Elon Musk does not dream of colonizing distant worlds. His dream is to milk the federal government of every penny he can get, and his real goal is about tapping into lucrative defense contracts.
• SpaceX is leading a bid to build Golden Dome with startups Anduril and Palantir, six people said
• The SpaceX-led group is pitching the Pentagon on a ‘subscription model’ for missile defense, sources said
• SpaceX proposes a constellation of 400 to more than 1,000 missile defense satellites, sources said
Picture Musk controlling a military spacecraft…
“Golden Dome” is just another Trump boondoggle, an excuse to throw away more money. It’s in contradiction to his claim to be improving government efficiency, which is code speak for starving the poor and throwing more money to the top 1% and to defense contractors. He’s going to pick who those contractors get to be.
One of the sources familiar with the talks described them as “a departure from the usual acquisition process. There’s an attitude that the national security and defense community has to be sensitive and deferential to Elon Musk because of his role in the government.”
SpaceX and Musk have declined to comment on whether Musk is involved in any of the discussions or negotiations involving federal contracts with his businesses.
I bet the defense industry is deferential — they want more money.
Because he’s actually an evil villain, Musk has another devious plan to unfold.
In an unusual twist, SpaceX has proposed setting up its role in Golden Dome as a “subscription service” in which the government would pay for access to the technology, rather than own the system outright.
The subscription model, which has not been previously reported, could skirt some Pentagon procurement protocols allowing the system to be rolled out faster, the two sources said. While the approach would not violate any rules, the government may then be locked into a subscription and lose control over its ongoing development and pricing, they added.
He’ll be an obscenely wealthy man who possesses total control of a thousand military satellites floating above the United States! This sounds like the plot to a James Bond movie.
Elon Musk does not dream of colonizing distant worlds.
Actually I think he does or at least did. Hard toknow what a person actually dreams about unles they tell you but he did have a focus on itand plans for it that seemed genuine and who ar ewe to say they weren’t.
Thing is that colonising Mars or space travel and exploration generally definitely does NOT seem to be his current focus or priority at all.
Elon has ever only ever sold vaporware – a ‘subscription’ model for defense products (that if he’s involved will NOT do what he promises ? ) 100$ grift
Who is going to be firing thousands of missiles at us anyway?
We don’t need a Golden Dome because we aren’t Israel or Ukraine, countries locked into long running wars with missiles coming from their adjacent countries.
We are friends with our neighbors, Canada and Mexico.
This is a joke. We were until 3 months ago.
Still, even though we’ve attacked them economically and threatened them with invasion, there aren’t any scenarios where they are going to start launching ballistic missiles and drones at us.
.1. We don’t have any sort of need for a Golden Dome type missile defense.
.2. It is also not practical.
The USA is half a continent, a huge place spreading over thousands of miles.
PS We’ve seen this before.
Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars program which never got off the ground either for the same reasons.
Ty[pos / spacing fix : Hard to know what a person actually dreams about unless they tell you but Musk did have a huge obsessive focus on space travel / Mars colonies and plans that seemed genuine and who are we to say they weren’t? Where’s the evidence for that?
Back in the era when he prioritised SpaceX forming and building and working on making that company the leading private space agency he certainly did in my view of his views.
Now not so much.
Ofc, back then (a decade ~ish ago now? Less) his political views were – at least publicly – a lot more moderate and he seemed a lot more rational and centrist or centre-reich – even being a supporter of the Democratic party up till three years ago.
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Views
I do think he’s become self-radicalised in his own ever more extremist bubble and changed dramatically for the worse. Or maybe just been revealed as dramatically worse but, yeah, I think he was actually more moderate, more science-accepting and less nazi tinfoil hat mob once?
Dunno tho’ and, ofc, his daughter Vivian Wilson gives her powerful testimony which I think is worth noting and respecting :
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-transgender-daughter-vivian-wilson-interview-rcna163665
Musk’s personal background and family history here :
https://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/27/elon_musk_south_africa
are rather telling and disturbing. When your family moves to Apartheid era South Africa for the racist laws, well..
