Terraforming Mars? Frankly, I didn’t know this was even an option. That's how behind I am on the issues. Thank goodness for youtube, right?
Michio Kaku is one of the most interesting people I’ve ever heard speak. His PR campaign is awesome and he always finds imaginative theories to present. It’s incredible to me that this physicist has spent his life developing physical theories so concise that they make the instructions to using a toaster seem like a Tolstoy novel, and so exact that they make the life sciences embarrassed to use the word theory. Yet all in one breath he can explain dark matter, string theory, quantum physics, and how they relate to an objective that would make even Columbus do a double take.
Yet, this genius is surprisingly down to earth. He has not attempted to overreach the science with his explanation of the process. He openly admits that it will take hundreds of years to terraform mars. Even so he has an economical plan that will make this fiscally plausible. Apparently some fool out there (probably a congressman) has suggested shipping pumps to mars to evacuate CO2 trapped below the surface of mars (it is unclear if the operators of the pumps would be granted amnesty upon the terraformation of the planet). This will clearly be too expensive (it will cut spending by 4 million dollars over the next 350 years, never mind that the budget will grow 700 trillion percent over the same period). Kaku suggests we simply heat the planet up with a couple of well aimed A-bombs, thereby releasing the greenhouse gas previously mentioned into the atmosphere and jump starting martian global warming. In practically no time we’ll be enjoying the fruits of a second habitable planet in this solar system. To hell with population control, we’ll just get some new planets. This man is an innovator.
I have to agree with you. I like this guy, he seems to have a gift to explains things in such clear terms, and he's definitely brilliant. I'm glad you came across one of his videos, who better to explain the processes needed to make mars habitable? You should look for videos of Neil deGrasse Tyson. He's also a famous physicist and the director of the Hayden Planetarium at NY. That's another guy who has a gift for explaining things.
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