Contemporary 24th Century Mars: Glassed surface?

[Amariithynar]

Eh, perhaps I should have said meteoroid rather than meteor; never expected you to get so literal about it. I mentioned that because you stated, "They're easier to impart the right velocity on as well, since asteroids usually won't be heading in a convenient direction." Yeah, asteroids move, but with minimal force and speed in comparison. yes, Nukes would be the -quicker- solution, but so would have glassing Iraq/Afghanistan to get Osama Bin Laden. the latter wasn't done. i doubt the former would either.

Anyways. I specifically noted the largest asteroids in the Belt because of how easy it would be to mount reactors/engines on them and send them hurtling towards Mars. Vesta, Ceres, Hygeia, and Pallas together make up most of the mass of the belt; Ceres alone makes up 32%. Any of the three next largest (As ceres is large enough to start producing its own gravity due to mass) would make superb weaponized asteroids. Just because a space probe such as the Dawn (20 m (65 ft.) tip-to-tip along the solar arrays, with the spacecraft body 2 m (6 ft.) high from separation plane to instrument deck) can slip through the many smaller asteroids does not mean that it's 'amazingly empty'. Simply that something small and relatively nimble is able to easily pass through. I'm sure a multi-ton ship would encounter more problems. Vesta passes by Mars in very close proximity (far less than 1/2 an AU) every other year naturally; It'd be very simple to strap reactors to the asteroid and end it hurtling into Mars within a couple hours, if that long. LROB would keep them ground-bound, until it hit.

Alternative, make a scoop net out of durable enough material. run it through a section of the asteroid belt containing quantities of small asteroids. Tow to near Mars, impart thrust, open net, rapid small WMD bombardment.

And yet another alternative is simply to use neutron bombs for their clean detonation.

But these are all hypotheticals until George gives a definitive.

[Aury]

Guys: definitive answer to if nukes were used, I just found in the syrtian war thread "In 2251, the Commonwealth Fleet enters the solar system and nukes much of Mars from orbit." <-- so I wasn't just imagining that.

Anyways, now the question is "to what extent" it was nuked.

[RPC]

I have a feeling all the damage the nukes did was to clean off the Ares settlements--- so Mars looks like it does now
One thing I'm wondering though, did the Ares have an orbiting ring around Mars like St. Kat's? The CW could have colony dropped the Ares and we could have cool arcology segments sticking out of Mars. (If they were large enough to see from space anyways.)

[Aury]

The st.k's arcology is actually a giant ring station, but its not a ring that envelops the planet, like say, saturn's rings.

And yeah, I'm betting they just blasted the ares settlements off the surface.