“Thing is that colonising Mars or space travel and exploration generally definitely does NOT seem to be his current focus or priority at all.”
True. He seems busy DM’ing YT influencers on X asking them to make babies with him.
https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/elon-musk-asked-crypto-influencer-tiffany-fong-to-have-his-baby-she-said-no-and-saw-her-x-account-ruined/ar-AA1D4Uh3
Space travel and exploration, one would have thought, would be NASA’s thing, not that of private companies of billionaires trying to profiteer. I can see this ending like when Burke gets eaten by the Alien.
@2. notaandomposter : Er, SpaceX :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX#Hardware
& https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches
Starship too as one of the largest and most impressive rockets ever.
Plus Tesla :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk%27s_Tesla_Roadster
Okay, the cars esp the later ones (cough Cybertruck) have their issues – crash and burn issues but “vaporware” – nah.
Admittedly some of that specific last example linked might have been vapourised by now..
Meanwhile, Muskrat’s “DOGE” has been involved in foreign espionage of the US government, allowing hostile nations access to sensitive information and threatening whistleblowers: https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5355896/doge-nlrb-elon-musk-spacex-security
A subscription model for missile defense? That’s got to be a joke, right? Think about it. Chinese missiles are coming in over the North Pole, NORAD orders the Golden Dome into action, and it gets the message, Sorry, your subscription has expired. Please renew. Or, another real possibility is that Chinese hackers crack the system and render it inoperative. It’s one thing to privatize trash collection, it’s quite another to privatize the defense of our major cities and military assets. The word nuts seems to apply here.
Elon Musk is a deeply creepy and malevolent creature.
No one who has ever dealt with him for long wants anything to do with him.
That includes especially his breeding stock from his breeder hobby. His ex-brood mares have ended up suing him in court often for one thing or another. His oldest daughter and him have a running conflict. He called her “dead” which she didn’t much like and is somehow dead but alive enough to make sarcastic YouTube videos.
According to a recent article, Musk is obsessed with breeding and spends a lot of time hunting down new women to have his babies.
Right now he is up to 14 children from 4 different women.
There may be more, who have signed NDAs and are being paid for remaining silent.
It’s not clear how many kids is enough for this guy.
He says he wants a legion.
A Roman legion was 5,000 people.
PS Musk claims there aren’t enough people in the world.
This is cuckoo and wrong.
It’s 8 billion right now.
The world’s population is still growing by 80 million new people per year.
A satellite-based system to shoot down missiles is only useful if your enemies do not have satellite killing capabilities.
Focused on the Threat: Directed Energy Weapons
Oops.
Also, this subscription model… I don’t see any sane military going for that. They don’t want to find themselves on the brink of war and then learn that the Russians or Chinese have outbid them. Now a Trump-led military on the other hand…
The simple fact is that it is easier to match the speed and position of an incoming missile starting from a stationary platform rather than one moving at high speeds in orbit. There is simply too much delta-V needed in the latter circumstance. (This is true even if your satellite is in geosynchronous orbit, except there you are starting 22,000 miles from the target as well).
If only there was an established and clearly understood phrase for this situation, so that everyone could recognize it and know that it was a bad situation. Maybe something like conflict of interest.
Tesla odometer uses “predictive algorithms” to void warranty, lawsuit claims
You don’t want to be locked into a subscription model with someone who pulls stunts like that.
buried in social security administration press releases is a veiled confession doge got full read access to everyone’s social security numbers and adjacent personal info, plus the bank information of everyone on social security or supplemental security income benefits – soft-pedaled with “it wasn’t write access.” you don’t need write access to copy it all and use it to do financial fraud against your victims, so that’s another missile he’s already got over our heads. and don’t bother rushing to change your account info; there’s no reason not to believe the access is ongoing.
