Would Nuking Mars Really Help Terraform It?

The long standing objective of humanity to become an interplanetary civilisation is still centuries away from completion but the very first small steps in the process are being taken as we speak.

It's an exciting and quite frankly, a crazy goal but I believe it to be the natural evolution of the human civilisation in the long run. In the coming millennia, we could be settled on many planets and moons within our solar system.

Such herculean dreams require big ideas and since we are in the very early stages of the whole thing, we can expect to hear some really bizarre and outlandish ones, even from really smart people.

One such idea is of terraforming Mars with nuclear weapons. Terraforming is the process of modifying a planet or moon's atmosphere, temperature, pressure, topography or other characteristics to make them more like Earth and so, more human friendly.
Would Nuking Mars Work?

Elon Musk has been the most prominent public figure of this idea for many years now as his goal with SpaceX is to make humanity a spacefaring and multiplanetary civilisation. Mars seems to be the first set destination for this goal.

He has often discussed how nuclear weapons might make Mars more habital for us humans. The idea is to set off nuclear bombs at the two poles of the red planet which would set off a chain reaction.

Doing so would first vaporize the carbon-dioxide trapped in the polar ice sheets, which would spread throughout the planet to make its atmosphere thicker. More carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere would kickstart a greenhouse effect, raising the planet's temperature to more tolerable levels. This would also allow for water to remain in liquid form on the surface.

Scientists and other experts remain skeptical about this method however. They say that there is just not enough carbon-dioxide on the planet for this plan to be effective. Even if all of it were to be vaporized, it would amount to just 7 percent that of Earth. Also, a nuclear fallout cloud could endup making the planet even colder instead of warming it up.

The general consensus seems to be that at this stage, we simply do not have the means to terraform a planet. Our technology is just not advanced enough and it might take centuries to reach the required levels. For now, nuking Mars remains just an idea. A crazy one.