# Sending Nuclear Missles to VENUS **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 15, 2012, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-nuclear-missles-to-venus/631611 "2012-08-15T22:04:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MR.REED](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@MR.REED](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MR.REED)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2012, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-nuclear-missles-to-venus/631611/1 "2012-08-15T22:04:46Z")
The planet Venus exist as is due to a Greenhouse effect. If Nuclear devices were detonated on Venus would it be possible to create a Nuclear Winter that would cool the planet? Would this have any effect on the planet or reverse the Greenhouse effect? ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2012, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-nuclear-missles-to-venus/631611/2 "2012-08-15T22:23:03Z")
Better to shoot algae at it. ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2012, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-nuclear-missles-to-venus/631611/3 "2012-08-15T22:23:56Z")
Venus already has a [very high albedo](http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/venusfact.html) (Bond albedo, also see the blackbody temperature, which is much lower than Earth despite a much higher surface temperature and twice the solar radiation), with very little sunlight able to penetrate the thick clouds; it stays so hot because the greenhouse effect is so strong (about 200,000 times more CO2 than Earth, based on partial pressures; ~90 bar for Venus and 0.0004 bar for Earth, equivalent to something like 18 doublings of CO2, which would raise the temperature of Earth by about 54°C, not accounting for other effects, plus 3°C per doubling is only valid for Earth with a climate like the present one, and doesn’t account for long-term feedbacks, although Venus doesn’t have any water, ice or vegetation for such feedbacks). ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2012, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-nuclear-missles-to-venus/631611/4 "2012-08-15T23:16:03Z")
You want to start an inter planetary war don’t you. Declan ---
**Author:** ![temp\_user](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9de053/32.png) [@temp\_user](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/temp_user)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-nuclear-missles-to-venus/631611/5 "2012-08-16T21:39:50Z")
I know this goes into the realm of the ridiculous, but what if we could construct a really long tube that went almost to the surface and reached into outerspace. Would it be possible to use the unequal pressure between the surface and the vacuum of space to suck a great deal of Venus’s crushing atmosphere out into the void? ---
**Author:** ![Valgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-nuclear-missles-to-venus/631611/6 "2012-08-16T21:52:05Z")
> [@temp\_user](#): > > I know this goes into the realm of the ridiculous, but what if we could construct a really long tube that went almost to the surface and reached into outerspace. Would it be possible to use the unequal pressure between the surface and the vacuum of space to suck a great deal of Venus’s crushing atmosphere out into the void? Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you mean, but Venus’ atmosphere is already exposed to the vacuum of space (it’s not like there’s a shell around the planet holding all the gas in) - gravity pulls the atmosphere down. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-nuclear-missles-to-venus/631611/7 "2012-08-16T21:52:46Z")
> [@temp\_user](#): > > I know this goes into the realm of the ridiculous, but what if we could construct a really long tube that went almost to the surface and reached into outerspace. Would it be possible to use the unequal pressure between the surface and the vacuum of space to suck a great deal of Venus’s crushing atmosphere out into the void? Well, no. The atmosphere is held in place by Venus’s gravity, or it would have escaped already. I once proposed a ring of wormholes around Venus’s equator, with their other ends circling Mars’s equator, but there were, um, technical hurdles. ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-nuclear-missles-to-venus/631611/8 "2012-08-16T22:25:57Z")
Relevant thread (also see post #24, which asks the same question as **temp user** but for Earth; post #28 links to yet another thread on the same topic): > **[Why doesn't Earth's atmosphere get sucked away into space?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=328607)** > > Before going into work this morning I was watching coverage of the space walk where the guy was about to fix the belly of the shuttle. Somehow the conversation got around to welding in space. The main point being they just didn’t know the effects of... ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2012, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-nuclear-missles-to-venus/631611/9 "2012-08-17T00:09:49Z")
Hell, at the start of the Space Race both the US and the USSR made plans to [nuke the moon](http://www.cracked.com/article/153_nuke-moon-5-certifiably-insane-cold-war-projects/). Just for fun! ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2012, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sending-nuclear-missles-to-venus/631611/10 "2012-08-17T00:21:19Z")
God I miss the good ole days. Let’s blow some shit up for fun!