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Flat-Earther's Steam-Powered Rocket Lofts Him 1,875 Feet Up Into Mojave Desert (latimes.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Los Angeles Times: "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, Calif. The launch in the sparsely populated desert town about 150 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. The 61-year-old limo driver converted a mobile home into a ramp and modified it to launch from a vertical angle so he wouldn't fall back to the ground on public land. For months he's been working on overhauling his rocket in his garage. It looked like Saturday might be another in a string of cancellations, given that the wind was blowing and his rocket was losing steam. Ideally, they wanted it at 350 psi for maximum thrust, but it was dropping to 340. Sometime after 3 p.m. PDT, and without a countdown, Hughes' rocket soared into the sky. Hughes reached a speed that Stakes estimated to be around 350 mph before pulling his parachute. Hughes was dropping too fast, though, and he had to deploy a second one. He landed with a thud and the rocket's nose broke in two places like it was designed to do.
This dude is a fucking inspiration.
"Mad" Mike Hughes, I salute you.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This will force SpaceX to lower their launch costs even more. It's good for everyone.
Did he finally see the curve of the earth so we can shut up this stupid farce and get on with our lives? A guy needs to know
I did not know. Glad I do.
Go Trump!
At least he actually followed through and did what he promised, but wouldn't it have saved everyone a lot of time, effort, and aggravation if he had just visited the Burj Khalifa? There is not enough development around it to hide the horizon, and it would actually have gotten him higher off the ground.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
His big mistake was burning pine in the firebox. Next time, a longer-burning hardwood like well-seasoned hickory will improve the specific impulse of his Engine For Raising Aeronauts By Fire. I commend him for trying this approach for high aerial flight and not simply giving up after learning that Czar Nicholas had cornered the entire supply of cavorite he had intended to buy on the London commodity exchange.
I also recommend that should he achieve high altitude, he thoroughly seal his gondola with oakum and gutta-percha, to prevent the escape of too much air.
Unlike the banksters who bet other peoples money in a risk free wins-are-mine-losses-are-tax-payer's schemes. Remember, not a single one of them went to jail. Who's crazy? This steam powered rocket riding flat earther? Or us "normal" people laboring under the delusion we are in a democracy?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Video or it didn't happen.
Did he see the edge of the world? Or was he too busy shitting his pants to open his eyes. Probably was going ass over tea kettle in that thing.
I doubt that 1800 feet is going to give you a good view of the curvature of the earth. I doubt that even 30,000 feet up which is cruising altitude of a jet plane would show it.
So how best to prove to him that the earth is round? Perhaps the best way available at a low budget is to use a telescope to watch a sailboat coming over the horizon, the top of the mast should appear first before the rest comes into view. Maybe with this proof he will have to admit the earth is round, in addition, to stop further attempts at his rockets, saving his life.
More Russian fake news???
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
It also would have gotten him higher because he would have had to fly in a jet airplane at ~35,000 feet to get there. :P
At least he actually followed through and did what he promised
Did he? I don't believe it. Where's the proof that he launched? The article contained no pictures or videos. The evidence that he launched is far flimsier than the evidence that the Earth is a sphere so, by his own standards, we should simply refuse to believe that he did this and then, just perhaps, he might actually learn something valuable from this non-event.
is that they think he was crazy yet accomplished more with his life than they ever will. Unless you consider managing a database a life accomplishment.
I thought for sure he was going to die if he ever went up in a rocket. The fact he is not dead - lots more respect to him than I had before, even if I happen to think the Earth is round. Not like I'm going to fling myself up in a rocket to argue against him...
I would 100% vote for him if he ever ran somewhere I could vote for him. Or heck, if he's running in California anyone can vote for him!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Idiot!
much cheaper and much safer
I like to think of him as our generation's Zefram Cochrane. I've nothing to say on the flat earth stuff but hats off to his ability to do what most of us would either be unable or unwilling to do and not kill himself in the process.
Hank Hill is dead. So is Brittany Murphy. Dead.
Do you see him get in? _no_.
Do we have any evidence that the rocket was not simply pulled up by a cable? _no_. There is a close-up shot where a cable could easily have been hidden, and a long distance shot that is very clearly made on a computer. Just look at that horizon! Are we supposed to be living at the bottom of a bowl?
