Self-taught rocket scientist plans launch to test flat Earth theory
‘Mad’ Mike Hughes has built a steam-powered rocket so as to eventually prove Earth is flat. He plans to reach an altitude of 1,800 feet.
This guy’s no Bob Truax!
Love this. Here’s another article about him. I was considering posting it in Great Debates (no, not really).
His original kickstarter before he was a flat-earther raised $300 of the $150,000 goal, and his switch to FE might have more to do with fundraising than deeply held beliefs. If you’re looking for suckers to fund ridiculous ideas, flat earthers are a goldmine.
This thought did occur to me.
From the story: * Hughes plans to launch his homemade contraption on Saturday near the ghost town of Amboy, Cal., at a speed of roughly 500 miles-per-hour.*
So, he’s going to commit suicide.
How does an altitude of 1800 ft., considerably less than the height of a lot of mountains in CA, prove whether or not the earth is flat? Yes, fund-raising no doubt. Wish I thought of that approach myself.
Reach an altitude of 1800 feet? Near Amboy CA? The town proper is around 630’, the basin around rises a hundred feet, and there are mountains peaking over 3100’ around the basin. What is he hoping to see?
It’s probably a lot higher than the maximum altitude of his original research vehicle:
… he switched his focus to rockets after twice breaking his back doing stunt jumps in cars.
You don’t want to go too high. I remember reading a story about some high school kids who sent up a weather balloon with a GoPro type of camera on it, and it went high enough that the sky turned black and you could see the curvature of the earth. “Mad Mike” may have seen the same story. It would have really upset him, and convinced him to keep to lower altitudes.
My only question is, why do they call him “Mad” Mike Hughes?
I suspect that Saturday afternoon he may well discover the true meaning of “flat”.
This will end badly. I need more popcorn.
This guy is obviously a publicity whore of some kind or just plain fucking crazy. Or, I suppose, why can’t it be both? Why not just a balloon, if for some reason you don’t want to, I dunno, take a helicopter or plane to acheive the dizzying heights of just over a quarter mile?
Didn’t the article mention that he built and piloted an earlier manned rocket too? So the guy’s got experience at this!
But… He’s going to launch at 500 mph and reach an altitude of 1800 feet? It may all be just formulas, but I think he’s got the wrong formula here. Assuming his rocket reaches full speed of 500 mph instantly upon launch (hey, Science!) he’s talking about a flight time of about 2½ seconds to reach 1800 feet. (More Science!)
(ETA: And he needs a rocket to do this, Why? Last summer, I climbed from 8000 ft to 16500 ft (gain of 8500 feet) in a glider with no kind of engine at all! Surrounding mountains notwithstanding, I could see all the way to the edges of the Earth!)
This amuses me a lot. I’m trying to imagine what element of flat-earthist theory is controversial enough for factioning. Are there orthodox flat_earthers and reform flat_Earthers?
Is the idea to launch a rocket to a fairly low altitude, low enough that the horizon still appears flat to a rocket-mounted camera, not curved, and then to claim that “This shows that the Earth isn’t round?”
Out of curiosity, what is the height at which the Earth’s horizon begins to look clearly curved? I know that out an airliner’s window at 35,000 feet, it still looks flat. So maybe he could “safely” launch much higher than 1,800 and still not have his flat-Earth views challenged by the camera?
Turtles (all the way down) vs. elephants. 
He only has to ascend about 11~1200 feet to reach the desired altitude. If he can attain 10Gs of aaaaacceleration, he can reach 500 mph in around 2 seconds, by which time he will have traveled halfway up. If the engine cuts off at that point, he should coast upward another 11 seconds, rising nearly 2000 feet more before his descent begins. That would put him near the height of the nearby mountain peaks.
Some think the earth is flat like a pizza. Others think it’s flat like a Frisbee.
“Pizza!”
“Frisbee!”
“Pizza!”
“Frisbee!”
Not pretty, let me tell you.
Not pretty at all.
Whether or not there’s anything on the other side.
I saw this article (or another one about the same guy) a day or two ago. Wasn’t there something in there about how this launch is just practice and development toward launching a rocket that will go much higher?
Is this guy serious; and are any flat-earthers? This guy sounds like he just wants to play with rockets, and claiming it’s for flat-earth research gets him funding and publicity, he’ll go with it. But I have to wonder if the whole movement (500 members?) isn’t just some excuse to be all wacky and eccentric, and they know perfectly well it’s bullshit.
No it is much bigger than that. The FES has members from around the globe.