Nuclear Terraforming: Using Nukes to Bring Life to Mars

[@sindarpeacheyeisacommie8688]

I am ever so pleased to find someone who can discuss using atomic weapons for non-military purposed with informed, rational, and non-propagandistic language. People are, by and large, so ridiculously ignorant and propagandized they will nor even entertain the concept of the application of non-military atomic explosives. Thank you, Isaac Arthur.

[@r3dp9]

Ignorance of nukes is my #1 problem with the green globalist doctrine. My #2 problem is misunderstanding the pros and cons of computer simulations. Economic ignorance is #3, and misguided attempts at global domination aka new world order are all the way down at #4 (Most human philosophies are prone to world domination - it's in our nature - so it doesn't bother me. Doing it BADLY is what bothers me.)

[@Drad_]

@@r3dp9 I mean It's not that easy to build a nuke, not in your shed at least. First off you need a bunch of enriched elements and secondly a LOT of explosives to start the explosive reaction neither of which are very easy to get.

[@virtualtools_3021]

@@Drad_ and enough intelligence to gather the knowledge and pull off the execution properly while simultaneously having the stupidity to actually do it.. an oxymoron

[@scientchahming5]

Yeah, people tend to get sht scared of almost ANYTHING that has the word "nuclear" preceding it. This fear largely is irrational.

[@ajendrisak]

There is a great story of such a use. During the Cold War, in the Soviet Union, there was a natural gas fire in a drilling rig, and it was so far into the earth that no means could stop it. So they dropped a nuke, collapsed the pipe (starving the burning gas of oxygen) and problem solved!

[@tckailliss]

I actually agree, with Isaac on this one. Nukes aren't bad. Nuclear energy is one of the safest forms of energy production. People just get the willies about invisible things that can possibly kill if mishandled... But what people tend to forget is; so can everything else, and much easier in many cases.

[@-whackd]

"Nukes" and nuclear energy are two completely separate things.

[@Wustenfuchs109]

Nuclear power generation (controlled fission) and nuclear bombs (uncontrolled fission) are two very different things. There have been feasibility studies on the use of nukes for peaceful means - large construction, digging, earthworks - those kinds of things. Guess what - in every one of them, it proved to be a very bad idea. There is no proper handling of a nuclear bomb that will leave it and the region after it non-radioactive. You can just choose how radioactive and for how long do you want it. Terraforming itself is frankly quite an idiotic idea, especially if you have to discuss it with the technology currently available, including nuclear bombs. Mars would, in any case, already have a quite large radioactivity problem without nukes piling on. And what is worse, you'd be doing it on the poles, where almost the entire water supply available on the planet's surface is. Then, we are talking about adding huge amounts of energy, locally. Depending on how often you do it, we could be talking about problems raging from a huge thermal gradient that would cause massive storms to the fact that what ever atmosphere you manage to build up in the meantime, it would receive enough thermal energy in the region that it would simply escape the planet, due to the effect of thermal atmospheric escape. You gain very little with nukes, and in fact you lose on many more other issues that you then need to keep fixing. So in every sense of the word, for Mars, nukes ARE bad. Paraterraforming is one thing. If you want to cover over Valles Marineris and create an enclosed ecosystem the size of a smaller continent? Sure, go for it. But terraforming the entire planet? And using nukes as a part of that process? That's just dumb. Terraforming a planet requires tech that we currently don't have. With the current one, it would be a whack-a-mole type of situation with added problem that when you do manage to whack one, two would spring up and you would soon end up in an ever increasing clusterfuck of events that you'd be constantly trying to fix while creating new ones. To put in other terms - any system, that you introduce a large local change into, can lead to nothing but a disaster. And that is true in any field of human work. At best, you destabilize the system and damage it, at worst you start of a cascade of problems. And that is why we don't do it, anywhere. When for some stupid reason we did, it bit us in the ass.

[@MWhaleK]

That and the history of lots of "little accidents" at Nuclear Power plants as well as how many past their use by date Nuclear Power Plants there are in the USA that are also not very well built. Then there is the problem of what you do with radioactive waste.

[@topdog5252]

We all cross the road and many of us drive

[@Captaintrippz]

Weird to hear people against nuclear power when it is quite frankly keeping them alive. All hail Sol, the biggest nuclear plant in the solar system.

[@cannonfodder4376]

Only on SFIA will we discuss the merits of nukes in terraforming, search and rescue and propulsion. While in the next sentence discussing other alternatives and technologies that are also viable under known physics that are equally if not many orders of magnitude more powerful, destructive and beneficial to humanity. It's why I love this channel. Another informative video as always Isaac.

[@georgethompson1460]

Search and rescue with nuclear bombs?

[@Dan-uf2vh]

Mars can't be effectively terraformed as it will always be leaking away its atmosphere over time as its gravity is far less than Earth's. You might eventually reach some sort of condition that will then have to be indefinitely maintained at a high cost. Plus, you will eventually run out of material to make atmosphere. Adding to that, the Martian soil is poison to Earth bio. Nuking would mean hundreds of years waiting for half-life upon half-life for the radiation to go away from the radiated water vapors.

[@justinbeath5169]

@@Dan-uf2vh it won't leak much atmosphere if we gave it a magnetic field

[@justinbeath5169]

@Robert nukes would probably be easier than changing the orbit of meteors. Far less mass needs to be moved for the same destructive energy

[@justinbeath5169]

@Robert did you not watch the video you're commenting on

[@sciencerscientifico310]

One of the things overlooked when talking about terraforming Mars is its magnetic field. The shutting off of Mars magnetic field was the catalyst for the planet losing the majority of its atmosphere in the first place, so revitalizing this magnic field or making a new one will be necessary for Mars to return a newly thickened atmosphere long term.

[@harmonyspaceagency1743]

I think the usual solution is a space station at the L1 point to generate the magnetic field

[@bergonius]

It's not overlooked, there's dedicated video on that on the channel

[@Darkmattermonkey77]

Exactly! So few people understand or know this about mars.

[@Darkmattermonkey77]

@Michael Bishop sweet! Now then… let’s find a PLANETS worth of atmospheric gases/materials to transplant or create on Mars! What….? You make it sound like the ability to create an ENTIRELY new atmosphere (to blow off via solar winds) is something easy. We just “Install” it.

