Poe’s Law becomes ever more expansive

Poe’s Law: without a clear indicator of the author's intent, any parodic or sarcastic expression of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of those views.

Inside Elon Musk’s plan to rain SpaceX’s rocket debris over Hawaii’s pristine waters

In conjunction with the increased number of launches, Musk proposed expanding the area in the Pacific Ocean where debris from his exploded Starships can land by roughly 75 times its original scope. This new area encompasses vast regions throughout the Pacific, including around the eight main Hawaiian islands, Mokumanamana and the entire north-west Hawaiian chain of islands – which lie within the Papahānaumokuākea marine national monument, a Unesco world heritage site.

The proposed area is now - roughly you understand - the entire area between the mainland and Hawaii. Plus some more. Millions and millions of square miles. They are now demanding proper environmental surveys of what dropping a few thousands tonnes of rockets will do to millions upon millions of square miles of open ocean.

But back a year Elon Musk was using exactly this as a punchline in his story of over-regulation. From the current complaint again:

“It’s the FAA’s duty to take a hard look at the potentially significant impacts to marine life … They’re asking for a very large geographic area in which these pieces can be dumped into the ocean, some of which might be near the Rice’s whale, some of which are near very sensitive areas around Hawaii.”

No, really, they’re demanding to know what happens if a rocket lands on a whale.

Which is our societal problem, isn’t it? The demands for regulation have passed the Poe Horizon. You cannot launch a rocket until you’ve worked out the damage to a whale of a rocket coming down somewhere in 6 million square miles of ocean.

The kicker? SpaceX already did this, as Musk said, with the marine regulatory folk. Now the demand is that it be done all over again for the flight folk, the FAA. Truly beyond that satire horizon.

Tim Worstall