# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2018, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/61 "2018-03-26T01:19:47Z")
Holy shit! Good for him. I was convinced this was just a publicity stunt and that he’d keep encountering new “problems” preventing him from actually doing it. ---
**Author:** ![Scoobysnax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@Scoobysnax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scoobysnax)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2018, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/62 "2018-03-26T19:36:37Z")
For that price he could have flown first class to Shanghai and visited the top floor of the Shanghai Tower, and gotten higher: 587.4 m (1,927 ft) or simply looked out the window of an airplane (32-35,000 feet) ---
**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:** [March 26, 2018, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/63 "2018-03-26T20:14:22Z")
> [@milquetoast](#): > > … he brought back no evidence that “the earth is shaped like a frisbee”. Um. In the images I saw, it did not look like the rocket had any windows. So … ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/64 "2018-03-27T01:19:22Z")
Still not sure what he would have hoped to accomplish. Looking out over the edge of a disc is going to have pretty much the same curvature as looking over the edge of a sphere. Or is my geometry off that much? ---
**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:** [March 27, 2018, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/65 "2018-03-27T01:31:33Z")
> [@Projammer](#): > > Still not sure what he would have hoped to accomplish. Looking out over the edge of a disc is going to have pretty much the same curvature as looking over the edge of a sphere. > > Or is my geometry off that much? There is no edge to look over. The southern oceans are bounded by 20,000 miles of Antarctic ice wall, beyond which is a mysterious mist and somewhere beyond that the base of the firmament: the dome upon which the stars are affixed. We live in a blister which is the whole of existence. There are no “light years” or “galaxies” (except the old Fords) or exoplanets. The firmament is the solid boundary of all existence, which can be observed by the fact that rockets go clunk when they hit it. Hence Voyager and New Horizons and Hubble and Apollo have all been fictions perpetrated by the government to raise our taxes and convince us of, uh, something. I could not stand to get far enough to understand what the conspiracy was about. Perhaps to trick us and take our money and pretend we are stupid? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/66 "2018-03-27T16:13:01Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Okay, now I gotta know: What _do_ flat-earthers think is on the back side? They can’t seriously believe it’s “turtles all the way down”? Do they think there’s _something_ “all the way down”? An infinite iceberg? An alternate universe? Do they think it’s possible for anybody to go there and see? Which way does gravity pull down there? You have to skew your thinking a bit, but I believe their ‘theory’ is that the (flat, pizza pie shaped earth) is going through space directly upward at 9.8 meters per second squared (got to account for gravity after all). So, there isn’t anything ‘all the way down’, just empty space. If you jumped off, presumably since gravity only works due to acceleration in their universe you’d basically just…well, I’m not sure. I guess you’d continue to coast at whatever speed the earth is at by now under constant acceleration for the last 4000 years or whatever while the earth moved away from you at it’s constant 9.8 meters per second squared acceleration. You’d probably be hit by a flying turtle however, at some point, and killed instantly, so this course of action (jumping off the flat earth) is contraindicated. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/67 "2018-03-27T16:25:06Z")
> [@milquetoast](#): > > … > He reached 1875 ft and survived. But he brought back no evidence that “the earth is shaped like a frisbee”. OK, I’m convinced- the earth is flat. Just kidding. So we’ve actually seen the earth from very far away. We have pictures, too! Does it not alarm flat earthers that you can only see see half of the earth in such pictures? ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@MonkeyCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyCat)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2018, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/68 "2018-03-28T19:45:44Z")
I don’t understand. Does he not believe in planes, either? ---
**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:** [March 28, 2018, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/69 "2018-03-28T20:39:57Z")
He is a flat-earther, of course he believes in the plane. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2018, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/70 "2018-03-28T20:51:08Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > He is a flat-earther, of course he believes in the plane. I want you to go to your room and think about what you’ve done. ---
**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:** [March 28, 2018, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/71 "2018-03-28T21:58:29Z")
Forget it, man. She set it up. What do you expect me to do, just let it hang there? ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2018, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/72 "2018-03-28T22:36:03Z")
The Flat-Earther rocket flight is just a hoax. You can clearly see from the angle of the shadows, spectral analysis of the so called “steam”, and the frame rate of the video, that it was obviously done on a sound-stage in Peoria. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2018, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/73 "2018-03-29T05:12:32Z")
So, no all Rocket Scientists are smart? ---
**Author:** ![Santos\_L\_Halper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/santos_l_halper/32/1_2.png) [@Santos\_L\_Halper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santos_L_Halper)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2020, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/74 "2020-02-23T09:13:05Z")
Report from CNN that: [Daredevil “Mad Mike” Hughes died during an attempt to launch his homemade rocket Saturday.](https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/22/us/science-channel-mike-hughes-dead/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2020, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/75 "2020-02-23T09:36:29Z")
Wow, that wasn’t predictable at all… ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2020, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/76 "2020-02-23T10:12:20Z")
And now he is a flatter earther. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2020, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/77 "2020-02-23T10:14:14Z")
I’m missing the obligatory line “There were no witnesses”. Did he sneak off and do this with no audience of well-wishers? Or did they all creep quietly away to establish their alibis, so as not to be accessories? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2020, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/78 "2020-02-23T10:15:28Z")
There may have been witnesses to the launch but if they landing site was… ah… unanticipated no one would have known to be there in advance. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2020, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/79 "2020-02-23T11:09:53Z")
Incomplete reporting. It fails to inform us of who was holding his beer. ---
**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 23, 2020, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427/80 "2020-02-23T11:57:48Z")
Not exactly nice of me, I know, but this is exactly the kind of update I was hoping to see. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flat-earther-builds-a-rocket/802427.md?page=5)