[@blocks1198]

Yea, it would be a lot of effort, lots and lots of asteroids is probably the best option, it would be nice to get two birds with one stone by ejecting atmospheric material from Venus and depositing it on mars but we realistically don’t have the tech for that yet, it would take a vast amount of energy using mass drivers, rockets, elevators, skyhooks or a combination of them and with that sort of tech you could create city sized enclosed mars habitats most likely, it’s the sort of thing you’d consider once humanity has a strong permanent presence throughout the solar system

[@garyk3478]

Use nukes to push Pluto into Mars! It'll add lots of ice, and as a benefit people can stop arguing whether or not it's a planet.

[@OpreanMircea]

I support this idea

[@pixelmaster98]

lmao, I hope you're joking. Pluto is extremely far away from mars, moving it would require massive amounts of energy (probably orders of magnitude more than all nukes on earth combined, but I haven't done the math), and yeeting it through the solar system in general would be extremely dangerous as well, as it would disturb the planetary orbits (although probably just slightly), and at the very least drag an entourage of asteroids behind it. This idea is simply in no way practical.

[@OpreanMircea]

when your humor is so advanced people think you are serious

[@tkgwildfire5339]

Considering Pluto perialisis is closer than Jupiter, increasing the eccentricity of Pluto is definitely in the books.

[@Dragrath1]

Lol though honestly if you want to make Mars great again I'd suggest introducing it to Callisto lots of ice and maybe you could force it into a gravitational Lapace resonance with Io Europa and Ganymede around Jupiter to reheat its interior. On a more serious note combining Mars with the Galilean moons would give you a world much more comparable with Earth and Venus. Then you could send Pluto and all the other dwarf planets to chill out with Venus making that whole should dwarf planets be separate from planets issue go away since we presumably have an effectively unlimited nuke budget to make this proposal in the first place :P. For those stuck up on keeping that antiquated relict known as astrology it means you can have only 7 planets again too. ;) As for the whole "Is Pluto a planet definition I don't wee why we can't go back to the system that worked from the 17th to the 19th centuries and make every differentiated world gravitationally and make dwarf planets a subtype of planets again with the added bonus of letting "the Moon" be just called Moon since planetary satellites or satellite planets covers that basis and allows our impressive satellite to get the respect it deserves. Also on that note can we reserve Sun for "the Sun" lets just use other stars names(when they get proper names rather than catalog designations)? The use of Sun and Moon for everything has always bothered me. Also fun fact among known dwarf planets if counted separately Charon ranks among the lists of top 5 most massive and largest dwarf planets. The only reason it appears "small" in comparison is that it is in orbit with Pluto which along with Eris is in a class of their own compared to other dwarf planets.

[@PrzyMikrofonie]

Please, dont drop any nukes over poles :( Greetings from Poland!

[@389293912]

Love the practical approach to things, ignoring the exaggerated fear.

[@389293912]

To change a comet trajectory put a reactor on it at a rotation pole, with a rocket nozzle, that vaporizes the constituent material of the comet into thrust.

[@389293912]

With staging H bombs may have gigaton yield.

[@davidhudson893]

Isaac every time I come to this channel it fills me with hope and wonder. It has been a big help through these rough times. Keep up the good work.

[@aurex8937]

"You taunted us with the possibile presence of life for too long, Red Planet!" *Pushes the red button*

[@DrewLSsix]

Radioactive Kaiju emerges.....

[@jds1275]

There are too many people out there who put nukes into the bad category automatically, despite the fact that there is no such thing as a bad technology, only how it's used can be bad or good.

[@Dragrath1]

In terms of Mars terraforming is kind of problematic in a much more fundamental level since Mars's biggest problem after its lack of a magnetosphere is Mars's low gravity which means a lower escape velocity which allows low mass molecules like most gases to escape Mars. Releasing the trapped volatiles will briefly liberate volatiles to drive an increased thickness of atmosphere but that atmosphere even with an artificial magnetosphere will not last long because even diatomic nitrogen and oxygen will not stick around more than a few human lifetimes. Like the whole blow off Venus's atmosphere concept this is a waste of resources long term compared to more sustainable methods. Also anyone paying attention to more recent discoveries on Mars may have noticed that NASA's INSIGHT mission has revealed that Mars's interior is actually quite different from what we thought with Mars having a much larger lower density liquid core. We can't tell if Mars has a solid inner core as the seismic waves used to probe the interior can't pass through the liquid core but a crucial aspect of this discovery is that Mars's interior is far less differentiated than has historically been assumed based on Earth and our Moon. This along with similar findings from the Gas giants Jupiter and Saturn reveals that first generation planets like Mars Jupiter and Saturn are compositionally very different from second generation planets like Earth and its Moon born from the cataclysmic head on collision and vaporization of two or more planets into a self gravitating rapidly rotating cloud primarily composed of silicate gases(The current leading candidate model for the Moon forming collision based around newer simulations that handle phase changes and angular momentum much more accurately revealing that a glancing blow is not necessary nor plausible with a head on impact between proto Earth and a trojan planet Theia. The resulting roiling disk shaped cloud of rapidly rotating vaporized rock metal and more familiar gases would then have precipitated out into a new solid Earth and Moon losing much of its volatiles however due to their having been so much more volatiles initially retaining enough water and gases to bury the newly formed planet Earth under thick oceans of "supercritical" water i.e. water kept liquid dispite the high temperatures well above the STP boiling point of water under the extreme pressures 40+ atmospheres as estimated from inclusions within hadean zircons much of which has now been geologically sequestered into vast amounts of mineral hydrate rocks within the mantle. Evidence suggests most of Mars water has similarly been locked away in mineral hydrates since the amount of mineral hydrates present is temperature controlled meaning that as silicate rock cools the percent of water locked in the form of mineral hydrates increases. Evidence is building up to suggest that this process of sequestering minerals into mineral hydrates plays an essential role in driving plate tectonics and the recycling of material through what is effectively a mantle convection cycle exchanging heat from Earth's core to the surface via rising hot remelted rock and sinking sea floor slabs. In the case of Mars the heat preventing the rapid rehydration of rock is gone and thus Mars is geologically dying. Contrary to what we had long assumed Mars is not yet geologically dead i.e. there is still magmatic activity deep under the Martian crust it just needs "help" getting to the surface anymore which primarily comes in the form of impact events. There is evidence for recent i.e. in the last few tens of thousands of years volcanism on Mars and so the volcanoes on Mars will likely erupt again though nowadays even the youngest of Martian volcanoes Olympus Mons isn't adding enough material to overcome the effects of gravity and erosion acting to tear it apart as the last major large scale volcanism on Olympus Mons occurred about 2 million years ago likely spurred by an impact elsewhere on Mars. I guess that would be one way to use nukes to provide the seismic energy to push magma up to the surface Also Venus is interestingly enough not receiving anywhere near enough heat to maintain its current hot house conditions i.e. Venus radiates more heat than it gains from the Sun. Furthermore we have reason to believe Venus atmosphere was actually much thicker in the past some millions of years ago with the super thick atmosphere likely forming around or near thee estimated global resurfacing event approximately ~750 Ma. The main mechanism of sequestration/loss seems like it might be the chemical reaction between fresh lava and carbon dioxide since that reaction appears to be very very rapid on Venus. Perhaps a better way of reducing the CO2 atmosphere might be accelerating the rate at which interior rock can react with carbon dioxide? It is largely limited by the amount of rock exposed digging tunnels might alleviate that problem more effectively. Hmm what about nuclear drills?.

