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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.
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.
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.
You know, he could have gone thousands of miles higher in a hot air balloon. In fact, he could get one like Alan Eustace used to set the record for highest altitude jump. That was 135,000 feet. Low Earth Orbit is 380,000 feet or so. If he want's that he'll need a hell of a lot better rocket.
I installed a 24' diameter pool one summer. I had to flatten a 24' circle of it so at least that much is flat.
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.
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.
Duh! My bad, I meant to say feet, thousands of FEET higher. It's late, that's my excuse.
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!
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.
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.
On one side you have a guy that puts his life at risk with a hodgepodge rocket, on the other hand you have people putting nothing at risk, not even their own money. The former could win ... well ... he could survive the flight if he's lucky, the latter could get rich risk-free and without hassle.
Your question is "who is crazy".
I have to ask, is this a trick question?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
Or he could have climbed a mountain. It is not like the curving of the earth is hard to see if you try. It is that all these morons are actively looking the other way.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
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.
That's actually not a bad point (in spite of the typo). You can start seeing the curvature of the earth around 35-40k feet. There have been at least a couple that have gone to 60k+
On November 26, 2005 Vijaypat Singhania set the world altitude record for highest hot air balloon flight, reaching 21,027 m (68,986 ft). He took off from downtown Mumbai, India, and landed 240 km (150 mi) south in Panchale.[13] The previous record of 19,811 m (64,997 ft) had been set by Per Lindstrand on June 6, 1988, in Plano, Texas.
Just another day in Paradise
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.
.
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/...
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'
You are on to something. I took out my level and measured it directly to see if it was flat. It was clearly off 5 degrees.
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.
You know, he could have gone thousands of [feet] higher in a hot air balloon.
I was thinking the same thing. Commercial recreational hot air balloon rides can easily top 2000 feet, and a normal hot air balloon of that type is capable of exceeding 20K feet. He probably could have significantly exceeded his rocket altitude (not to mention time at that altitude) for a couple hundred bucks. But I guess he's trying to get his rocketry skills up to par since, per the article:
He wants to build a "Rockoon," a rocket that is carried into the atmosphere by a gas-filled balloon, then separated from the balloon and lit. This rocket would take Hughes about 68 miles up.
Of course, the smart thing would be to test the rocket thoroughly before getting into it. But I suppose a well-reasoned, scientific approach is not entirely consistent with being a flat-earther.
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.
"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
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.
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.
I agree. I'm quite convinced his motivation was to geek out and pull a stunt like this, with the "flat earth proof" as a hook to get the dupes to pay for it.
Don't get me wrong, I celebrate this. Actually, both of these things.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Ain't no mountain high enough.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Depends how broken your eyesight is. With these people, you are probably right.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
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 :-)