# Flat-Earther builds a rocket **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 22, 2017, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427 "2017-11-22T18:00:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/181 "2020-02-25T18:10:35Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > No, _you_ pay attention. As I linked a few posts back: How does this refute that he was pretending to be a Flat-Earther? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/182 "2020-02-25T20:31:40Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > How does this refute that he was pretending to be a Flat-Earther? Okay, it doesn’t _refute_ it, but it is kind of weird for someone to partially say that they didn’t believe it (but not fully.) And the article implied that he spewed all sorts of conspiracy theory garbage. The bottom line is either he lied about being a Flat-Earther or lied about lying about being a Flat-Earther–either way, he was a liar on top of being a fool. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/183 "2020-02-25T21:18:12Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > No, _you_ pay attention. As I linked a few posts back: As _I linked_ in post #107, his PR man literally said they ginned it up for the attention and revenue. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/184 "2020-02-25T22:13:08Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > As _I linked_ in post #107, his PR man literally said they ginned it up for the attention and revenue. And “Mud” Mike literally said that he didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/185 "2020-02-25T22:29:06Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Okay, it doesn’t _refute_ it, but it is kind of weird for someone to partially say that they didn’t believe it (but not fully.) And the article implied that he spewed all sorts of conspiracy theory garbage. > > The bottom line is either he lied about being a Flat-Earther or lied about lying about being a Flat-Earther–either way, he was a liar on top of being a fool. Con men are well known for changing their story depending on their audience. > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > And “Mud” Mike literally said that he didn’t. And you believe the con man. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/186 "2020-02-26T00:17:53Z")
Con man and liar. Or Delusional conspiracy theorizing nutbar. It really matters not. The main thing is he was so freaking idiotic about basic, BASIC safety protocols, that he essentially committed expensive suicide. It’s like a dude decided to build himself a race car with other people’s money, ignored what actual automotive engineers do, and decided the best way to propel it was to pour a can of gasoline in the back seat and light it on fire. And then he burned to death. What a surprise. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/187 "2020-02-26T00:25:21Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > And unintentional non-release turned out to be safe? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/188 "2020-02-26T01:36:11Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > And you believe the con man. Which one? PR people are _professional_ con men. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/189 "2020-02-26T02:57:01Z")
Okay, [found](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Michael_Hughes) some of his other conspiracy theory stuff: > [@](#): > > He said he was a flat Earther.(at time 7:30) > “John Glenn and Neil Armstrong are Freemasons. Once you understand that, you understand the roots of the deception [of ‘ball Earth’].”(at time 7:38) > The 1967 death of Thomas Baron, a NASA safety inspector was suspicious despite evidence to the contrary (Baron was not censored and a forensic report ruled that his death was an accident).(at time 7:50) > NASA astronauts were murdered rather than dying in accidents.(at time 8:40) > One’s name on documents does represent not oneself (i.e. Freeman on the land nonsense).(at time 9:35) Hughes claimed to own the “legal person[s]” named Obama, Charles Manson, Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, and OJ Simpson.(at time 9:50) > There is both antichrist and Illuminati symbolism on the walls of the Denver Airport.(at time 12:16) > He hinted that Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim.(at time 14:05) I suppose he was just a Sovereign Citizen for fund-raising purposes? Has his PR flack issued a statment denying that? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/190 "2020-02-26T05:07:12Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Which one? PR people are _professional_ con men. But in this context the PR guy didn’t have a reason to lie. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/191 "2020-02-26T16:08:27Z")
All the conspiracy-theory believing idiocy fits in very well with his attitude of “I know how to build a a rocket better than rocket scientists.” This is common in conspiracy-theory believing nutjobs. They have an overwhelming sense of superiority. “Only they” know the real truth. They don’t need anyone to tell them how to build a rocket. And we see the results. Arrogant stupidity leading to death is not rare. That’s all this was - but he decided to do it in the public spotlight, and use other people’s money to kill himself in an interesting way. That’s the only reason this makes the news. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2020, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/192 "2020-02-28T05:16:04Z")