@ ^ Reginald Selkirk : Whaty Musk did to Ukraine with him pulling Starlink connection ontheir drones on during an attack as noted at the start of this clip (15 mins + total length) should’ve seen him disbarred forever from having any role in defence. Arguablky even jailed for treason and foreign interference in US foreign policy. (That not a crime?)
PS Elizabeth Warren is on the Colbert show right now, well, now Aussie time.
^Huh. Link not working? Should’ve..
Take II :
How Elon Musk turned on Ukraine | If You’re Listening by ABC News In-depth. The very informatibve and often fascinating If You Are Listening show.
@9. raven : Elon Musk is a deeply creepy and malevolent
creature.person.FIFY?
“Creature”is technically true as in “animal” but no dehumanisation of other humans ever please. Musk is a horrid excuse for a human being and other non-human creatures deserve better than comparison with him or being used as perjoratives. Our species is sometimes just the very worst. Musk is a person – an extremely horrible and destructive, indeed very creepy and malevolent and evil example of one. But an individual human all the same.
“But an individual human all the same.”
One with botched penis enlargement surgery, a breeding kink and unlimited money keen on destroying anyone standing in the way of his legion of spawn and his profits. “Individual human”, so what? So was Vlad the Impaler.
Even though we all know the illegal immigrant sociopath muskrat is bullshitting as much as tRUMP, I still support Professor Tim Snyders idea for the elongated muskrat:
We don’t want your nazi cars, take a one-way trip to mars
Treating missile defense as a subscription service sounds like a spectacularly bad idea, which is why it is quite plausible that this administration will do it.
PS Musk claims there aren’t enough people in the world.
This is cuckoo and wrong.
It’s 8 billion right now.
The world’s population is still growing by 80 million new people per year.
There aren’t enough white people.
“There aren’t enough white people.”
Huh?
There are too damn many white people. For one, we could do without Musk.
White people?
Define “White People.”
Include Irish, Jewish, Greek, Slavic, Spanish. Hispanic.
Or exclude them .
As suits whatever racist BS decider of definitions wants to suit.
Too
easypolitically correct / actual identity (ethno Supremacist) politics / useful / malignant.Better yet acknowldge the actual biological reality that Humanity has no sub-species and all Humans are equally Human but the fash & racists ain’t never doing that.
Which has never reached orbit because it keeps blowing up. And there are good reasons to think it will never get anywhere near what Musk has promised.
#25: Ugh. “One massive con.” Somehow, I am not surprised.
stuffin@21: I assume you’re saying that Musk thinks there aren’t enough white people?
rorschach @22: I thought it was obvious that stuffin was presenting “there aren’t enough white people” as what Musk actually meant.
“There aren’t enough people” has always been a dog whistle for “there aren’t enough white people.”
@25 I’m not sure I agree with the article you linked. Starship is a con to in that they’re getting the government to fund most of their development work, but I have reasonable confidence they’ll get it working eventually (as long as Elon leaves them alone).
Far from the belly-flop maneuver being impractical, they actually demonstrated it working as intended in the second sub-orbital flight where they landed near a buoy they had pre-placed to catch video. The only issue was that the control surfaces nearly burned through from the heat.
Of course, I have significant doubts about how useful it will be for general heavy lift work – you don’t build a space-rated complicated “Pez” dispenser mechanism for your payload if there is enough structural support for a wider “faring” type opening that is usually used.
The way these people work I’d want some proof they even had reasonable orbits planned out before I paid them a dime, even if I thought the rest of it sounded legit and useful (which it doesn’t).
But I wouldn’t put it past Trump and Musk to sell the govermnent a thousand satellites that balloons up to several thousand or even ten thousand or more. Only for it to never get beyond a stage where there’s a mock-up of a proposed satellite design to parade around someone’s office.
@25. KG : (Starship) “ Which has never reached orbit because it keeps blowing up.”
