According to Southern California Public Radio,
"Mad" Mike Hughes, limousine driver and self-proclaimed flat-Earther, announced that he had to delay his plan to launch himself 1,800 feet high in a rocket of his own making. The launch, which he has billed as a crucial first step toward ultimately photographing our disc-world from space, had been scheduled for Saturday — before the Bureau of Land Management got wind of the plan and barred him from using public land in Amboy, Calif.
Also, the rocket launcher he had built out of a used motor home "broke down in the driveway" on Wednesday, according to Hughes. He said in a YouTube announcement that they'd eventually gotten the launcher fixed — but the small matter of federal permission proved a more serious stumbling block (for now).
Related: Flat Earther Plans Manned Steam-Powered Rocket Launch.
Related Stories
"Mad" Mike Hughes plans to ascend to 1800 feet in a $20,000 steam-powered rocket.
He has flown in rockets before, mostly successfully, but was injured by the acceleration.
Despite that he claims "science is science fiction", he used documented engineering formulas because they are known to work, despite that the science behind them is bogus.
It will be live-streamed on Hughes' YouTube channel, possibly also on Pay-Per-View.
Self-taught rocket scientist finally blasts off into California sky
"Mad" Mike Hughes, the rocket man who believes the Earth is flat, propelled himself about 1,875 feet into the air Saturday before a hard landing in the Mojave Desert. He told The Associated Press that outside of an aching back he's fine after the launch near Amboy, California.
"Relieved," he said after being checked out by paramedics. "I'm tired of people saying I chickened out and didn't build a rocket. I'm tired of that stuff. I manned up and did it."
The launch in the desert town — about 200 miles east of Los Angeles — was originally scheduled in November. It was scrubbed several times due to logistical issues with the Bureau of Land Management and mechanical problems that kept popping up.
Previously: Flat Earther Plans Manned Steam-Powered Rocket Launch
Federal Government Denies Permission for Flat Earth Researcher's Rocket Launch
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.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday November 28 2017, @09:47AM (2 children)
He gets to claim out loud it is part of the "conspiracy" while to himself he says "Whew! Saved by the government!"
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @01:40PM
What isn't apparent from the horrible article headline is that the Federal Government denied him permission because he never officially asked for it. Someone from the Bureau of Land Management heard on the radio that this guy was planning to launch from one of their managed sites, and that was the first they heard of it; they actually reached out to him when they heard the story. All he needed to do was apply for a permit, which he never did. Saying he got some verbal permission from someone a year ago doesn't mean shit.
(Score: 3, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday November 28 2017, @06:38PM
Scam artists like him purposefully operate this way. He knew full well the government wouldn't allow him to launch anything and his rocketship is just a prop. Thus the "conspiracy" lives on allowing them to sell things like kickstarters, books, videos, supplies, and whatever other nonsense gullible conspiracy nutters buy.
(Score: 5, Funny) by bradley13 on Tuesday November 28 2017, @10:15AM (13 children)
Why not let him launch? He may prove two theories at once: Copernicus and Darwin.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @10:46AM (4 children)
A rocket launch is... pretty destructive. Even if it succeeds. I'd imagine that a Bureau of Land Management is kind of supposed to stop random idiots from burning down and exploding public land.
There is absolutely no reason to let him use public property. He can use his own land, or find a flat-Earther with a ranch or something that would be willing to help.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @11:31AM (3 children)
( from a Southern California resident )
If he wants to go blow himself up in the desert, I think he's picked a great place. There's wide open spaces out there where he won't do much harm.
If he proves something to himself, fine, but I'd rather see a guy die doing what he wants to do, than live an unfulfilled life where he did not do what he felt he had to do.
Sports people do really risky things too, but if we call it "sport", its OK for people to do really risky things for the thrill of it... but if this guy wants to do this, we tell him he can't?
Just one meth lab in a residential tract will expose somebody to far more harm than what this guy is gonna try.
My take: Same as we had in High School where we had ambulances parked around the football field before a game. Supervise the guy so he will land in an open space, and maybe have someone with a 4WD chase vehicle standing by just in case Newton's law of gravitation ( which also causes the Earth to be spherical ) proves again to be correct.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @04:12PM (2 children)
You're completely misunderstanding the situation here.
Go and burn a forest, and see how much it will help you with the authorities if you call it a "sport".
They didn't tell him he can't launch his rocket, they told him he can't do something that destructive on public property. Apparently he managed to find a private property nearby, moved the rocket there, and now he's free to go.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @08:21PM (1 child)
Burn a forest in the desert?
