Nuking Venus Options

[gndonald]

I was reading an online article on the various plans to explode nuclear weapons on the moon, when I spotted a reference to Soviet plans to 'calibrate' seismic models of Venus by exploding a nuclear weapon there, supposedly this planning went on until the 1970's which is well after the limited test ban treaty.

Obviously this would not have been a single craft mission, as seismographic equipment would have to have been emplaced before the explosion. Does anyone have any further information on just what was planned?

[gndonald]

I wouldn't necessarily classify the idea as 'crazy'. Grossly irresponsible perhaps, a bad public relations move certainly, but not insane.

The basic science objective is understandable, using seismic waves to determine the interior composition of a planet or moon has been tried by the US, successfully on the Moon during the Apollo program and unsuccessfuly during the Viking mission to Mars.

What the Soviets were probably planning to do was land several probes fitted with seismonitors on one side of Venus and detonate the nuke on the other side, this would give them the ability to amongst other things determine whether or not Venus has a liquid core.

[JRehling]

A friend of mine who was a seismologist certainly complained that a problem (for geologists) is that there aren't enough earthquakes. Of course, for the rest of us, there are more than enough.

The thing about nuking Venus is that presumes we would even need to create a big blast. It may very well have quakes all the time. They probably wouldn't be so nice as to occur at the moment and magnitude and location that we desire, but we ought to check...

[tty]

A friend of mine who was a seismologist certainly complained that a problem (for geologists) is that there aren't enough earthquakes. Of course, for the rest of us, there are more than enough.

The thing about nuking Venus is that presumes we would even need to create a big blast. It may very well have quakes all the time. They probably wouldn't be so nice as to occur at the moment and magnitude and location that we desire, but we ought to check...

Actually a nuclear (or sufficiently large conventional) explosion is much better than an earthquake from a seismological point of view because:

1. It's a point source

2. Time, location and energy release are known to a high precision

Actually I fail to see what is "squirrelly" or "irresponsible" with this idea. It seems to be a sensible and scientifically quite valuable concept. The only possibly dangerous part would be the launch of the nuclear charge(s), but they would in any case have to be in ballistic warheads which are built to survive re-entry and have been thoroughly researched for decades. For extra safety you could use oralloy weapons, in which case even an atmospheric breakup would have negligible environmental impact.

The main problems would be the test-ban treaty (if it applies to the surface of Venus), and a mental barrier to using nuclear explosions for any reason whatsoever.

tty