No because they deliberately chose not to put it into orbit whcih they could easily have done on at least one occassion* already and the SpaceX record shows they do often eventually suceed after repeated failures in doing things people consider too difficult as they keep improving and getting ever closer – until it becomes something they routinely accomplish. (Landing on barge sat sea, multiple landings. the chopsticks recovery method etc..)
.* See :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_flight_test_4
Note that it “attained full duration burns of both stages and reached orbital velocity.“
Bold added. Let’s not let our justified hate for Musk overshadow the awe of what the SpaceX scientists and engineers have built and flown.
Multiple simultaneous booster landings..
How does a missile interception satellite work? Like it’s going to have to fire something down at the missile, and i don’t see how a laser could be powered here. So doesn’t that mean the satellite will have to have missiles?
So Elon Musk want to put 400+ ground to surface missile systems into orbit?
Wait, the article goes into some more detail and says spacex is only bidding on the monitoring part
The interceptors will be a separate 200 satellites. Still worrying
@34. dangerousbeans : Huh? Why do you think a laser or other form of beam weapon couldn’t be powered by on-board batteries or solar panels or whatever? Not an engineer here..
Thinking of which…
@25. KG : Nor is Will Lockett as far as I can tell with his bio here :
https://substack.com/@planetearthandbeyond
Describing him instead as :
A Climate & Politics Journalist who is pissed off that the world is burning, corrupt and broken, yet no one in power seems to care.
He seems to have an axe togrind with Musk which is fair enough but I think it is leading him to make factual errors and colouring his view sof whatcan be done too much for instance from that linked article :
So they claim. If they could have done it, why didn’t they?
Here’s most of the description of the flight from your link:
Colour me unimpressed.
@StevoR
The laser they tested in a 747 weighed like 18 tons for the laser alone, and had an effective range of maybe 300-600km depending on target. Hubble weighs ~11 total
Plus there is heat dissipation: the 747 COIL one was 20KW output for 5 seconds, at an efficiency of 40%
Laser satellites would be BIG
There’s a reason last time the USA fantasised about this they were looking at nuclear bomb pumped lasers
Aaaarrgh! So annoying. Sorry. Mea culpa. Anyhow. Take II :
@25. KG : Nor is Will Lockett as far as I can tell with his bio here :
https://substack.com/@planetearthandbeyond
Describing him instead as :
Will Lockett seems to have an exceptionally pessimistic and gloomy attitude and an axe to grind with Musk which is fair enough but I think it is leading him to make factual errors and colouring his views of what can be done too much. He’s also a journo Nota s far as I can tell anyone with any relevant qualifications in rocketry or even engineering more broadly. For instance, from that linked article :
Er, no, Starship has achieved some notable successes and passed some key milestones already as noted in my comment #32. I reckon Starship looks like it is on the way to succeeding – and okay its got some way to go yet but it is on the way to doing what Will Lockett claims to be impossible. Just like SpaceX has already done a lot of people used to say couldn’t be done. Like, well, here with the “chopsticks “rocket booster catch. (1min 30 secs.)
See again the accomplishments SpaceX already showed in #33-32 above too.
A dangerous assertion that violates Clarke’s First Law :
(1) When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
With Clarke’s second law also looking pretty relevant here as well :
(2) The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Note that a lot of things once declared “impossible” have historically been done and some of them are now routine e.g. air travel. Moon landings maybe not so routine but have ofc been done. FSM, people once calculated and argue that going faster than 25 mph would be lethal – obvs not. In an essay / story I read and have in one of his anthologies even Isaac Asimov wrote explaining why climbing Mt Everest (Chomolungma / Sagarmāthā) was impossible literally AFTER it had just been climbed unknown to him. So when a grumpy pessimist esp a non-expert with a grudge says “impossible” there’s a very long precedent and record of them being most likely wrong. Reckon that’s the case here too particularly given SpaceX keep proving their doubters wrong time and time again. It may take them a while and there might be a lot of explosions getting there but they get there. If you reckon its gunna be different this time well, I think the person being conned is yourself. On the basis of all their previous works I predict quite confidently that Starship will eventually deliver.