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday November 29 2017, @09:58PM
There is vegetation in the desert and when it burns it may take centuries or more for the climax vegetation to grow back. If you are ever in Las Vegas with time to kill, take a drive out to Red Rock Canyon where you can see the results of one such fire.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Tuesday November 28 2017, @10:49AM (7 children)
Don't know about Copernicus - didn't he show that planets move in ellipses? This guy will not get that far up to check. He'll verify Newton's theory of Gravity though, probably in spectaular fashion.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @11:31AM (6 children)
No, that was Kepler. Copernicus said that the Sun is in the center instead of the Earth. But he still assumed circular orbits.
The spherical shape of the Earth was already known to the old Greeks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @11:40AM (1 child)
And Ptolemy was the guy who kept working with all these crazy "epicycles" to try to explain a lot of crazy heavenly body trajectories observed with the assumption that they were all going around the earth. I guess another guy embodying the "flat earth" no matter how much scientific evidence would be presented to the contrary.
The religious leader's treatment of Galileo has highly influenced how much credence I place in religions. Which is about how I view this guy too. The aviation he is messing with is terribly unforgiving of ignorance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @12:37PM
no, he used the prevalent model of a friction-free firmament of crystal spheres. flat earth died a long time before he ever lived.
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday November 28 2017, @11:47AM (3 children)
Shame on you, you have the very person [soylentnews.org] to first establish, about 300 BC, the heliocentric model [wikipedia.org] here on S/N.
Even Copernicus credited him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @02:02PM (2 children)
Interesting. On the Wikipedia page about Copernicus, I find first (emphasis by me):
but later (again, emphasis by me):
Very strange, that.
(Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Tuesday November 28 2017, @03:53PM (1 child)
> Very strange, that.
That Wikipedia isn't able to maintain logical and factual consistency across a single article? Sadly, that's not strange at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @04:15PM
> Wikipedia isn't able to maintain logical and factual consistency across a single article? Sadly, that's not strange at all.
It's almost like it's being written by multiple people, some of whom are not even experts on the topic.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @10:33AM (2 children)
The upsides are that the molecule is not very dangerous, is cheap, and has a low molecular mass. The downside is that the molecule has energy-sapping degrees of freedom that aren't found in diatomic molecules and in monoatomic gas. Compare with carbon dioxide, which has double the molecular mass and is thus a worse exhaust choice.
Getting it hot is easy. Simply start from the components and you'll get the needed energy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_IV_Heavy [wikipedia.org]
For serious power, heat the steam by passing it through a nuclear reactor. Of course, plain unburned hydrogen would be more powerful, especially if you get it hot enough to be monoatomic. Helium is good too. To really burn money, use helium-3 for your exhaust.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @11:39AM (1 child)
Propaganda. I have it from reliable sources that steam is full of dihydrogen monoxide! ;-)
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday November 28 2017, @11:43AM
Not only that, they are also polluting the atmosphere with oxidane and hydroxic acid fumes!
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday November 28 2017, @10:43AM (2 children)
https://archive.fo/eEVCs [archive.fo]
Whenever it does happen, I'm sure his death/survival will get the reporting it doesn't deserve.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Tuesday November 28 2017, @08:46PM
If it were easy, everyone would do it, right?
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Tuesday November 28 2017, @09:39PM
(Score: 4, Insightful) by inertnet on Tuesday November 28 2017, @12:43PM (11 children)
Why doesn't this loon use a balloon? Such a height can easily be reached with an ordinary hot air balloon. Survival chances are much higher but I guess his contraption will get him more youtube views.
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Tuesday November 28 2017, @12:51PM (7 children)
With a balloon you are not moving fast in the horizontal so any curvature of the Earth perceived is actually an illusion caused by the underlying terrain.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday November 28 2017, @02:43PM (6 children)
I know a flat-earther* IRL that says he would not be convinced of the ball-earth theory if he were to ride a hot air balloon to such a height that he could see the curve of the earth with his own eyes, as his eyes have fisheye lenses. The same problem would apply to a rocket, of course. The only convincing evidence for him would be personally travelling over the diameter of Antarctica.
*Technically he's agnostic on the shape of our rock now, but that took some arguing.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday November 28 2017, @02:57PM
Brave scientists say that the universe is flat. Of course the Earth is flat!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @03:55PM (3 children)
why would you even argue with someone older than 12 about the shape of the Earth?
it's so much easier to just make new friends... even if you're a physicist.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday November 28 2017, @04:55PM (2 children)
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Why would you waste any time at all having a conversation with someone this dumb?
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday November 28 2017, @08:32PM (1 child)
Without going into details, it's not somebody that I recreationally hang out with. But in general terms I can appreciate somebody's company without respecting their cognitive abilities in every facet of life; I find this character's anti-semitism much more off putting than his flat-eartherism. I've known people with some ridiculous worldviews that I still enjoyed discussing art, literature, programming, social dynamics, and other such trivia with.
