As if new movie scrips about the planet Mars didn’t basically write themselves, Tesla & Space X CEO Elon Musk suggests that the fastest way to make our neighbor habitable would be to drop thermonuclear weapons over the poles.
Yeah, you heard that correctly. Nuke Mars, is what Musk is saying. And if that’s not an awesome idea for a space-movie, I don’t know what is.
Musk went on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where he talked about his car company, making Mars habitable, as well as other topics, none of which as fascinating as the prospect of not having to live in “transparent domes” after making our way onto the Red Planet.
Colbert also called Musk a Super Villain jokingly, which does kind of fit given his suggestion. However, since Mars is uninhabited, would doing something like that be so horrible? It’s not like it has any life forms, and accelerating the terraforming process would be a positive thing, as oppose to releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and waiting a really long time.
Also keep in mind that Mars currently has an average temperature of about -55 C (-67 F) and less than 1% oxygen in the atmosphere. As if the lack of oxygen wasn’t bad enough, raising the average temperature (which dips into unbearable conditions at night) might actually make it too hot during the day when even now current temperatures can reach 27 C (80 F) in the summer.
Anyway, we can talk about these things all we want, but the real story here is the fact that Musk doesn’t shy away from pioneering new technologies, aimed to help mankind grow.