Plus once again, this is SpaceX we’re talking about as a private space agency that has performed and built and flown wonders NOT Felon Musk the individual disgraceful sociopathic, nazi excuse for a human being. Let’s not get them confused even if Musk is the founder and owner for now. Musk is one person there NOT SpaceX itself.
Clarkes Laws via wiki here :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws
They should’ve been in blockquote but word processing spellcheck doesn’t catch that. I do try sometimes to get things right typos etc.. ~Wise. Sigh.
@38. dangerousbeans : Okay. Technology ofc does inprove over time and perhaps we can do better now but I really dunno about that issue so ok.
StevoR@39,
You do realise that Clarke’s “First and Second Laws” aren’t actually laws? Quite a few distinguished and elderly scientists have said that perpetual motion machines, FTL travel, adding unlimited amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere without making the earth’s surface hotter, etc., etc. are impossible.
A subscription model for the military, should be an absolute no-go for security reasons. Ask Ukraine. And it is an open invitation for corruption and price gouging. No, no, no. The army must have full control, and that only comes with ownership.
@ ^ 41. KG : ”You do realise that Clarke’s “First and Second Laws” aren’t actually laws? Quite a few distinguished and elderly scientists have said that perpetual motion machines, etc.. are impossible.”
Ofc & also note the caveats in them – “ almost certainly“ & “very probably” not definitely, unquestionably etc.. Obvs. But here? We have a lot of other actual rocket scientists – literally rocket scientists on one hand & OTOH, we have a certain obscure and partisan political journo Will Lockett..
@37. KG : “So they claim. If they could have done it, why didn’t they?”
I was watching on YT live at the time and they did explain that but I’ve now forgotten what exactly was said and my google -fu has failed me – but there was a good explanation. You also missed the bit I bolded in #32? Scroll upthread and read again. Or read this :
Source : https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/starship-reaches-orbit-in-third-test-flight-a-success-for-spacex-and-the-future-of-lunar-travel-180983959/
Plus see the relevant wikipage :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_flight_test_3
Which, erm, confusingly seems to contradict that altho’ the Smithsonian is usually pretty reliable isn’t it?
Then there’s this source here :
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/spacex-starship-third-test-launch-thursday-rcna143286
which describes Starship as having ”reached orbit” and being “in orbit” but seems maybe not fully completing an orbit so, well, it certainly seems it can orbit and has partially orbited and made orbit and been in orbit. All too late at night now after a long week to make sense of now. Maybe Scott Manley or someone else has the answer somewhere.
The latter NBC ofc is proper mainstream media journos not some obscure op-ed pessimist with very obvs partisan bias and lack of evident relevant expertise or qualifications dude notably Will Lockett. Perhaps Lockett – who I have never previously heard of that I can remember & know only from what I saw from your linked op-ed with its as far as can tell unqualified assertions & mine in #39 – could clarify himself having written about and followed Starship but can you trust him to be impartial and fair there? Didn’t bother to sign up for his whatsamajiggitty so couldn’t access them but perhaps you know – is there any real reason to take Lockett’s opinion column as having any real credibility vs the views of most other journalists esp in the Space area? Whose voice has more credibility his or NBC’s, Space dot Coms and Smithsonians & others?
Anyhow I expect that will soon be moot because I expect Starship will soon orbit our planet probly later this year, maybe even later this month. I expect we will see Starship succeed dramatically just as we’ve seen other SpaceX rockets and techno-wonders do before it.
I look forward to that even – perhaps especially – because of how grim everything else is trending and looking ‘bout now.
Were you impressed by anything else they did? The things I linked in 39? Were you more impressed with the Artemis 1 flight or the previous Space Shuttle and before that Apollo flights? Does anything in the way of rocketry, space exploration and travel impress you?
