MOSCOW, May 18. /TASS/. The US seeks to militarize the space, Russian Space Agency head Dmitry Rogozin said, commenting on SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s statement on launching 10,000 missiles to Mars to change the planet’s climate.

"Apparently, the US seeks to militarize the space," Rogozin tweeted. "It is unlikely they will blow up Mars, but it is an obvious pretext to put thermonuclear weapons in space."

Earlier, Musk suggested terraforming Mars by conducting a series of thermonuclear explosions at the Mars’ poles. According to Musk, this would lead to evaporation of frozen carbon dioxide that the poles’ ice caps are made of. The evaporated gas would make the planet’s atmosphere denser and cause a greenhouse effect, which would lead to heightened temperature.

In response, Roscosmos executive director on perspective programs and science Alexander Bloshenko said that this project would take about 10,000 launches of the most powerful carrier missiles. Musk responded by saying that this should not be a problem.