[@sciencerscientifico310]

Actually, Mars lower gravity probably did not contribute very much toward the planet losing its atmosphere.

[@jengleheimerschmitt7941]

Hey, "a few human lifetimes" is nothing to sneeze at. We ought to be able to figure out how to create a magnetosphere in that time.

[@bergonius]

It's not hard to create artificial magnetic field for Mars.

[@Mr0rris0]

Nuke the core little bit? Or just get in there and let a reactor run away

[@Mr0rris0]

Get Bruce Willis and Ben, it's Armagedagain

[@quarterpounderwithcheese3178]

Everyone else: "I am so pleased to discussed nuclear armaments with a civil and progressive ambition in mind" Me: *BRING ON THE BOOM, BABY!!!!*

[@rickmartin7596]

Not sure why ... but this comment just made my day.

[@diablominero]

The Tsar Bomba was about as small as you can practically make a 3-stage thermonuclear bomb. They were initially planning a 100 megaton yield, but were worried they'd cause nuclear winter.

[@luvr381]

They also discovered that bombs above 50 megatons were pointless as most of the excess blast was lost to space.

[@Valchrist1313]

Nuclear winter was a psy-op, and Carl Sagan was a CIA agent.

[@pancakes8670]

When the Soviets think its too big, it might be too big

[@francoislacombe9071]

Nuking the martian ice caps to terraform the planet is a rather moot point. There isn't enough CO2 locked in there to produce a useful atmosphere, it would at most double the current atmospheric pressure. Terraforming Mars, assuming we ever undertake such a project, will require far more potent technology than mere nukes.

[@annoyed707]

The idea would be to warm the atmosphere enough to get gases to be released from regolith and permafrost elsewhere.

[@bergonius]

It's about time we stop antinuclear hysteria and start solving real problems we have because of expensive energy prices and ecology ruining energy sources

[@deep.space.12]

I love the opening _"This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront"_ while showing a nuclear explosion in the background 😂

[@LordDragon1965]

I remember playing SimEarth and playing the Mars scenario using comets striking Mars to warm it.

[@harmonyspaceagency1743]

My focus is always on this century, but it's great to come here to see what could be done after that

[@joz6683]

I remember being in school in the late 1970's and being told to draw anti nuclear posters by a left wing art teacher. I was sent out of the class as I draw a nuclear power yes please after a physics teacher at the school told his students, (I was one of them) the energy density of various fuel such as coal, gas and nuclear. Been a fan ever since...However nuclear power needs to be used in a for the right reasons and applications...

[@NullHand]

The only problem with nuclear power is the pathetic risk management skills of us Plains Apes that invented it. Things like plant security, plant maintenance, waste managemant, and public safety are all seen as ”loss centers” in for profit Capitalist enterprises. Quite frankly only militaries and the French seem to have the attention span and planning horizons to safely use this tech to date.

[@virtualtools_3021]

Name one per twh power source safer than nuclear

[@NullHand]

@@virtualtools_3021 Depends entirely on how far out you put your risk assessment. If you re-classify all the semi-pro rooftop solar falls as ”roofing accidents” I would bet on PV. Where do you allot knock on effects from dumping CO2 in the atmosphere from say, 320ppm to 420ppm? Current Tradgedy of the Commons accounting attributes it to ”Acts of God”. There is also 2600km2 section of Earth called the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone that has been off limits for human habitation for these last 35 years. How do you amortize that? Im not against nuclear power, but leaving the budgetary and control decisions in the hands of finance majors and Political Suits as we have done for fossil fuels does not appeal to me. Can you imagine if every major oil spill or refinery explosion resulted in a 1200km2 exclusion zone?

[@Valchrist1313]

@@NullHand Yeah, but as OP inferred, the Chernobyl exclusion zone is the fault of Capitalism!

[@BirdTurdMemes]

@@NullHand Why are the French so special?

[@Shinzon23]

Well as they say in some of my favourite comics and shows and stuff... if Brute Force isn't working, you're not using enough of it, and what's more Brute Force than nuking the s*** out of a planet until its warm and wet enough to live on?

[@YourEnvironmentSeattle]

We detonated 530 atomic weapons in Earth's atmosphere. Mars can certainly survive a fraction of that.

[@user-yq6ov6ow7l]

Finally, a somewhat mainstream topic! Bring on the subscribers!

[@wolraadwoltemade3275]

If I can recall this was in a community poll many Videos made come from the community's input via a poll so the subs have lots to go through.

[@harbl99]

This is what happens if you put Kawolski the Penguin in charge of writing up your terraforming proposal. Perhaps surprisingly "Yes Rico, kaboom" isn't completely non-viable.