I find it hard not feel wonder and awe and joy seeing what SpaceX have managed to do over the years. If you do not or cannot then I feel sorry for you here. I guess people find different things float their boats and all but, yeah.
StevoR @43:
Hm, kinda like astronomers on one hand and OTOH an obscure partisan layperson StevoR…
Actually, Lockett was an engineer (dunno what kind) before he became a journo.
StevoR@43,
From your Smithsonian link about the third Starship launch:
Lockett’s key argument is that in trying to do something not possible with current materials and engine technology (make a fully-reusable launch system that can take the sort of payload to orbit which a lunar landing and return of astronauts requires), the SpaceX engineers are having to skimp on safety in order to save weight. It’s presumably Musk who has told them that’s what they have to do, without having the technical knowledge to know whether it’s feasible.
You didn’t link to anything in #39. Did you mean some other comment?
I was very impressed initially by the Space Shuttle – but it proved to be a dead end. In retrospect, the Apollo missions are still far and away the most impressive in the history of human space flight, particularly given the “primitive” technology of the time. I haven’t tried to understand in any detail why they were so much more successful than anything done since, but I suspect it’s a lot to do with not trying to make any major part of the system reuseable – and so accepting that every launch is going to be extremely expensive. It’s a great pity they were abandoned just when possible scientific returns were ramping up. As you know, I’m not an enthusiast for human space travel – I’m very much so for robotic probes – although I do expect some kind of inhabited lunar base to be established in the next few decades, provided disasters on earth don’t prevent it. If I had to bet, I’d put my money on China doing it first.
Rob Grigjanis@44,
In my link@25, Lockett says:
@44. Rob Grigjanis :
You do realise that goes both ways right? That if Will Lockett is correct vs rocket scientists then I can also equally be right about Pluto? Or if I’m not credible then, hey, neither is Will Lockett on that logic yeah?
Of course, its not just me but actually there’s plenty of astronomers including obvs Alan Stern but also Ken Croswell* many more even Phil Plait at times who also think the IAU got their definition wrong and multiple other definitions have been proposed and even at the time in Prague a lot of astronomers disagreed with the IAU.
@ 45.KG : ”You didn’t link to anything in #39. Did you mean some other comment?”
I linked 3 things in #39 – Lockett’s bio on the whatsit substack thingy, the Space X booster chopsticks catch and an entertaining yt clip of the SpaceX rockets landing on the floating platforms at sea.
I love both and don’t think they are mutually exclusive but rather complementary. You probly already know that too tho’.. But don’t some of the things SpaceX has done fill you with awe and wonder and joy?
Oh and thanks for the info on Will Lockett’s engineering background. I’m not sure just how well advanced boats applies to actual advanced rocket technology but fair enough he does seem to have some engineering background there which does help his case although I still strongly disagree and guess we’ll soon see.
.* See :
http://kencroswell.com/NinthRockFromTheSun.html
PS. Haven’t yet read that Soter paper from the other thread ages ago FYI. Been busy, sick and distracted by other things. Hectic month. Believe it or not I do need to sleep too – not that I generally manage to do so too well especially in this horrid unseasonably warm weather.
StevoR @46: I’m sure there are ‘plenty’ of astronomers who disagree with the IAU decision. I would say it could even be in the dozens! As I’ve said, your favoured definition is fine with me. But you go the extra, uninformed and partisan mile by saying that dynamically-based definitions are unscientific. Before you use that word, learn some science.
This seems to be a Peter Thiel gambit, and he has a much better success rate than Musk. Palantir has been around for years “safeguarding secrets” and such-like while mostly trying to stay out of the news. Anduril is new to me (note: Lord of the Rings references in both names) and bills itself as “a defense technology company focused on autonomous drones and sensors for military applications.” Thiel has had his setbacks to be sure but he is competent. (PayPal –> Facebook is what made him very, very rich.) He and Musk have had big fights but seem to have settled them several years back. This is very scary.
