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Sahana Kumar added section_Radioactive_Material_We_can__1.tex
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\section{Radioactive Material}
We can now determine if nuclear weapons can provide the minimum amount of energy required to terraform the atmosphere. The heat of vaporization of water at 200 K is 34.962 kJ/mol. The total amount of energy required to vaporize enough polar ice is 7.535 x 10$^{24}$ Joules. In addition, the amount of energy required to create a magnetosphere is on the order of 10$^{26}$J. This is an incredible amount of energy, amounting to more than 10 million Tsar Bombas, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated by humans.
Does Earth even have enough radioactive materials to terraform Mars? We have chosen to focus on Uranium and Plutonium as our radioactive sources because they are currently used in nuclear weapons. Also, all isotopes of these two elements are radioactive, allowing a more continual heating of Mars.
One Uranium-235 atom can release 3.24 x 10$^{-11}$ Joules of energy by fission, and one Plutonium-239 atom can release 3.318 x 10$^{-11}$ Joules. There is currently an estimated 5.9025 x 10$^9$ kg of extractable uranium on Earth, which would not provide enough energy to terraform the atmosphere. Even if we used all of the uranium on Earth, it would still require an additional 84.25 x 10$^{10}$ kg of Plutonium-239 to vaporize enough polar ice. This is well beyond the radioactive inventory of Earth, so unfortunately, Earth does not have enough radioactive materials to terraform Mars.