[@wolraadwoltemade3275]

Beats a monkey in a suit...

[@rhuiah]

Great episode. Ah, nuclear NIMBYism. Can't even do a little gardening in our own backyards without busybodies from the neighborhood association and NRC making a fuss.

[@normoloid]

Without proper magnetosphere, there is no terraforming unless the whole planet is cocooned inside a gigantic greenhouse, and even then there would be plenty of problems regarding radiation and keeping the pressure in balance. By far the most realistic way to terraform mars would be making it's moons into one, and then even add material to it from elsewhere if more is needed, it works on earth, so I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work somewhere else too, especially when the object is relatively close to sun. Simply nuking the surface wouldn't work, and it should be noted also that it's not very efficient way to warm a planet, because the explosions hurl large amounts of debris and gases out of the object itself, the less there is gravity, the more matter will be lost in the process. It's like Knife Brothers sanding their road by shooting at a pile of dung with a shotgun.

[@harmonyspaceagency1743]

I know its more efficient to turn them into habitats in space but an extra earth just seems too good to be true

[@jamesh6574]

We really need to get this guy to a million subs. I mean c'mon. The effort he puts Into these videos is insanity. Awesome job man!

[@Mr.Nichan]

That's a very good point at the end there, lol.

[@logangrimnar3800]

And today, we have Isaac Arthur describes how fake news works.

[@bergonius]

Based

[@stevemickler452]

Oasis crater could be formed by asteroid impact. Depending upon the depth, the air at the bottom of the crater could support liquid water. To make one simply use standoff nuclear on the larger trojans.

[@petersvancarek]

1. Nuclear explosion is a good way for mars to lose even more volatiles than it loses now. 2. Higher temperature would cause faster atmosphere loss 3. Let say this before someone comments on electromagnetic shield. Earth loses WITH electromagnetic shield about 90000ton of atmosphere per year. Mars loses about 70000 ton per year without the shield.

[@RustyBrusher]

I would love to see a video on making an artificial magnetic field for Mars

[@-whackd]

Portable magnetosphere at Mars Lagrange point 1

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

It's probably not a bad topic for an episode.

[@jengleheimerschmitt7941]

Artificial Magnetosphere would be an epic subject.

[@milogardner9951]

Any chance of a mix between Outward Bound and SciFi Sunday to talk about the terraforming principles in the Dune books?

[@YodaWhat]

The *Stellaser technology* covered briefly in the episode of 04 January 2018 kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZnLTZX2ehdSDh7s should have been mentioned again in this episode as an alternative to 1000-mile-wide mirrors for adding solar energy to Mars, especially since Stellaser needs mirrors that are much, much smaller and almost perfectly flat, just curved a tiny amount. A technique for making perfectly flat surfaces has existed since antiquity. Then a very slight curvature can be added by putting a small mechanical strain on the mirrors, as done with many modern telescopes.

[@pavelnikulin8240]

CORRECTION NEEDED!: Hydrogen bombs are still *mostly* fission bombs. Fusion yields were going to be at most 30%, and everything else was either primary fission, and fission by fast fusion neutrons

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I'm pretty sure you're thinking of one of the smaller H-bomb designs Pavel, the mass of a fusion bomb contains an awful lot that is not fusion fuel, and that ratio varies on the bomb yield and type, but the energy is mostly coming from fusion, and more so the bigger the bomb.

[@andrasbiro3007]

Depends on the design. If you go for maximum yield, then yes, but you can easily optimize for maximum fusion ratio instead. And the bigger the bomb the easier it is to make clean. The cleanest bombs ever designed are over 95% fusion. And those are decades old, we could likely do much better today. And if we wanted enough we could make antimatter catalyzed fusion bombs that don't need a fission primary. Antimatter is stupid expensive today, but only because we never even tried to mass produce it. And if I remember correctly, you only need a microgramm per bomb. Originally plutonium was similarly expensive and was measured in nanograms, but only a few years later it was made by the ton.

[@Dennis-vh8tz]

​@@andrasbiro3007 Has anybody detonated one of these clean(er) bombs or are they post test ban?

[@NGCAnderopolis]

@@Dennis-vh8tz the largest bomb detonated, Tzar Bomba, was a "clean" fusion bomb

[@captainhakob814]

I do believe your lore will become legend and we will reference you when referring to something beyond love craft. 'This is some Issac Arthur type creatures right here'

[@swedichboy1000]

Would be a bad idea to nuke Mars, the amount of ancient wreckage that could tell us their history would be lost forever.

[@randomguy4167]

There is no ancient wreckage on Mars to lose.

[@sjei.]

Have you stated your thoughts on the recent MIT advancement towards a fusion reactor? Brings the video into perspective if it's viable

[@harrywalker5836]

ever heard of salt reactor,, totally safe.. banned in 1954, didnt produce weapons grade material.. funny,,eh.. MIT,, mindless inteligent turds..

[@OwnerOfOwn]

@@harrywalker5836 didn't the simi valley salt reactor blow in 61? fuck em

[@CAMacKenzie]

@@OwnerOfOwn I had never heard of a Simi Valley Salt Reactor, but I had heard of the sodium-cooled reactor at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, run by Atomics International division of North American Aviation which is, I suspect, what you're thinking of. It went on-line in 1957, first reactor to produce power commercially, and had a partial meltdown in 1959, releasing 13,000 curies of Iodine 131 and 2600 curies of cesium 137, making this the worst nuclear accident in US history. Compare this to 17 curies of I-131 and no Cs-137 at Three Mile Island. I-131 has a half life of about 8 days and Cs-137 has a half life of about 30 years. I-131 is taken up by the thyroid gland and can cause cancer. Cesium is more widely distributed in the body as it acts like potassium. The reactor was repaired and went back into service in 1960, serving until 1964. I'm very aware of this as I have lived in the San Fernando Valley since 1953.

[@ltsgobrando]

All I can picture is some AI floating on an interplanetary gunship sofly saying "and the great Mekhane said let there be light." as it pushes the little red button and Mars' poles light up. "And so there was. And it was good."