We actually have someone in here defending Musk’s “humanity”? I really couldn’t give less of a fuck about Musk’s supposed humanity. He’s worse than vermin. He’s more evil than Trump and a leach with far too much money, power, and influence. Fuck his humanity.
Thunderf00t has been documenting Elon Musk’s false promises for a decade now. He’s sold plenty of vaporware.
Walter:
So, in your eyes, some people are not human. They are worse than vermin.
So, you surely can’t complain if other people also think some people are not human and are vermin, since it’s your very own stance.
StevoR@46,
Apologies – you did indeed link 3 things @39.
No. The chopsticks are a neat trick, I admit.
@ ^ KG. Okay, well, apology accepted thanks and I stand by what I wrote at the end of #43.
@47.Rob Grigjanis
Oh, its a LOT lot more than just dozens as I’m pretty sure you already know.
.
Dude I KNOW science. Might not be a practicing scientist myself but I do know what I’m talking about here and just because you disagree with doesn’t make that false. I’ve read and followed science esp astronomy since I was a kid and have written & published science articles. I am informed – notice all the sources and links I’ve already provided and I stand by what I said.
Although I also think you may well have misinterpreted and strawmanned my position in that I haven’t said all “dynamically-based definitions are unscientific.” What I have specifically said is that the IAU definition and esp the “unscientific orbital clearance criterion” is unscientific.
This is for reasons already stated before but again the orbital clearance criterion raises needless superfluous questions and complexities making the definition needlessly complex, inelegant and thus unscientific. It is simply superfluous and should be dispensed with. Science does not like or accept as “scientific” things that are needlessly complicated and needlessly inelegant does it? Yes or no?
Clear orbit? Who cares. It should NOT matter.
At least not when defining what a planet is. If you put Earth on collision course with Jupiter do one both of them stop being planets? Obvs not.
If something is a planet until there’s a whole lot of other planets around it say we somehow put the Earth or Jupiter in a system full of hundreds of other earths or Jupiters do they stop being planets? No.
If Pluto is on its own in a solar system in a close orbit where it is clear it’s a planet. If you put it where it is ti stops being one>?. Just because its orbit isn’t clear? That’s. Just. Silly.
If a definitive criterion raises avoidable issues that in turn need extra clarifying – what sort of “orbit” exactly, what counts as clear etc… then you have, yes, unscientifically created an issue that doesn’t have to be there which means that criterion needs to go.
Plus as noted before, the IAU definition violates the scientific principle mediocrity and insists that ONLY planets around our sun are true planets which, do I really need to point out how obviously absurd and false that is? Really?
So, yeah, dynamic orbit factors, sure. If a world is directly orbiting another planet then it’s a moon and that is reasonable. If it’s the whole orbital clearance thing or having to orbit only one specific star out of more stars in the cosmos than there are grains’ of sand on a beach then, no, it is NOT scientific.
I really don’t get why you find this so hard to follow and agree with ort where e your problem with this is. Guess we’re both pretty exasperated by each other on this one.
^ Clarity fixes : ort = or.
grains plural not grain’s possessive apostrophe.
If Pluto is on its own in a solar system in a close orbit where it is clear it’s a planet. If, OTOH, you put it where it is today and thus its orbit isn’t classified as clear – not that any planet’s orbit truly is depending on how you define clear – it stops being one?Just because its orbit isn’t clear? That’s. Just. Silly.
Plus then there’s the whole unscientific idea that a dwarf example of X isn’t still a an example of X. A semantic argument technically but still
Dwarf sunflower = plant just as much as a normal sunflower or tree. Indeed Giant Sequoia & dwarf grass – both plants. Size doesn’t matter nor does how relatively numerous they are,
Dwarf Mammoth (eg Wrangel island) = mammoth species or sub-species. Indeed an elephant and a mouse – both mammals.
