[fifilura]

I imagine that if you can colonize other planets you can also target them with nuclear weapons.

It is like saying that the solution to all problems is colonizing Antarctica.

[Manabu-eo]

It's much easier to intercept said nuclear weapon because instead of minutes you would have months to do it. And attacking Mars outside the few months every two years that have the most favorable transfer windows would also be much more difficult. It's a non-trivial advantage.

Of course, if you have nuclear weapons already on Mars that can be remotely triggered from Earth this doesn't apply, but hopefully we can avoid that...

[fifilura]

TBH I think this whole discussion - that fixing Mars should be easier than fixing Earth - is some proof that a lot of hacker news commenters are already aliens from Mars.

[cynicalpeace]

Yes- but raises an interesting problem of nuclear energy. Might be very important/useful in space.

The book series "The Expanse" does an amazing job of showing what a war in space would look like, and the role of nuclear energy.

Interestingly, nukes become small fry compared to slinging asteroids at planets.