[@scientchahming5]

All too often, the thing that gets overlooked in discussions about terraforming Mars is MAGNETIC FIELD! Revitalizing Mars magnetic field is CRUCIAL for the planet to be able to keep a new thick atmosphere!

[@harmonyspaceagency1743]

I mean we have way better ways of generating magnetic fields than a spinning core.

[@bergonius]

Magnetic field is easy to create

[@MrSaywutnow]

I was sold the moment Isaac uttered the words "nuclear machine gun."

[@feministpicnicfallsapartaf3644]

Just drop isaac arthur on mars. Such a potent and massive nuclear entity would instantly terraform mars

[@andrewbobb3170]

As someone who was for years the principal modeler for US DoD response to a terrorist nuclear attack in the US, allow me to thank you for making the point that fallout radiation is short lived. The vast majority ( well above 99%) of radiation has decayed away within 30 days.

[@eugenekochnieff]

Hi Isaac, I have always thought that a great way to terraform mars would be a hybrid approach using automated boring equipment to drill say a 2 m diameter hole vertically into the Martian surface. Then just transport and dump spent fuel rods and any other fissile material into the hole. Thus intentionally causing a China syndrome situation, with the ultimate goal of eventually melting and restarting mars’ molten core dynamo re-establishing the magnetic field. This works better than your nuke the core method. Plus add redirected comets and asteroids to increase the mass and gravity of mars. This will also add gasses and metals to mars. This hybrid idea is based on the assumption that the core is not icy, but still hot just no longer liquid. Thoughts.

[@janstehlik8713]

maybe we should start terraforming earth back to normal first.

[@possecomitatus77]

Very exciting episode

[@BrianPseivaD]

Brilliant episode………..as usual, thanks Issac.

[@gaiustesla9324]

The general problem with terraforming is losing everything to space is highly likely considering the planet is already in an inhabitable state. Its state reflects its general physical properties, most planets arent habitable to the unique specifications we desire. Then again, we dont need a planet each and isnt feasible. If we were advanced enough to essentially predict the outcomes of things this well, i doubt we'd bother terraforming in the first place.

[@MNewton]

The advantage may be in creating a large enough ecosystem that runs on it's own inertia. I've been thinking lately that not enough attention is being paid to closed ecosystems, it's sort of just assumed that we will be able to make a small or medium sized ecosystem that runs on it's own but in actuality we are nowhere close to figuring out how to do so. It may be that terraforming is viable just because of the scale of the thing doesn't allow one misstep to bring the whole thing down. Or that even harder, hard to say really.

[@TheCrazyCapMaster]

The biggest issue is generally trying to create a suitable atmosphere, as yes that would be lost over time. The solution is to slap an artificial magnetic field around the planet, to keep solar wind from blowing the atmosphere away. Mars does have enough gravity to hold down a full atmosphere, just no magnetic field to protect it.

[@gaiustesla9324]

@@TheCrazyCapMaster artificial magnetic fields have consequences and requires vast amounts of energy especially if it to match thousands of miles of molten iron. It would likely cause more danger and issues, like if for any reason this was broken, its done all your efforts gone into space.

[@jeffreyschweitzer8289]

Reminds me that the original term for MRI was “nuclear magnetic resonance imaging,” but the word “nuclear” was dropped from the medical application because people were scared by the word.

[@bergonius]

Funny. By the way, a magnetic field similar power to a MRI machine in Mars L1 point would be sufficient to supplement magnetic field for the planet

[@TheEvilmooseofdoom]

@@bergonius Where did you hear that?

[@Yezpahr]

Yay, 4 times in a row the things I voted weren't in the top but still became the next video :D. Feeling speshul. 22:09 "can feel daunting" -> stock footage guy gives daunting death stare -> Dun dun dunnnn

[@ProperLogicalDebate]

25:20 Just had a thought. There are other spinning methods but could a ring shaped satellite large enough to surround a super-earth have a part within it that spins faster so that the centrifugal force would cancel out much of the planet's gravity down to Earth like level? Just realized that you could orbit it like the ISS and start at near zero.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Yep, you can do the same witha big equatorial 'train' running around the surface that you put your habitats in. However if your ringing is actually orbiting (as opposed to how an orbit ring's exterior surface works) then you're automatically in free fall. You'd probably do an orbital ring whose surface was spinning just enough to counteract the surface gravity to 1g.

[@donaldhobson8873]

Yes it could.

[@wolraadwoltemade3275]

Sounds good let's do OK where is the Gofundme. XD

[@lucofparis4819]

As far as I understand it, the actual problem with the nuclear terraforming proposal for Mars specifically isn't the nuclear part, it's the terraforming material supposed to get nuked: the numbers don't add up. Even if you could melt the ice caps, blow the underground lakes up, and scrape the whole surface regolith to extract oxygen from it, you still wouldn't have enough material to give Mars a properly human-friendly atmosphere.

[@bergonius]

That's why he talks about comet redirection with nukes as more feasible option

[@jtechnewyork7888]

Seems like Issac is spicing things up!

[@mr.gaster1310]

One aspect of all fiction, not just science fiction, is that I notice the need for a balance between practicality and desirability. Terraforming Mars is impractical sure, but would people want it so bad they do it anyway? Habitats may be better, but tiny houses are too, so whatever path the future takes, I think it will be guided more by what people WANT to do rather than what they CAN do

[@GrOuNdZeRo7777]

Absolutely based! I think we'll have Fusion sooner than you anticipate though.

[@TheEvilmooseofdoom]

That would be nice.. but I remain doubtful... about being sooner.

[@doltsbane]

How about using a stellaser or taking water from Ceres' subsurface ocean and launching it at Mars with solar powered mass drivers?

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Definitely options but I tend to think of the more water and nitrogen rich outer system as the better source, pump the energy out form the sun, pump the matter back.

[@connorhood6490]

Basically no solar power that far out. You'd need to have nuclear power

[@doltsbane]

@@connorhood6490 There's plenty of solar power available at Ceres, the Juno spacecraft is currently operating at Jupiter using photovoltaic panels to generate electricity. Watch Isaac's video on colonizing Ceres.