You even get big elephants standing alone and dominating their space versus plagues of mice where the little critters are everywhere. The whole ground can be rippling with them frex see Plague of mice infest crops in Australia’s rural east.
Their size and being surrounded by lots of others doesn’t stop the mice from being mammals or even more simply animals.
But when you get a little planet that surrounded by lots of other little planets then somehow it makes sense to say they STOP being planets? No, no it does NOT. That doesn’t make scientific sense or logical sense or really any sense.
“Dwarf people” versus those who are average height. Even Homo floresiensis vs homo sapiens. Both hominids both primates, both animals. We don’t say that the small size of the Flores man / Hobbit rules them out of the whole animal kingdom do we? But then the IAU decides to do the equivalent of that with Pluto & the other ice dwarfs? How does that make sense – clearly it does NOT.
It might make marginally more sense to say that a planet by definition has to have a solid geologically active surface and rule out the gas giants as clearly being very different types of bodies than it does to rule out the ice dwarfs for their size and numbers and “unclear orbits” whoever and however that “clearness” or otherwise gets determined. (Yeah, yeah, “gravitational dominance” which is also almost equally question raising and superfluous.)
The IAU definition is just plain embarrassingly bad and I think it makes astronomers look bad that they haven’t yet scrapped it and replaced it with a better one and that they ever adopted it in the first place.
Also fixing or clarity :
If you put Earth on collision course with Jupiter then do one or both of them stop being planets? Obvs not.
..the IAU definition violates the scientific
principle of mediocrityCopernican principle see :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernican_principle
and insists that ONLY planets around our sun are true planets – which, well, do I really need to point out how obviously absurd and false that is?
Yeah, spell check definitely doesn’t get everything you’d hope it might.
StevoR @53:
If you move Pluto to an orbit around Neptune, is it still a planet? What about moons (like Triton) which were probably captured at some point by larger bodies? They were planets, then they weren’t? How elegant!
Exoplanets are planets if they satisfy the relevant conditions in their own system. Yeah, the original definition was about bodies in our system. So what? That’s what they were addressing.
You ‘obvs’ don’t even want to try to understand the clearance criterion, so let’s use a simpler criterion; the kinetic energy of bodies orbiting the sun. The values are relative to Earth’s KE, and rounded to the nearest integer power of 10.
100: Jupiter
10: Saturn
1: Earth, Venus, Uranus, Neptune
0.1: Mars, Mercury
0.01: None
0.001: None
0.0001: Ceres, Eris, Pluto
You don’t favour classifying bodies by their dynamical dominance, but that doesn’t make such a classification ‘unscientific’.
PS Stevo, on an exasperation scale that runs from zero to Trump, you’re a 0.0001 ;-)
If you are a medium-sized power you probably need:
Your own comm sat network.
Your own recoinnance satellites.
Your own nav sat network (like GLONASS).
Your own nukes. No one bombs the psychopath in Pyongyang, no matter how annoying he gets.
(Of course, this implies the need of ballistic missile submarines. But if you use Swedish-style Stirling engines you do not need to develop nuclear powered propulsion)
This is the guy StevoR is defending:
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/04/murder-by-numbers
StevoR is not defending Musk. Cut the bullshit.
“You know, he’s not actually ever going to Mars” Something that has been obvious for years. This the first time I’ve ever seen anybody say it.
The real issue with any satellite defense (or ground based) against missiles is not a technical one. Lasers, kinetic energy weapons (think buck shot), electronic warfare methods and tracking technologies all exist at sufficient levels to make a system “work”. I put that in quotes because it is really a matter of effectiveness vs cost. As the requirements for effectiveness go up the costs will increase exponentially (cough, F35, cough). So this may not be a problem for the warhawks we know and hate because they love spending our money on new and improved ways to kill foreigners but it will take an enormous effort to get it anywhere close to reliable. I worry that the current boobs in charge will buy the first thing the defense complex presents and just keep spending on it…kind of like we do now but at a much much higher rate.