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Personally I've no huge problem with the concept of nuking part of planet Mars to aid terraformation. But first I would want to have the whole planet thoroughly surveyed to see what is there. If there are life forms, as we might reasonably expect, then nuking Mars would be unethical. But if it is truly dead, as NASA would have us believe, I see no ethical issues.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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No ethical issues, just practical ones. A 1MT thermonuclear warhead would release 4.4E15 joules of energy. That's the same amount of energy as released by sunlight over 1 square kilometre for 1 year in the UK. Doesn't sound like much when you look at it like that. What's more, if the desire is to avoid generating radioactivity, then the bomb would need to air burst and most of the heat would be delivered by thermal radiation. This would be a relatively inefficient means of transferring the heat, as half of the heat radiates into the sky and much of the other half would be reradiated due to the poor thermal conductivity of frozen ice and CO2 and the short duration of the flash. You would need a lot of bombs to vaporise the Martian cap and the cost would be huge.
If the intention is to colonise Mars, then a better option would be to set up a nuclear powered CFC factory on the surface of Mars. Or better still, to start mining the dry ice and using it as a source of power. That way, vaporising the ice is a by-product of human operations, rather than something we must specifically pay for.
Last edited by Calliban (2019-08-22 11:15:35)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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The warming of mars has also been talked here also with regards to restarting its core as well.
The warming was also seen as being possible from solar concentration reflection.
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I'm particular interested in whether you could place your solar reflector in a Mercury-style (or nearer) orbit around the Sun, so the area of reflection could be much smaller for the same effect as a reflector in Mars orbit.
The warming of mars has also been talked here also with regards to restarting its core as well.
The warming was also seen as being possible from solar concentration reflection.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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https://www.nasa.gov/stem-ed-resources/ … guide.html
http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/astr_250 … ure_12.htm
https://www.edmundoptics.com/resources/ … fications/
Images of the optical path reflection lense shape
https://www.laserfocusworld.com/optics/ … ht-systems
https://www.edmundoptics.com/resources/ … fications/
Suns currrent angular spread means we need to collect and redirect
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