Nuke the Sun and Mars too

[Amadeus]

This IS a stupide question but its been on my mind for a while.
We have a big problem with a huge amount of out dated Nukes hanging about the place going rusty.

canty we have some fun with them

If we fired some at the sun what effect would it have if any? I'am talking solar flares and suchlight.

The second option I see is to fire them at the Martian polar caps (once we are pretty sure that there's no life there capable of firing back!)

This would have the effect of melting a lot of water and kicking a lot of dust into the atmosphere warming the place up with the green house effect.

Answers on the back of a Stamped addressed Wookie


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Laughter is the beset medicine for everthing except a hernia!

[jokergirl]

I doubt such tiny little things would have a lot of effect on the sun.

[Iain Lambert]

Firstly, I'm with Jokergirl on the amount of effect you have.

Secondly, and more importantly, as much as I too see the problem with having a bunch of nuclear warheads sitting around, I think the last thing you probably want to do from a safety point of view is park them on top of a rocket with enough fuel to lift them out of the gravity well.

[TrAI]

I would think that sending weapons off into space would be a massive waste of resources. You would need rockets powerful enough to haul massive loads(who knows how many tousand tons of nuklear weapons exists in the world today) into orbit with no chance of it failing and spreading radioactive materials in the atmosphere...

Hmmm... Its probably cheaper, easier and safer to recycle the weapons on earth...

[Astronot]

The second option I see is to fire them at the Martian polar caps (once we are pretty sure that there's no life there capable of firing back!)

This would have the effect of melting a lot of water and kicking a lot of dust into the atmosphere warming the place up with the green house effect.

It is my understanding that liquid water can not exist on the surface of Mars. The atmosphere does not provide enough pressure to keep water in its liquid state. When not frozen, it simply boils away.

We are already pretty sure there is no life at all on Mars. Nevertheless, there is some debate on this topic. The discovery of evidence that life existed on Mars in the distant past has not been ruled out.

[WHarris]

Hmmm... Its probably cheaper, easier and safer to recycle the weapons on earth...

I'd rather that they be used to build an Orion.

[ToSeek]

The delta-V you need to send something into the Sun is almost prohibitive. It would probably take a Saturn V to do it for a nuclear weapon. The US mission to Mercury needs a bunch of flyby maneuvers to slow down enough just to go into orbit around Mercury. The anti-nuke folks had enough of a fit doing that with Cassini - imagine how they'd feel about doing that with a bunch of bombs!

[Phildonnia3]

Yes, and if you fired nukes into the sun, they might ignite a massive nuclear reaction, and ... oh, wait a minute...

[mike alexander]

I would guess you could throw them in the sun via a Jupiter loop. But isn't this NIMBY with a vengeance?

If the stuff absolutely, positively HAS to be gotten rid of, I would favor transmutation here on earth, anyway.

[informant]

The second option I see is to fire them at the Martian polar caps (once we are pretty sure that there's no life there capable of firing back!)

This would have the effect of melting a lot of water and kicking a lot of dust into the atmosphere warming the place up with the green house effect.

Our great-great-great-grandchildren trying to terraform Mars might not appreciate that inheritance.

[TrAI]

I'd rather that they be used to build an Orion.

Hmmm, "rather"?
wouldn't using the nuclear material from the bombs to fuel a spacecraft be a form of recycling?

I dont think you would just fling any old nuke out the back of your ship, i would think you would like to have a series of nice small explosions of even yield if you are to use them to propell a spacecraft, not one big... and since you are going to haul it all to orbit with chemical rocket, you would like to have as little extra weight as possible...

[wedgebert]

The second option I see is to fire them at the Martian polar caps (once we are pretty sure that there's no life there capable of firing back!)

This would have the effect of melting a lot of water and kicking a lot of dust into the atmosphere warming the place up with the green house effect.

Actually, if you kick a lot of dust into an atmosphere, it's going to block out more sunlight and decrease the overall temperature of the planet, aka Nuclear Winter.