I almost feel like attending the next meeting of the Flat Earth Society S.A. and asking who would like a rocket ride to prove their theorem. But I might be arrested as a public nuisance. Sad. Flat-earthers. Scientologists. Mormons. All are great sales targets because they’ll believe and buy anything. Do not try to dissuade them; just take their money, and smirk. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2020, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/193 "2020-02-28T05:32:59Z")
Truly he slapped the face of God. God, it turned out, was not amused. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2020, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/194 "2020-02-28T13:00:23Z")
I don’t know why he was so obsessed with it being steam powered. The last thing to go through his mind was a water boiler. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2020, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/195 "2020-02-28T17:01:19Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > I don’t know why he was so obsessed with it being steam powered. The last thing to go through his mind was a water boiler. Nice joke but modern steamers use flash tubes, not boilers, so no explosions. I don’t know the details of Mad Mike’s steam rocket, don’t know if he was up to 1890 technology. I doubt the NTSB will investigate. Write this off as Operator Error. As to why steam - it’s ecological! ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/196 "2020-03-05T14:06:00Z")
[Good article by the guy that made the main video of the launch that went viral](https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5e597924c5b60102211080c8). It goes into more detail about his nutty beliefs, and mentions that one of his earlier attempts at a launch cut a guy’s legs off. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2020, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/197 "2020-03-24T09:55:27Z")
[New article on _Wired_](https://www.wired.com/story/diy-rockets-tragedy-mad-mike-hughes/) from a reporter that had been enabling Hughes and feels very guilty about it.: > [@](#): > > “Mad Mike” Hughes died on February 22 when the parachutes on his homemade steam rocket failed to deploy and he augured into the sagebrush near Barstow, California, like a giant lawn dart plummeting at more than 300 miles per hour. I helped to kill him. > > Not because I designed or built the rocket, and not because I belted him into the cockpit. But because I was there, ostensibly covering the event as news even though I knew—like nearly everybody else watching the launch—that it was a pointlessly stupid stunt. > > “Thanks for coming all the way out here. I really appreciate it,” Mike told me about an hour before the crash. I think he honestly meant it. Because it was people like me who imbued his quest with some larger meaning. Without an audience, he was just a lone lunatic shouting incoherently in a barren desert. > > Since then, I’ve read long, dry obituaries in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post. All of them prominently featured Mike’s harmlessly harebrained belief that the Earth was flat. While these august publications didn’t make the point explicitly, the implication was clear: Here was another madman who got what he deserved. To be sure, Mike was a conspiracy theorist par excellence. He was convinced that shadowy international cabals were running the world. He thought the lunar landing had been a hoax. At the time of his death, he was under indictment for extortion, thanks to a scheme based on his theory that spelling a person’s name entirely in capital letters entitled someone else to their entire estate (or something like that). > > But, of course, his biggest delusion was that there was widespread interest in his antics. And we in the media enabled him. At least I enabled him. And I’ll always regret it. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2020, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/198 "2020-03-24T15:27:49Z")
That reporter had guts to make a statement like that. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2020, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/199 "2020-03-24T16:56:15Z")
It wasn’t a delusion that there was widespread interest in his antics, just as there was interest in the antics of Evel Knievel and NASCAR and the gladiators of old. Humans, and I think chimps, love to watch dumfucks crash and burn. It’s not our prettiest trait, and he should feel bad for profiting from it, but Hughes loved playing the fame game until his last fifteen seconds. We all should be that fortunate, doing what we love until the very end. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2021, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/200 "2021-05-30T05:56:17Z")
The series this was being filmed for (_Homade Astronauts_) has been released on Discovery+. I skimmed through it. I was curious if they would show any (non-morbid) video of the crash scene, but the crash actually got a lot less coverage than we saw in the news videos. They did, though, show a memorial held for Flat Mike 5 months later where they had what was left of the helment he was wearing at the time on display. [[Album] imgur.com ![](https://i.imgur.com/2yxisQF.jpeg?fb "imgur.com") ](https://imgur.com/a/2UefaOz) (I also found [this](https://www.sbsun.com/2020/02/22/daredevil-mad-mike-hughes-reported-dead-in-rocket-crash-near-barstow/) old article showing bits of rocket confetti being hauled away.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427.md?page=9)