[@doltsbane]

@@isaacarthurSFIA Agreed that the outer Solar System has way more volatiles to offer, but I was trying to spitball some ideas that specifically addressed the time and energy concerns you mentioned in the video regarding the idea of diverting comets, without dealing with any deep gravity wells.

[@phrozenwun]

Use the nuclear material to build fission/fusion powered rockets that de-orbit asteroids onto the surface of Mars - all the heat and useful materials, none of the fallout. If you can target the impacts well enough you can do it all in one place, drilling down deep protecting the rest of the surface and one may even be able to re-heat the core and restart a magnetic field.

[@Musistics]

This is what we should do for NEA's. I always thought of repurposing decommissioned satellites to deter an approaching asteroid or comet from crossing Earth's orbit.

[@evandipasquale9255]

I've always felt the best way to transform Mars into a more earth like planet would be smashing a large amount of asteroids/comets or even a moon from Jupiter. Then wait the 100 to 300k yrs for it to cool, obviously you'd bodies based on what Mars is lacking and you would definitely need to bulk up Mars mass to get gravity close to earth as well to keep the planet from cooling off to fast. Technology to do such a thing is beyond us tho

[@donaldhobson8873]

Tech moves fast. Don't worry about the tech. Worry about the part that takes 100k years. Given current rates of progress, if the plan takes more than a few decades, it might be worth waiting for better tech. Of course, tech progress is speeding up. At some point we get to a "this plan to terraform mars would take 6 months. But if we wait another week, we will have the tech to do it in 5 minutes" point.

[@evandipasquale9255]

@@donaldhobson8873 my thought process was it would probably take less time to wait for a planet to cool then using a space craft to travel to the next habitable planet. Then again if we have the technology to move comets or moons I'd think traveling to another star wouldn't be so bad. The asteroid/comet route seems more achievable with current technology but we'd have to use the entire asteroid belt to bulk up Mars and reheat the core.

[@wolraadwoltemade3275]

@@evandipasquale9255 if it doesn't have a solid core to heat? Like our own?

[@evandipasquale9255]

@@wolraadwoltemade3275 I thought it was common knowledge the inner planets had solid cores? I mean they're all rocky bodies and metal is heavier then rock, the planet Mars is literally the color of rust. Lol

[@PhilipMurphy8Extra]

Excellent and well done, Goes to show that when TV broadcasters can't be bothered to make real documentaries. Small creators step in with better content on KZbin.

[@poppyrider5541]

Shots fired in this. And at the right ppl.

[@logex621]

I Guess I can stay up an extra 26 mins

[@curiodyssey3867]

Go to bed

[@dwavenminer]

@@curiodyssey3867 But what if they want to spend the rest of the night under the stars? (Sorry, but your username was too relevant 😜)

[@ColdHawk]

I call that the Isaac Arthur Conundrum. Sleep versus new SFIA… that be a tough one.

[@logex621]

Good Night!

[@JohnDoe45762]

@@logex621 good night

[@NovaRuner]

Let me just quickly point out that…. As far as we can tell Mars is currently lifeless. You can’t make it more lifeless then it already is. When you start from rock bottom, the only way is up. Either the nukes help make Mars better and more habitable, or worse case.. it stays just as lifeless as it already is.

[@bergonius]

Yes! Excellent point.

[@DanielGenis5000]

Bravo my friend! Thanks for this Martian delight!!

[@lancerhalsey4816]

Had to give my class a Radioactivity 101 today when we were taught about Gas Detectors and Radiac ,since the Serge teaching today apparently forgot how they worked, so is the class who probably leave their highschool physics behind when they graduated. Kinda makes me worried.

[@ColdHawk]

The idea of combat in a NBCR environment is the stuff of terrible nightmares. I remember learning about groundshine as a Private and thinking, my god I hope that we never have to try to fight in a situation where you have to consider keeping distance and material between you and the ground… usually the ground is the infantryman’s friend!

[@brownwhale5518]

I think the easiest way to flush out any aliens that might be out there is to start nuking other planets.

[@bergonius]

If there are aliens to flush out chances are they are very familiar with nuclear fission.

[@matushonko7223]

about the 'only torchip variety possible'- what about lithium fission salt water drives?

[@leefoster4133]

The nuke option is a very destructive one. First heating up the poles as it is now would only give very short term results. The planet doesn't have a magnetosphere. So, the gas would just refreeze or blow off to space. Second to try to use it to restart the core is dangerous. Even setting off 1000 bombs could do far more harm that good. First it could rupture the planets existing core and the planet would fall apart next. Or it could fall to restart the core or even cause it to have some unforeseen result which could lead to the first point because it is wobbling because the explosions were off. Third the core of the planet from what I have read from ancient history if you except it or not was blown out by a collision with another body about 4000-6000 years ago. See Phobos and Deimos as the nearby remains. So, the detonation of those bombs would achieve nothing. If somehow you where able to deorbit Phobos and Deimos where you can get it back into the core you would have to restart the magnetosphere even if it is weak but enough for it to align itself which I think was mentioned in this video; "Outward Bound: Colonizing Mars" kzbin.info/www/bejne/oZ6pgHWlrpeAkJo. Then you would have a chance but the mass of the planet is just too low. If you could gather the entire asteroid belt and merge it with the existing planet I don't think it will achieve enough mass. I don't think it is as lacking as most scientist do but I don't think its giant rocky area either. Am thinking it's somewhere around 50% more than they assume as you can't see everything from this distance as it wouldn't show up on telescopes. Without mapping the area it is really hard to say for a reasonable fact what is there. So, to make it an earth like planet you would have to move the two moons underground on Mars, get all of the rubbish floating around in the asteroid belt and very likely will have to grab the moons of Jupiter and out to just have a chance to make it earth like. This would also include robbing Venus of some of its atmosphere. So in 6000 years you might have an Earth like planet. And this one is the only one you can seriously terraform. The rest are not practical and more of a joke to me when it comes up. But you don't have to listen to me. I said in the 70's that the space shuttle was a failure in design. In the 80's I called the international erector set impractical and a waste of time and effort on a road to nowhere.

[@gungasc]

No moon, no tides, water will always just sit there. If any mars quake causes a tsunami, that water is staying inland.