Martian terrarforming isn't something that is going to happen overnight, it's giong to take centuries if not millenia. But if we're going to bother with Mars, we might as well start terraforming Venus as well.

[Captain Kidd]

I would guess you could throw them in the sun via a Jupiter loop. But isn't this NIMBY with a vengeance?

If the stuff absolutely, positively HAS to be gotten rid of, I would favor transmutation here on earth, anyway.

Already being done for some of the stuff.
Some reactors are using fuel rods with part of the fuel being reprocessed nukes. That way we at least get to use the stuff rather than fling it away or leave it sitting around waiting to blow up a piece of the earth.

[The Bad Astronomer]

Solar energy output per second: 4 x 10^33 ergs.

Total explosive yield of all nuclear weapons on Earth: about 10^27 or so.

So every second, the Sun puts out as much energy as one million times the entire nuclear arsenal on the planet.

I hope this puts things into perspective.

P.S. I am not exactly sure of the yields, but it should be within a factor of ten.

[Invader Spleen]

would the nukes even make it close enough to the sun to be able to detonate?

i would think the whole lot would become vapour before it got anywhere near

[Pi Man]

Just shoot them all at Planet X! That's what to do with them! I could save thousands!

Joking.... Joking.... Joking....

[wedgebert]

We should just shoot Nancy at Planet X and save thousands of lives as well.

Of course they're all potential Darwin Award winners...

But think of all the innocent pets whose lives we'd be saving?

[Chuck]

If we want to nuke something how about asteroids and comets that come near earth? Then they won't bother future generations.

[Captain Kidd]

If we want to nuke something how about asteroids and comets that come near earth? Then they won't bother future generations.

Yeah, but we goof one and next thing we know, we got radioactive debris raining down around the world. Some of the mass will get vaporized but most will still be there. Smaller chunks for sure; but where you had a large bullet coming at you with a good chance to miss, now you’ve got a shotgun blast that’ll scatter wide with a larger chance for at least some of it to hit.

Actually though, I believe delivery is the problem again. Remember, these missiles weren't meant for space travel or that much delta V, just up, down, blam.

Speaking of nukes, this story about nuclear powered missiles (with a twist) makes the rounds occasionally. I’ve asked around, but it’s still unclear if it’s a TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) urban legend or not.

[Sammy]

Captain Kidd wrote

Speaking of nukes, this story about nuclear powered missiles (with a twist) makes the rounds occasionally. I’ve asked around, but it’s still unclear if it’s a TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) urban legend or not.

Don't know if it's a myth or not, but the name and ham callsign of the guy signing it are in the current FCC ham database, so he's real, anyway.

[jokergirl]

If we want to nuke something how about asteroids and comets that come near earth? Then they won't bother future generations.

Yeah, but we goof one and next thing we know, we got radioactive debris raining down around the world. Some of the mass will get vaporized but most will still be there. Smaller chunks for sure; but where you had a large bullet coming at you with a good chance to miss, now you’ve got a shotgun blast that’ll scatter wide with a larger chance for at least some of it to hit.

Now that would make a great post-apocalyptic (post-Armageddon, anyone?) storyline...

*goes to write it up in her future story ideas dbase*

[Betenoire]

I would guess you could throw them in the sun via a Jupiter loop. But isn't this NIMBY with a vengeance?

If the stuff absolutely, positively HAS to be gotten rid of, I would favor transmutation here on earth, anyway.

Yeah, but Calvin's Transmogrifier box disappeared along with Bill Waterson.

[Stuart]

Solar energy output per second: 4 x 10^33 ergs. Total explosive yield of all nuclear weapons on Earth: about 10^27 or so. So every second, the Sun puts out as much energy as one million times the entire nuclear arsenal on the planet. I hope this puts things into perspective. P.S. I am not exactly sure of the yields, but it should be within a factor of ten.

Just doing a Bad Check on the numbers. One kiloton is equivalent to 4.2 x 10^19 ergs.