And it's not even very good special effects, but I guess that's what you get for a home-grown production... Just look at that puny steam cloud. Is that supposed to be lifting an entire rocket?
Let's call it what it is: a fraud.
Did he launch from REPCONN test site ?
Did someone mess with console buttons ?
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Come_Fly_With_Me
Last time I checked /. was an international website (besides CA/UK/AU and NZ have long finished metrication), so why do I keep seeing imperial units here?
Steam is what you get when you burn hydrogen containing molecules. Space X flies with CO2 and Steam.
He went up 570 meters. Five hundred seventy meters.
For comparison: A Sopwith Camel, an airplane of the first world war, from a hundred years ago, had a service ceiling of about 5,791 meters. Approximately ten times the altitude this goofball reached. If his goal was to prove flat earth, he sure chose a poor way. ANY plane he could build out of plywood and cloth (like aforementioned Camel, which was not that much more than exactly this) would take him higher.
And since he obviously is not dumb (another reason why I can't picture him as a flat earther), my conclusion is that he's trolling flat earthers and duping them into giving him money for his stunts.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Lofts him ... UP into the Mojave Desert"?
Huh?
Where is this desert in the sky?
Captcha: nonsense :-/
Actually you see him entering the rocket.
You watch the wrong movies.
Do we have any evidence that the rocket was not simply pulled up by a cable? ... however if you see the launch, you see that the sky is clear ... where should the cable be coming from? From a low orbit space craft?
There can not be evidence for a negative
Let's call it what it is: a fraud.
Yeah, lets call you what you are: and idiot.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Nice way to rip off fools :-)
What is interesting is that a person smart enough to build a rocket and safely land back to Earth would still believe the Earth is flat? Given that there is plenty of evidence that can easily prove this ideal wrong. Of course you have those people who simply won't accept anything but physically seeing it for themselves.
Planes fly at 40,000 feet and a GoPro attached to a ballon will go past 90,000 feet before coming down, what exactly did he learn about the flat earth by going up 1875 feet?
And he'd get a planet-sized illustration of what a dumb ass he is.
But seriously. You could fly this dickhead around the planet for the rest of his life and he'd still tell you it's flat. That's the thing about flat earthers. They're stupid cunts.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
To believe that this man believes the earth is flat is as absurd as believing that the earth is flat. He pretends to believe it for purposes of self-publicity.
Idiots like this get elevated to star status by the press, and then we wonder why/how idiots like this get elected president. This elevation of idiocy to fame and sometimes fortune (Kardashians, anyone?) destroys the basis of our society. Why should anyone work or study when all they have to do is make a sex tape or claim to believe the earth is flat and then bathe in the adulation of like minded idiots?
Now that he followed through, we should call him some other name, like
One-hit wonders, Mister Rocket man, The alternate RocketMan, or something, because he should be noted for his accomplishments, IMNSHO
.
However... A trip to Mauna Kea would have cost a lot less, get him to 7 times the altitude, and a nice vacation. As for what this would prove? At the Mauna Kea altitude (13,802 ft) you can clearly tell the earth is not flat. End of flat Earth Theory. In any direction you look the horizon is curved sufficiently that you could never mistake Earth for being flat. Its worth the trip and won't even hurt you back coming back down. Just be prepared to for a slight case of oxygen deprivation at that altitude.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
... that were also more clever and used things like raspberry pi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lzCP0CQmYU
None of the news articles actually quote him as stating whether he achieved his goal - i.e. whether or not his mind is change relating to the earth being flat. Surely that was the whole point?! And don't call me Shirley...
Wooooosh.
Clearly the cable could be tethered to the moon which I think at least one flat earth theory* places at around 4 miles from the surface of the Earth.
*Not to be confused with the scientific meaning of the word 'theory'
What we need is a reality tv show about an intrepid group of flat earthers who set off on an epic journey to the edge of the earth. We can bask in season after season of them trying to get closer and closer, climbing the government sponsored ice cliffs that keep the public ignorant. It can have an epic plot twist where they are about to freeze to death in the Antarctic, only for global warming to save them at the last minute. If they couldn't find Bigfoot in 8 seasons, we should be good for at least 10.
