Hmm. If I were a flat-earther who was willing to fund research to validate my belief, one option is to fund a legitimate scientist to prove my belief. That’s never going to give me the answer I am looking for, so another option is to fund someone someone like Mad Mike. Sure, he separated fools from their money but I wonder if any of his supporters would ever feel like they were conned. As far as I can tell he did what he said what he was going to do.
I think that he was truly and genuinely a Flat-Earther, he just didn’t actually think his rocket would prove it.
See this article.
I take no joy in his death, while noting that flat-earther rocket-men have short life expectancies.
I agree and I’m glad someone pointed this out. What an embittered little shit one must be to revel in anyone’s death.
When someone combines epic ignorance with epic wrecklessness to commit suicide in an entertaining way, who am I not to enjoy it. You know what I call a dead conspiracy theorist? A good start.
His web site is still up. You can buy merch.
https://madmikehughes.com/store
He wasn’t wreckless.
What would be a homemade dependable auto-release? Cobbling together a autorelease would be difficult, and unintentional release could be disastrous.
And unintentional non-release turned out to be safe?
Amateur rocketry is inherently unsafe. I suppose it’s a matter of which sort of unsafe you wish to risk.
Reckless. You’re better than that.
An altimeter, combined with a chute release. And you test it before you use it.
Those into high power model rocketry use them all the time. Off the shelf, inexpensive technology. Of course, they’re just concerned with the safe return of a model that they’ve built, so there are rules, safety regulations, exams, and checks before you fly your model. In fact, once you get to Level 3 certification for High power models, then each parachute event must be initiated by redundant control systems. Redundancy must be present in the power sources, safe and arm provisions, control logic, and output devices (e.g. bridgewires, electric matches).
But I guess if you’re launching yourself into the air, then fuck it, don’t bother learning from anyone else and just make shit up as you go along.
The dearly departed was a Flat Earther, this attitude is a prerequisite for that group.
Please pay attention. His PR man claims that Hughes was pretending to be a FECT but was not in fact a believer. He was doing it for the financing. He died portraying a moron, but he was really just an ostentatious jerk.
No, you pay attention. As I linked a few posts back:
Broomstick, I am in your debt. When I first saw “lithobraking” in the description of the video, I didn’t know what it meant and figured it’d come clear later, or maybe I’d look it up. The dawn didn’t come until I read your post. Ignorance Fought.
Mad Mike is to rocketry what Lawnchair Larry was to ballooning. About the only difference is that Larry died due to eating a shotgun some years later than his stunt rather deceased by gravity and “lithobraking”.
Gives a bad name to many who are very serious and careful about their hobby.
Yeah. It’s sort of like the skydiving term “bounce”. It conceals something very serious in words that don’t sound quite so sad as the bare facts.