Venus, the second planet closest to the sun; our warm, moonless neighbour.
Nukes…the angry mans most impressive, yet most dangerous weapon.
What would happen if we introduced the two…just cause?
Hello and welcome back to Life’s Biggest Questions, the channel that likes to discuss
science, philosophy, history and politics… but also sometimes likes to take weird flights
of fancy based on strange thoughts that pass our even stranger brains.
I am your host Rebecca Felgate and today I am asking What if we Nuked Venus?
Before we get into this list, I want to ask you guys to hit that thumbs up button and
also to leave us comment telling us whether you are for or against nuking venus….
What even is my life.
Okay, so firstly, let’s just discuss how much of a costly nightmare even planning to
nuke Venus would be.
When Nasa last considered sending a space fleet to Venus, the estimated cost was 3 to
4 billion dollars, and that is for an unmanned adventure.
Assuming we were set on nuking Venus, we would either have to find a way to send a nuclear
warhead without a crew, or we would have to send humans in the spacecraft to drop the
bomb.
That would be a huge additional cost, plus an astronaut would have to face the health
risks of space travel and dedicate around 6 months of their life to fly there and back…that
is, of course, if they make it there and back in one piece.
Ultimately, the cost and risk for zero scientific endeavour would cause public outrage, and
it is unlikely such a mission would ever get off the ground.
Buuuut if it did….
Let’s say whatever vessel we send, man or unmanned reaches hot hot venus?
Well, how exactly would we go about nuking her?
Any Earth Vessel we send to the second rock from the sun, it had better be able to stand
the heat – Venus is 864 degrees farenheit, or 462 degrees celcius, meaning lead would
melt on the surface, which rules out a surface burst for a bomb drop.
Would a nuclear bomb even detonate?
It is likely that the explosion would be different to what we would see on earth as the atmosphere
is very different to earths – it is 96% Carbon Dioxide, and the air pressure is 92%
thicker than on earth.
While a nuclear weapon, be it a hydrogen bomb or an atomic bomb, would cause some damage
to Venus, it really wouldn’t be of any grand scale….plus, so far as we are aware anyway,
there aren’t any people to kill or buildings to destroy.
When earth was hit by the asteroid that we presume caused the ice age, it is predicted
the rock smash would be equivalent to a 240,000 megaton nuke… and our rock is still here,
albeit with a different species and a different climate.
The biggest nuke we have on earth is 100 Megatons, so even if we did get it all the way to venus….
The damage would likely be temporary…and again, for what purpose?
For a few bad lads to give themselves a pat on the back and bump fists at how they nuked
venus?
But wait Rebecca….
What if we send all our nukes and really gave venus a good seeing to?
Hiiii mean….sure…it would be expensive and futile and, all things considered, one
of the dumbest decisions in history… but lets just go with it….
We have around 14 thousand, 175 nuclear warheads on earth.
That could bop a few craters in our neighbour, but still not totally destroy her.
Yaaah… but okay, Rebecca, what if we could Nuke venus and totally destroy here forever
and ever IDST….well…we would be fundamental idiots who deserve obliteration… but beyond
that, other than creating a planets worth of space rocks next-door, ready to bump into
us, not much else would happen other than Venus would no longer exist and that would…you
know…kind of be a cosmic tragedy.
The number of planets in our solar system would decrease by one… and maybe people
would be more keen on adding Pluto to the line up, now that there is more space for
him.
Or not, maybe they’ll try and nuke him too.
Other than the moon, Venus is the brightest natural object in our sky… if we destroyed
her, we obviously wouldn’t be able to see her anymore.
Beyond that, Venus was named after the Greek goddess of love.
If we destroyed her namesake, maybe that would have some kind of sad symbolism….I for one
would have no love for humans if they started randomly blowing up planets.
The only good thing that could come from nuking Venus heavily enough to try and rid the universe
of her presence would be we probably would have exhausted our nuclear supply by doing
so, meaning there would be no threat of the nuclear apocalypse on Earth.
Sucks to be Venus though.
Maybe, just maybe, if there is alternative life out there, or even a god or some kind
of overlord… humans destruction of another planet might be enough for someone to stage
an intervention…and to be honest, it is about time.
Fun fact to end this silly romp of a video…did you know that Venus spins the opposite way
to earth?
Yeah!
There the sun rises in the west and sets in the east.
So there, don’t say these videos don’t teach you anything!
That is all I have ladies and gents… thanks for tuning in to this episode of Life’s
Biggest Questions…tell me what you think would happen if we nuked venus in the comments
section down below.
Also don’t forget to leave a thumbs up and stay subscribed for more big answers.
I am your host Rebecca Felgate…I will catch you in the next video, but for now….
Stay curious, stay alert and never ever stop questioning.