What's the report?
Could have saved all that time and money, and just taken a plane ride up to 30,000 feet...
Heck, a balloon ride could have taken him up higher! lol
Come on people, don't feed the trolls. This guy needs to be ignored.
Most of you here can't even get out of your parents' basements. He built a freaking rocket and shot himself into the sky. And more impressive, he lived.
A trip to the observation platform at the Shanghai Tower would have given him the same information. He would have gotten to 60,000' during the plane ride to Shanghai. If he orbited the earth, he still would believe the earth was flat and that he was somehow fooled by a government conspiracy.
Well, looks like the steam punk flat earth rocket beat Blue Origin with a non orbital manned flight.
Even the kids did not believe in the guy throwing rocks into the ground just before launch.
Awesome to see the project work out!
"flat Earther" ... "steam powered rocket"
yup... checks out.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
If I remember correctly from 1969, seen from the Moon, Earth is a flat disk in space.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Surely Christopher Columbus would have embodied the Genoan spirit.
Now Amerigo Vespucci would be a more complicated matter...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
He thinks the world is frisbee shaped--so to his mind, curvature would just be the edge . . .
hawk
... what he is doing is most impractical. There are much easier and cheaper methods to get that high or higher, from booking a commercial flight or climbing a mountain to using a weather balloon with a camera. But as a publicity stunt it has maximum effect: Headlines like "Mad man flies his steam powered rocket" will get a lot of attention.
Also the interviews are more about the rocket stuff and the flat earth stuff is just mentioned on the side. How and what he wants to prove isn't even discussed (if it was I didn't see it). So what he is doing is basically a rocket show and the flat earther stuff is just the garnish on top.
I enjoy the show but wouldn't wait for any scientific results from this.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
no text here.
Totally irresponsible: He could have cracked the dome over the earth and all the air would have leaked out.
Bert
On a more serious note: I'm impressed with his launch. So much that can go wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... (Top Gear reliant Robin space shuttle)
He could have gotten higher by scaling a mountain or simply taking the elevator up the Burj Khalifa (2,717 feet).
Joseph Elwell.
A GoPro, a Weather balloon, a styrofoam cooler, and a couple of hand warmers.
$150 and a couple afternoon's of work...
Waving the flat-earth flag is just a way to get attention or ridicule others who "ignore the science". Instead of being on Twitter or backing/denying climate change he goes all frisby. I do like the steam approach though. If he really wants to make an impression, he could fire the boilers passenger pigeon kidneys or sperm whale oil.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Perhaps he is misunderstood. Perhaps he is only trying to make certain areas of the earth flatter by crashing into it. I say, if at first you don't succeed, try try again.
Then we found out it was just some 60 year old musclehead who was once a bodybuilder and meat puppet in some movies.
Oh yeah, and too fuck liberal for the conservatives and too fucking conservative for the liberals. Oh and he was doing the help raw, as evidenced by his illegitimate child.
Also he fucking froze the 30 year smog exemption so it will remain at 1975 forever, unless we get a conservative in to overturn it. Ironic since he was driving H1s and Mercedes SUVs which I can't imagine didn't pollute plenty themselves.
Without exploding or killing himself.
This sound like the epitome of a hackaday article on steampunkery.
I mean what can be more steampunk than building a fucking steam rocket that can launch you 1800 feet in the air?
Oh yeah, making a steam ICBM and launching it a few miles into a rival town :) Let's get all those flat earths up in the hills lobbing these into liberal american communities for the lulz!
Please buy a t-shirt and a soda at Roy's Motel & Cafe in Amboy. It's the only place on the drive across the Mojave with clean bathrooms. Please resume your regularly scheduled speculations.
Larry Walker rose to 15,000 feet in his lounge chair with balloons, .30 or 40 years ago
Ask him: If you fell off the edge of a flat Earth, to where do you fall? Ask him: If i fly a plane East in a straight line, will i be lost forever when i fly off the edge of the Earth, or will i eventually return right where i started, but from the West? Ask him: Are other planets flat? Like the moon, for example? Ask him: Why doesn't the ocean spill off? Ask him: What's underneath, on the other flat side? i'd love to ask a flat-earther these things and hear their responses, but i've never met one :-)