SpaceX's Elon Musk wants to Nuke Mars
but why? We're talking about that coming up.
Hey guys Tory here from Overlook Horizon. If you're new to the channel, we fly high
altitude weather balloon flights to the
edge of space and back and along the way
we talk about space science and
technology so if that's something you're
interested in please consider
subscribing. Today we're talking about
Elon Musk because in the late evening
hours on Thursday August 15th Elon
tweeted out two words: "Nuke Mars" and this sent the media and scientists into a
crazy frenzy. Now, Elon Musk is no
stranger to tweets that are conversation
starters. Yeah ok we'll go with that. This
idea although crazy sounding is actually
something he really wants to do for the
benefit of humanity. Now, it should be no
secret the Elon Musk really wants to get
humans to Mars as soon as possible
SpaceX is actively building and testing
their prototype development vehicles for
the starship and super heavy rockets
that are intended to take people to the
Moon and Mars someday. Now it's still a
number of years away before SpaceX lands
anybody on the Moon or Mars but it's
never too early to start thinking about
once we do land on Mars what do we do
there? Now, the first two or maybe even
more starship missions that eventually
land on Mars will likely be uncrewed
missions that bring things like supplies
and life-support systems and power
generation systems that the future human
settlers that land on Mars will need to
set up when they arrive. Te initial
crewed missions that eventually bring
those human settlers to Mars will likely
be one-way trips to Mars. You see, it
takes a lot of fuel to get to Mars and
all that fuel that's expended to get
there leaves almost nothing to actually
do a return trip back to Earth. Now some
people think well why not just fly a
cargo mission full of fuel that gives
you a ton of fuel to come back to earth
but don't forget fuel is heavy and it
takes a lot of fuel just to bring fuel
to Mars now people have done the math
surrounding this and it would take about
eleven or twelve starship missions to
Mars just to bring enough fuel to bring
one starship back to earth now this is a
little bit crazy and SpaceX knows that
and that's why they're focused on
actually using the local resources on
Mars to build infrastructure so that
they can produce fuel right there on
Mars for their new Raptor engine
now this is one of the reasons why
SpaceX opted to use methane and liquid
oxygen on their new Raptor engines
instead of rocket grade kerosene which
is what the Falcon 9 uses NASA has
already done Studies on this using the
local resources on Mars and found that
it may be possible to actually produce
things like methane oxygen and water
just using those local resources that
are already available right on Mars an
option like this would still take many
years in order to build the
infrastructure necessary to actually
accomplish that but that still doesn't
answer the question once we get there
now what Elon Musk's ultimate goal is to
set up a permanent civilization on Mars
by the year 2050 or so now the
concept of living on Mars sounds pretty
awesome but would you really want to
spend the rest of your life there? think
about it you'd be stuck inside all the
time it's super cold on Mars it's about
negative 80 degrees Fahrenheit or
negative 60 degrees Celsius on average
the ambient air pressure outside is only
about six millibars which is way too low
to just go walking outside unprotected
and eventually these human settlers
would have to deal with a whole range of
issues especially psychological issues
like severe cabin fever so really we
need a way for these human settlers to
go outside and make Mars more like Earth
and that is where the idea of nuking
Mars comes in you see one of Elon's
ideas is to quite literally detonate two
thermonuclear weapons at the poles of
Mars this would essentially create two
tiny Suns at each Pole and warm up the
planet
this would allow water to start flowing
and it would allow gases like carbon
dioxide to be released into the
atmosphere and essentially this induces
an intentional form of global warming on
Mars. now it's theorized by intentionally
melting the entire North and South Pole
on Mars that you could bring the ambient
air pressure up to about 20 millibars on
Mars although this is still a long way
away from the roughly 1,000 millibars
that it is at sea level here on earth
the hope is that once you start warming
the poles that this induces a
self-sustaining snowball effect
this would allow additional carbon
dioxide to be released from the soil on
Mars further increasing the ambient
pressure in the atmosphere and
eventually getting you to the point
where you could walk outside unprotected
although the air still may not be
breathable so you might still need a
breathing apparatus. ultimately this is a
plan that would take decades or even
centuries to be fully matured. who knows
may
someday we'll have another earth-like
planet right next door. so question of
the day, what do you guys think about
this plan? is this just complete insanity
or do you think this will actually
happen someday? let me know what you guys
think in the comments section down below
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