I don't try to engage in discussions about how flat the earth is, but if the topic is repeatedly brought up I'll do my best to represent Team Ball.
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Tuesday November 28 2017, @08:52PM
Beam Ball
Beak Ball
Beck Ball
Back Ball
Back Bell
Tack Bell
Taco Bell
So the Earth started out flat, then was folded over to make a taco shape. Message received.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @05:45PM
What I want to see are the flat earthers proposing scientific missions beyond the ice wall.
I'm very interested in what lies beyond.
I'm not holding my breath of course. As compelling as flat earth is as a conspiracy theory, it needs to show some progress using available technology to investigate this cosmos that is always accelerating upwards at 1g. Why can't we design a mission for some brave soul to fly their own private airplane over the ice wall and take a look down?
(That's a rhetorical question.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @04:20PM
> Why doesn't this loon use a balloon?
I read somewhere that he plans to build a bigger rocket that goes way higher than that, and this is more of a proof of concept and/or a test of the rocket design.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @06:52PM
Reading other stories about this guy, he first wanted to launch his rocket but couldn't fund a kickstarter. Then he became a flat-earther and got funding through them. While its possible his conversion is legit and he actually believes that, its also possible he just found another source of funding for the rocket launches he wanted to do anyway.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday November 28 2017, @09:04PM
Because that might actually work and expose his scam.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @01:28PM (6 children)
He was stopped by force so that later on they can let him do his thing and prove the Earth is flat or whatever and they will say "look, we're tired of these idiots too, we all are, aren't we? (sigh). They keep coming up with these 'crazy' conspiracy theories and waste our precious time."
The trick being used here is this:
The secret agencies and their (((masters))) want the public to laugh at "loonies" who want to prove "this" or "that" and mock them and make fun of them... so that other conspiracy researchers can also be put in the same basket as the flat Earthers and all can be laughed at and ridiculed and dismissed.
People are waking up and so these "government" rapists and thieves have had to double their depraved efforts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @01:45PM (1 child)
The guy only became a "flat earther" to bilk idiots out of their money since his previous crowdfunding efforts rightfully died on the vine. But even the conspiracy retards aren't dumb enough to fund this guy.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday November 28 2017, @04:58PM
But even the conspiracy retards aren't dumb enough to fund this guy.
What are you talking about? The articles I read said that he got a ton of money from these idiots as soon as he "converted" to flat-eartherism, which was very recently. This whole thing looks like a scam, really, though a good and honorable one since it's bilking total idiots (flat-earther conspiracy theorists) out of their money. He's probably just coming up with some kind of excuse so he can pocket most of the money without having to actually risk his life in this home-built rocket.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @02:09PM
I see, you still didn't recover from your Lisp course. :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @05:58PM (2 children)
I share your desperation at attempting to understand how something like flat earth theory could possibly ever be a thing.
The problem is ever wealth disparity. No one man is worth a billion dollars of economic output. The economic value comes from the synergy created when we all applying our unique talents towards solving a problem. We certainly need leaders, yes. Very few of us get to be leaders. I'm saying that our leaders are overcompensated, and that it's causing systemic problems in our civilization. These problems will become fatal if we do not find a better way of sharing the wealth of civilization.
Often I see capitalists post that if we took executive X's salary and reduced it to raise all employee Ys' salaries, it would only raise each Y's salary a penny per year. We need to do that then. We need to cut executive X's salary and give all employee Ys an extra penny.
Flat earth is only a symptom of the disease. The conspiracy you're looking for isn't a conspiracy. It's simply an inherent part of the basic assumptions our civilization has made.
Well, I will grant you one major mistake of the 20th century: fractional reserve banking. We need an evolution in monetary policy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @10:39PM
I somehow expected you to raise the Chewbacca argument due to how you tied an evolution to monetary policy to widespread willful ignorance and the entertainment value of people donating money to a guy that can get himself exploded if he wasn't so smart he merely tricked *them* and took their money -- as well as some of the legitiamtely stupid that donated to him hoping to prove that... what. what difference will it make to a flat earther?
The belief is stronger than facts. Prove this and they will simply move on to some other thing to not strongly disagree with. Climate change probably is too mainstream for them, so perhaps they've move on to flouridated water or vaccines.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @01:15AM
There are real conspiracies being hatched to deceive and enslave the public.
Some conspiracy 'theories' are published by government agencies to add to the 'theories' out there, some so bizarre that no one should believe them; others so in-your-face that you cannot deny them. That is done to discredit all conspiracy research. A healthy dose of lies throws off the public and they don't know who or what to believe.
Conspiracies exist and if you are reading this then you are a victim. It is only a matter of time before you realize you've been played. Hope that you 'wake up' before you die.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @01:27PM
...to Burning Man.