg · 2007-07-05 15:17:20

Hi m1omg,
Thanks for your posts. Altho, would it be possible to eliminate the second of your 2 posts by editing the first one?
Mars has only 1.777 time the radiation as the Earth? According to "The Case for Mars" a person would get 14.7 rem from the 500 day stay on Mars with much of their time spent in the habitat with a couple layers of sand bags on top, (to lower radiation dosage).
See page 119 of that book, where 10.6 rem come from cosmic rays and 4.1 rem come from solar flares.
On Earth, at sea level, in 500 days, people would get 0.205 rem (or ~0.40 rem if they live in Denver since it has less atmosphere to protect it from cosmic rays).
(This assumes an average yearly does of 150 milli rem per year, page 114 Case for Mars.)
When you were talking about dangerous nuclitides, were you refering to Fogg's plan of using pipes of deterium fusion and no fission bomb to start it? In that case, what nuclitides are you talking about? (The ones produced by D-D and D-T fusion are both rare and generally have very short half lifes.)
I am not a big fan of Fogg's bombs, I pointed it out as an alternative to the fission bombs others have been talking about.
As for Nuclear Winter, much of the science on it is very weak, but in any case, since Fogg's bombs go off underground, there is very little dust that reaches the atmosphere. (Which also cuts down on radiation.)
See chapter 6 of "Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments" especially pages 277 to 283.
By the way, when stating facts, please give references to where you get your numbers. If in the last couple years they have learned that Mars gets only 1.777 times the radiation that someone on Earth gets, this is very good news. However, I follow research on Mars quite closely and this is the first I've heard of it.
Warm regards, Rick.

Terraformer 0.5 (UV radiation).
Particle radiation is AFAIK blocked even by a thin atmosphere .
And we have living people on LEO and so there should not be much more radiation than on orbit.
Nuclides - I mean that fission bomb plan.

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#37 2005-03-19 10:27:52

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#38 2007-06-30 23:13:49

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#39 2007-07-03 12:36:09

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