There are approximately 10,000 nuclear devices around at the moment with yields varying from sub-kiloton to 5 megatons. The really big ones are very rare now; the average yield of of a strategic device is around 350 kilotons. There are about 7,000 of them so that gives us 2.45 x 10 ^6 kilotons.

The remaining 3,000 are tactical devices average yield around 10 kilotons so that gives us an additional 0.03 x10^6 kilotons for a total 3 x 10 ^6 kilotons.

So total energy in ergs is 4.2 x 10^19 x 3 x 10^6 = 1.26 x 10^26 ergs

Given all the crudely estimated variables in there, that's close enough for government work. So I'd support the 1 x 10^27 approximation.

However, the basic presumption is flawed

We have a big problem with a huge amount of out dated Nukes hanging about the place going rusty.

Actually that isn't the case. We take them out and polish them every day. Seriously, there is actually a worrying shortage of fissile material for nuclear devices. Weapons-grade fissile has a limited life and the components have to be remanufactured at regular intervals. Thats becoming very problematical

[obiwankanathan]

Not considering the cost of such a launch, launching all our nuclear waste into the sun would be a nice way to get rid of it all. However, if that rocket just happened to blow up, you'd have a very serious problem on your hands that would really mess up our planet.

That just made me think of something though. If it ever got cost effective, couldn't launching our garbage into the sun be a good way to get rid of it? And other then it polluting the atmosphere and possibly the ground a little, a bad launch wouldn't do to much to you, unless your house was where the debris rained down. :P

[Alex W.]

Why not extract the fuel, process it, and use it to make electricity, then recycle the metal and other component materials?

[bobjohnston]

Regarding Stuart's numbers: those numbers aren't too bad for the U.S. stockpile only, but the current total yield of all nuclear stockpiles is about 4.3x10^26 ergs, and the uncertainty here is less than a factor of two. Total number of warheads in the world is about 33,000, ranging from less than a kiloton to 25 mt each. Most are 1-600 kt.

Actually, if you kick a lot of dust into an atmosphere, it's going to block out more sunlight and decrease the overall temperature of the planet, aka Nuclear Winter.

You've got to have more atmosphere than Mars has for this to work. Remember than Mars has a global dust storm every Martian year, each lasting a month or so (I think, comment anyone?).

[Richard of Chelmsford]

I read somewhere that the reason why we've got so many nukes is so that we can protect the planet from aliens if we suddenly get an attack of 'Independence Day' proportions.

Well, I suppose anythings possible.

[Amadeus]

Not considering the cost of such a launch, launching all our nuclear waste into the sun would be a nice way to get rid of it all. However, if that rocket just happened to blow up, you'd have a very serious problem on your hands that would really mess up our planet.

That just made me think of something though. If it ever got cost effective, couldn't launching our garbage into the sun be a good way to get rid of it? And other then it polluting the atmosphere and possibly the ground a little, a bad launch wouldn't do to much to you, unless your house was where the debris rained down. :P

This sounds like a good reason to build a space elevator... We could bring up not just warheads but toxic waste as well. Give the whole planet a spring clean! Then we could just some kind of sling shot to send it to the sun to burn.

My own thoughts on the space elevator are that the ground station should actually be built at sea in the middle of an ocean. Firstly so there is no one country that controls it. Secondly if the top starts to drift because of a problem well can just move the base along with it.(like an oil rig) Thirdly if the worst happends and it falls It should not cause much damage. ( See the book Red mars by kim Stanley Robinson).

[numbskull]

If I understand it correctly, one of the theoretical designs envisages a structure so finely balanced that the base would not need to be tethered at all. If the structure were to drift at the top, I fear that something catastrophic would be about to happen; too catastrophic for a floating ground station to address.

[obiwankanathan]

I read somewhere that the reason why we've got so many nukes is so that we can protect the planet from aliens if we suddenly get an attack of 'Independence Day' proportions.

Nah, that's what the Mac laptops are for. :wink: