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Multiple Soylentils have written in to let us know about the death of Mike Hughes:
"Mad" Mike Hughes Dies in Rocket Crash
Michael 'Mad Mike' Hughes, staunch flat Earth conspiracy theorist, launched himself into the skies above Barstow in San Bernardino county Saturday, February 22nd.
He was attempting to reach an altitude of ~5000 feet (1,500 meters). Unfortunately his parachute did not open during descent causing him to plummet to his death.
This wasn't Hughes' first rodeo, as the self-taught engineer had made two other attempts, the latest of which was supposed to launch in August 2019. That attempt was grounded by bad weather. Before that, the rocketeer had a successful (albeit bumpy) launch in March 2018, when his homemade rocket reached 1,875 feet (572 m) in altitude over Amboy, California. During that launch, Hughes had to deploy two parachutes to save himself from smashing into the desert. Even so he plummeted back to Earth at 350 mph (563 km/h). He got out of that one with just a sore back, he said at the time.
This launch was only a stepping stone to the eventual goal to proving the Earth was flat.
Would flat-Earth-believer Hughes have been able to see our planet's sphere at 5,000 feet (1,524 m)? Nope. And he knew that, saying he would need to soar past the so-called Kármán line — where the sky ends and space begins, or roughly 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth — to see the curvature with his own eyes.
Two other amateur rocket teams are also attempting to reach the 100 KM point.
DAREDEVIL 'MAD' MIKE HUGHES DEAD AT 64 ... Fatal Rocket Crash Landing
TMZ, though probably at many other venues shortly., I, for one, offer prayers for Mad Mike, and may Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthys judge him with mercy.
'Mad' Mike Hughes is believed to possibly be dead after launching himself in the air with a self-made rocket that crash-landed -- and it was captured on camera.
The well-known daredevil and amateur rocket-engineer was doing a rocket launch Saturday in what appears to be near Barstow, CA -- where a reporter says Mike propelled himself into the air with a "self-made steam-powered rocket" and then crash-landed into the ground.
Not confirmed? Does not matter whether the earth be flat, or just a very large sphere, when you slam into it at speed.
Much more tragic, Mike seemed pretty stoked for the launch this weekend. He posted a video describing his rocket, where it would go down and what he was aiming to achieve. BTW, he was a big flat-earth believer -- and a doc was even made about him trying to prove it.
We've reached out to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Dept. for comment ... so far, no word back. However, we were told by a dispatcher at the Victor Valley Sheriff's Station that a call for service had been placed Saturday out of Barstow -- the nature of which is unclear.
Flat Earther 'Mad' Mike Hughes died when his homemade rocket crashed
Daredevil "Mad" Mike Hughes died Saturday when a homemade rocket he was attached to launched but quickly dove to earth in the California desert.
The stunt was apparently part of a forthcoming television show, "Homemade Astronauts," that was scheduled to debut later this year on Discovery Inc.'s Science Channel. Discovery confirmed the 64-year-old's death in a statement.
"It was always his dream to do this launch, and Science Channel was there to chronicle his journey," the company said.
Also at
LA Times, Space, NBC News, and CNN
Previous Coverage:
Flat Earther Manages to Travel One Third of a Mile Into the Sky Using a Steam-Powered Rocket (Takyon)
Federal Government Denies Permission for Flat Earth Researcher's Rocket Launch (Anonymous Coward)
Flat Earther Plans Manned Steam-Powered Rocket Launch (MichaelDavidCrawford)
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday February 24 2020, @09:22AM (8 children)
Instinctively I align myself with the commenters who respect him but I have two further considerations.
Genius picks the better route, in this case it would be leasing a plane, and checking the distortion of the glass beforehand.
Lol I am kidding , the best method is getting two distant enough friends and ask them at what angle the sun shines. A flat Earth will make the actual height of the sun impossible to triangulate. High school math.
Finally, the kind of determination we admire in this guy is not qualitatively different from the visions of Hitler or pol pot or the guys in charge 9f the money. They do not hesitate to put lives on the line to achieve their objectives. This guy sacrificed his, which is fair, but equivalent.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Booga1 on Monday February 24 2020, @01:39PM
No, no, no... a plane ride wouldn't get him any attention.
Plus, trying to use a home-made rocket of any kind to get you up to the elevation of a commercial plane ride would be a monumental feat. It would be smarter, safer, and easier to just stick a camera on it that has no lens distortion so you know you're getting an unbiased image of the horizon.
Besides, you don't need any elevation at all to watch a ship on the ocean disappear over the horizon. If the ship didn't sink, and the waves aren't taller than the ship, that should tell you something about the shape of the earth.
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Monday February 24 2020, @02:18PM (1 child)
I'm under the impression he just wanted to see it with his own eyes, that nothing else would ever convince him.
Also possible he just really wanted to fly in a rocket but was too crazy to ever get into it as a profession.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 25 2020, @08:01AM
I'm under the impression he wanted to get a TV interview and possibly a late night radio show with George Noorey. He just needed to pack his parachutes correctly and he'd be living the dream.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @02:52PM (2 children)
I doubt he thought the Earth was flat. The dude built a home-made rocket and previously brought himself thousands of feet into the air and 'safely' landed. When you're on that level of mental ability + initiative, he could have verified the spherical nature of the Earth in a few thousand different ways with 0 risk. I expect he was using the flat earth stuff as a means for fund raising, promotion, fun, and to give a positive message of rocketry and self initiative to society. I mean how crazy is it that we have the technology today that it's even remotely within the realm of possibility for a man to launch himself into space using a homemade rocket?
It's a damn shame people aren't doing what he did left and right because think of all of the monumental discoveries we could be making. Instead people are inertial and rely on the geniuses at NASA who have destroyed half billion dollar probes because they failed to convert SI to metric, can't get hammers working on probes, and of course ended up killing dozens of folks in the process of this all. Keep in mind I'm not belittling NASA. They are great and there are some brilliant folks working there. But they're human, like everybody else. And relying on a handful of humans when we have a planet of 8 billion is about the dumbest possible thing we could ever do.
As you start to reach near the top of any field is that there are no super-humans - just people who work obsessively and tirelessly. And anyone of sufficient work ethic and motivation, given a baseline of reasonable intelligence, could also easily be near the top of the world in just about anything. The thing is, we don't have that work ethic or motivation - and it seems to be slipping ever faster in the era of endless porn, endless entertainment, endless games, and a media determined to try to frame regular people into demotivating super-geniuses which don't even exist.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday February 24 2020, @03:53PM
Do we? It was right in the summary, that by any objective measure he was nowhere remotely close to space.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 25 2020, @08:05AM
> destroyed half billion dollar probes because they failed to convert SI to metric
That's like criticizing the team that gets to the NBA finals but misses the 3 pointer in the last second of the game. Yaaaaah they can't throw 3-pointers for SHIT!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @05:12PM
A plane wouldn't get you high enough to see whether or not the Earth is curved as opposed to hitting a certain point where you warp to the other end.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mcgrew on Monday February 24 2020, @05:51PM
His rocket could go up 5000 feet, that's a little less than a mile. He could have taken a commercial airline and seen the curvature with his own eyes from eight times as high as his rocket. Both insane and stupid.
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