Climatize mars?

Question

I wonder if we used an atom smasher on the moon of mars to slam into it if we could crack the surface and force the massive release of sulfer and co2 because of geothermal activity. Perhaps it would warm the atmosphere and force the atmosphere to gain density and force the water vapor back down to the ground. Because of the lack of pressure the water is boiling without heat. Does anybody have a commend about this?

Answer 1

Ummmm... yeahhhh... unfortunately, you're mixing technologies in ways that won't work. First of all, atom smashers (aka linear accelerators) only collide subatomic particles together; it's not a big nuclear gun or anything. Secondly, if you're talking about smashing either of Mars' moons into the planet, good luck generating the kind of force necessary -- although Phobos and Deimos are both pretty puny compared to Mars itself (and most people think they're actually asteroids that got caught in Mars' gravitational pull), it would probably take more than the entire nuclear arsenal on Earth to even move them a degree, assuming you could coordinate that many explosions simultaneously. But in any event, if you could do so, you would indeed release a lot of CO2... dunno about sulfur, but there's a lot of dry ice at the poles and there may be evidence of subsurface water in the form of ice. The problem is that even if you managed to merge Phobos and Deimos with Mars, the combined mass still wouldn't be enough to hold much of an atmosphere -- the gravity is still too low. So you could create a thicker atmosphere for a brief time, but eventually, it would evaporate out into space, until atmospheric pressure was right around where it is today, and it still wouldn't have the right constituents for us to breathe, anyway. So you've unleashed a cosmic level of violence on our neighbor planet for no real benefit. Sorry; not a feasible option.

Answer 2

Great sci-fi stuff but it won't work. I don't think the moon has enough mass to sustain an atmosphere. Now a better word for climatize would be teraforming. Teraforming could be possible on Mars. Mars has an existing atmosphere. There are certain plants that grow in the arctic tundra regions of Earth that could be transplanted to areas near the poles of Mars. These plants could be used to scrub the existing carbon dioxide in Mars' atmosphere into oxygen; therefore, making the atmosphere more like our own. Can't say for sure if these plants would survive and if they did this would probably take at lest 1500 years to complete.

Answer 3

I think the best variation on your idea would be to discover a very large icy asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Mars.

With the right "nudge" it could be made to slam into mars, creating a crater with localized liquid water and air. Or better yet, break the asteroid into hundreds of pieces and create numerous "pockets" all over the surface. It would take decades or longer for these to dissipate, plenty of time to cover them or otherwise trap the materials for use by "new Martians".

Later generations would have to deal with the eventual shortages, but the short to midterm would be provided for.

Of course, there had not be any bases there already when the sky starts to fall. This plan assumes an unpopulated Mars!

Answer 4

We could redirect sun light onto Mars and cause it heat up. The fozen water would melt when it got above freezing and at least some atmosphere be present.