[@thorin1045]

One of the most common problem with cost related to any military or weapon type item is that most people stuck in the past (and in a wrong past in many case) and still believe that governments spend most of their income on military, not realizing, that a single nuclear power plant cost more than an entire nuclear weapon program and most nation spend more on road construction and maintenance than both of those, yearly.

[@csdn4483]

Little bit of a correction, H-Bombs do use more than just an initial initiator Plutonium pit, there are further initiators for each fusion stage. The more overall blast output, the more fusion stages you need and more initiators you need.

[@andrasbiro3007]

Not needed, just increases the yield. Also the yield of each stage is exponentially bigger, so only the last stage matters. Replace the uranium tamper with lead, and you get a very clean bomb. The Russians did that with the Tzar Boma. Not to make it cleaner, but to limit it's yield to something sensible, but the end result was the same.

[@NullHand]

Nuclear weapons have a design trade-off between yield and packaging for delivery. I suspect a nuclear mining explosive device that doesn’t have to hide underwater in a sub for years, then get yeeted into a partial orbit, then do a synchronized skydiving swarm attack would have considerable more design scope to maximize yield while minimizing fissionables.

[@lunaticbz3594]

While this proposal relies on optimistic views of the future I do think its a more practical idea. In ten years travel costs to mars will be significantly reduced with advances in rocketry, and the completion of the space station around the moon. If during this time frame we also reduce the political tension of the cold war 2.0 the world will have a lot of nukes sitting around that are not necessary and costing their countries a lot of money to maintain. Safely getting rid of these nukes is expensive so they could be repurposed for terraforming on mars. It's not enough nukes to get the job done, but one could use them as a terraforming kickstarter in conjunction with mirrors and more traditional methods.

[@MarkusAldawn]

I think this runs afoul of the rent vs buy problem. Would a politician with a four or five year term prefer to pay 10% every year until eternity, or 100% now and not again? Plus, "safely" is a key word. If a rocket explodes in the atmosphere, it could cause some pretty bad damage. That starts to look very worrying if you're launching a dozen or hundreds of ships. I don't know the costs involved, but safe decommissioning would almost certainly be cheaper than building a fleet of ships to nuke Mars- even if you need the ships anyway to bring people to Mars, the lost journeys will likely more than make up any savings.

[@lunaticbz3594]

​@@MarkusAldawn Both the U.S. and Russia agreed to build large scale facilities for dismantling nukes en mass. Many years ago After the Russians spent billions building their facility. The U.S. cut funding for the project so we never actually built facilities to do this. So technically we could dismantle nukes relatively cheaply but only by giving them to Russia. I don't think politics will improve that much in the next ten years. Or actually build the facility which would be around 10 billionish. The U.S. does dismantle some of our older nukes but its a one at a time individual level operation.

[@lunaticbz3594]

@@MarkusAldawn As to your economic point, unless things change everything is currently looking like re-usable rockets are the way of the near future. So we don't have to pay for the rockets, or build them. Just buy cargo space on them. If we have more rockets then we practically use for other purposes then there isn't a trade-off with other missions. If we don't have a surplus of rockets then yeah your right this could be impractical with other missions being more important.

[@yoshikhurazi1769]

The only nations that have any real incentive to do any level of disarmament are military superpowers such as the USA, Russia, and now China. That's only because they already have sufficient arnaments that even cutting their total nuke reserves to only 10% of its current number would be sufficient to dissuade any overt aggression. For the rest of the world though, it's their only viable defense against these superpowers from invasion. The USA have proven time and time again that they can't be trusted, most recently when they violated their nuclear treaty with Iran and when Libya volunteerily gave away their chemical weapons and then got invaded anyway. The Russian Federation and CCP are a little less active in the business of "liberating" but are just as distrustworthy. Empires don't tend to play fair or even regard international law as applicable to them. You need to have one hell of a sharp stick to keep them off your land.

[@sgt.bonkers8706]

"Nuking Mars to life" I love this channel...

[@pauldickinson3961]

How do I terraform Mars? Google: Gradually introduce greenhouse gases and water. Bing:

[@cyborghobo9717]

How about using underground network of fusion powered gamma ray lasers to heat up the core of the planet to revive the magnetosphere ?

[@OpreanMircea]

quickly, start writing that book!

[@dwavenminer]

Why not just turn the entire planetary core into a massive fusion reactor?

[@DrewLSsix]

Heat alone doesn't make a magnetic field.

[@dwavenminer]

@@DrewLSsix it does if you heat it up enough...to the levels you need for fusion for example... Granted would be a stupidly expensive, and difficult to build megaproject...when a L1 magnetic field generator would be far simpler and cheaper...but rule of cool...

[@OpreanMircea]

@@DrewLSsix that's not the whole plan, the whole plan will be revealed in his book series

[@AKAtheA]

about the % of energy released by fusion in a nuke - fission is the dominant one. The Teller-Ullam design (virtually all H-bombs in existence) needs an outer casing made of dense material to work at all, if depleted uranium is used*, the crapload of fast neutrons from the fusion makes it fission, adding more energy to the blast then the fusion did. *You can use lead like Tsar bomb did, but as every gram matters on anything that needs to be "delivered", it makes sense to use something that contributes to the yield.

[@iliketrains0pwned]

About that part with using orbital mirrors to heat the Martian ice caps, I'm curious about what some of the other applications for those mirrors could be aside from just terraforming. I had an idea a little while ago about using a network of mirrors in a low solar orbit to harvest and deliver concentrated beams of sunlight across the solar system. With enough concentrated sunlight, you can create a beam of light with enough momentum to power high-thrust interplanetary light sails across the system; all without needing single gram of propellant. But considering how much light a beam could deliver, maybe it could also be used as a supercharged alternative to orbital mirrors!

[@ZontarDow]

The issue of terraforming Mars is always a non-starter given the issue if gravity. There are things experts are divided on but Mars not having enough gravity for long term habitation by humans isn't one of them, and that's before getting into the lack of elements to do the job with leaving it just too uneconomic when compared to orbitals to even consider.

[@harmonyspaceagency1743]

experts are defiantly divided on how much gravity is enough, since we have never done experiments on the effects of between 0 and 1g on humans, we know 0g is not enough and 1g is. Maybe the moons 0.16g is enough maybe Venuses 0.9 is not enough we won't know till we test it. Plus even if base human can't live there for 100 years without needing medication we will surly have treatments and augmentations to better suit mars. Worst case there are places on earth right now where the average life expectancy is lower than 40 that doesn't make the area uninhabitable

[@ZontarDow]

@@harmonyspaceagency1743 They're divided on how much is enough, they aren't divided on Mars being below the threshold.

[@arcadiaberger9204]

Digging frost, crushing stone, gonna make this world our own Fertilize it with our bones, put our life into the land Mirrors shine, comets fall, Mars awakens at our call Lots of work, but worth it all for a planet made by hand Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow Work the soil and the snow 'til we've made it fertile ground Inch by inch, row by row, God bless these seeds I sow Mars warm them from below 'til the rains come tumblin' down Awful dry, awful cold, regolith is awful old Superoxides won't unfold 'til you talk to them just right But we endure, we persist, old Mars just can't resist Life works like an alchemist with water, air and light Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow Work the soil and the snow 'til we've made it fertile ground Inch by inch, row by row, God bless these seeds I sow Mars warm them from below 'til the rains come tumblin' down Maybe "The Garden Song" needs a verse to do with breaking the bonds of precedent, gravity and also atoms...?

[@bobm4623]

Couldn't asteroids from the asteroid belt be used to heat up Mars? They would be 'easier' to nudge out of the belt and sent to crash into Mars, compared to catching a comet and smashing that into Mars.

[@mcconkeyb]

Now we're talking! Here on Earth, I'm very much against any use of nuclear fission. But using nuclear fission or fusion off of Earth seems like a reasonably good idea. I should also add here that while I'm very much against the use of fission here on Earth, I'm a big supporter of fusion here on Earth. We are close to getting fusion working and I'm very much in favor of more research into getting fusion working! Go ITER!

[@jimrohrich2625]

Great idea. Another tool to help us terraform planets.

[@brandonknapp8046]

@Isaac Arthur ~ In your video pertaining to "Evacuating Earth" you mentioned that the number of rockets required to evacuate the population of Earth [to avoid a doomsday] would do a doomsday's worth of thermal damage to Earth. This had me wondering ~ what would be the impact of that fleet of rockets landing on Mars? Would it destroy Mars' atmosphere... or add just enough chemicals via emissions, and heat, to help us colonize and possibly terraform the world? If it would destroy Mars, what size fleet would be just right to warm Mars and more? To sum it all up into one question: How many rocket landings and/or liftoffs would be required to warm Mars enough to benefit terraforming efforts?

[@cozmothemagician7243]

On the third hand... or as Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle called it "The Gripping Hand" go Moties GO!

[@Vulcano7965]

the biggest obstacle for a idea like this might be, that Mars doesn't have enough frozen CO2 and water to create an atmosphere even resembling earth-like surface pressure conditions.

[@Volodimar]

Yep, it doesn't.

[@Yayojayoful]

Oh good, I was just looking for a video on this exact topic.

[@leefletcher7527]

I've written three novels on this theme, have another in work, and lots of ideas for more. Endless possibilies.

[@cuddlemuffin.9545]

Can you do a video about how practical the giant war machines in the movie Pacific Rim would be irl and how they can be used in space warfare since there wouldnt be air to slow the machine down or gravity to limit how big they could be

[@DrewLSsix]

The human form isn't at all practical in space, why attach tons of unnecessary limbs to your spaceship? Something the films don't really address is that the punching and grappling part of the fights are totally unnecessary, they demonstrate that the plasma weapons and missiles the machines use are entirely capable of killing the monsters. Considering it took the entire world's economy to fund a few dozen of these things it would have been infinitely cheaper to simply build an army consisting of those weapons on more typical chassis.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I tihnk we did do an episode on Giant Mecha and powered armor :)

[@tyree9055]

"Nukem baby" *said in my best Jon St. John impression* 😅👍

[@TheRolemodel1337]

6:54 thats why you are my favorite "Arthur" ;D

[@marlonlacert8133]

Talk about explosive content!

[@solanumtinkr8280]

Could you use a Stellaser to heat the polar caps up? just thinking that if brute force isn't working....

[@NullHand]

I think a more viable Stranglovecraftian Terraforming strategy would be to locate any rising mantle plumes like the one that must have built Olympus, and uncork them all at once with sequenced nukes in boreholes to the surface.

[@grahamehadden4320]

I feel that fusion would be the way to go, as the comets far out would need a fusion rocket to move it.

[@wolraadwoltemade3275]

No why? They use planets and their gravity to sling it, it needs small bumps to have large changes in trajectory... 🤔 A degree out at point A is a huge difference once it arrives at point B.

[@ProperLogicalDebate]

6:30 Aggressors lose their nukes to terraform Mars? Even a percentage of other countries but that would be harder than restricting battleships.

[@uprightape100]

Naw........it's O'Neill Cylinders for me. I'd sign up today if offered a chance to build the first and I don't care how dangerous (very) or the odds of dying (high) it is.

[@NullHand]

Once you crawl up out of your gravity well cave and start building dwellings in the sky, I think planets will be like Cavern Tours. Nice places to visit for sentimental reasons but stepping off your balcony to surf the 0.2 g slow wave to your favorite pub across the hab that has a 0g rave upstairs in the basement is just gonna seem way more civilized.

[@antonnym214]

Dr. Arthur, what do you think of the Mach Effect drive. Is it legit? Thank you for great reporting!

[@ctrsmithy]

Could u speed up the demise of phobos somehow and crash that into mars by slowing it down maybe? Maybe that could restart the core? Maybe even form tectonic plates in the process if your lucky?

[@thebigerns]

Isaac Arthur solves the Fermi Paradox… nuking his way to a better world.

[@harmonyspaceagency1743]

sure there's some asteroid out there with more uranium than we've even used. We are just not on the scale to talk about how easy somthing like this would be

[@asmrimperium]

Only a few minutes in so far, but well done Isaac this is a phenomenal video!