Elon Musk: Nukes can make Mars more like Earth

Chris Woodyard | USA TODAY

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk acknowledges that Mars would be an inhospitable place to live at the moment, but he says it can be made more Earth-like.

All it takes is the Mars equivalent of global warming or, if you're in a hurry, nuclear bombs.

Musk appeared on the CBS' new The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to talk about cars and space. Colbert says he's a Tesla owner and that he "loves" the electric car.

Mars has long held fascination for Musk — so much that he told USA TODAY that he would like to visit the red planet some day. Colbert, who sounded a little skeptical about colonizing Mars, asked him about the living conditions.

Mars is "a fixer-upper of a planet," Musk says, but it can be made to be more like Earth if it can be made hotter. When it comes to turning on the planetary furnace, there's a slow way and fast way, he explained.

The slow way is to release greenhouse gases, the same process being blamed for global warming on Earth. The fast way is to drop nuclear weapons over Mars' poles.

Musk says his rocket firm, Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, will be capable of ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station in two or three years. At present, SpaceX's Falcon rockets deliver cargo to the ISS.