NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman supports the idea of President Donald Trump reclassifying Pluto as a planet after it has been considered a “dwarf planet” since 2006.
“I 100% support President Trump making Pluto great again,” Isaacman said in an interview with the Daily Mail at the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Pluto’s definition has been hotly debated since 2006, when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) withdrew its planet status, classifying it as a “dwarf planet”. According to the IAU proposal, for an object in the Solar System to be considered a planet, it must meet three criteria
- To be in orbit around the Sun.
- Have enough mass for its own gravity to give it an almost round shape (hydrostatic equilibrium).
- To have “cleaned” the vicinity of its orbit (which Pluto does not).
Pluto was discovered in 1930 by the American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, a native of Kansas and a graduate of the University of Kansas, who made the discovery at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.
“I think we owe it to everyone in Kansas and their important contributions to astronomy and aerospace to restore that discovery as a planet,” Isaacman said.
Isaacman discussed the future of space exploration before the Artemis II mission, and the idea of Pluto being considered a planet again was also supported by actor William Shatner.
Shatner harshly criticized the IAU, calling it “a group of corrupt nerds in a power crisis” and urged Trump to “restore Pluto as a planet and end the cosmic tyranny of the union.”
Shatner also urged SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to encourage the president to sign an executive order to make Pluto a planet again, an idea Musk said he supports.
Although Trump has not officially spoken out, his supporters have. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah called in February on social media: “President Trump, please do one thing for us: make Pluto a planet again.”
In Trump’s first term, former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine argued that Pluto should be considered a planet, citing the fact that it has a subsurface ocean, organic compounds and its own moons.
“Some have argued that to be a planet you have to clear your orbit around the Sun”he said in 2019. “But if we use that definition, we could undermine all the planets.”
“They would all become dwarf planets, because there is no planet that completely clears its orbit around the Sun,” he concluded.
