This man is about to launch himself in his homemade rocket to prove the Earth is flat

[Broomstick]

Actually, the weather balloon thing has been done - Larry Walters in 1982. Wound up sitting in a balloon-supported lawnchair above LAX in commercial airspace with a pellet gun across his lap (also sandwiches and beer). There is now a sub-sector of aviation in the US called "cluster ballooning" inspired by his antics.

There is also a definite group of rocket enthusiasts in the US, some now launching all the way to the edge of space (I once had to re-route a weekend flight around some airspace one such group had reserved for a launch) but as far as I know there is no amateur manned rocket activity. Just costs too damn much money to bring the risk down even to the level of average homebuilt amateur aircraft.

[Zaune]

Not going to see curvature of Earth from mere 1800 feet. Wonder why bother with rocket at all. Get some 50 or more of weather balloons, some rope to tie them together, hydrogen gas cilinders to fill the balloons and there is good chance to get to 8 km or more if extra breathing oxygen is carried. By popping few balloons with handgun he could even manage relatively controlled descent and landing.

[Ralin]

When you silence a man you're just proving you're afraid of what he has to say

61-year-old stuntman and amateur Flat Earth theory researcher “Mad” Mike Hughes, who planned to launch himself some 1,800 feet up at 500 miles per hour in an untested homemade steam-powered rocket over the Mojave Desert ghost town of Amboy, California on Saturday in some sort of gambit to prove the Earth is flat (spoilers: it’s not), will not be doing any of that that this weekend.

Instead, Hughes told the Washington Post, Big Daddy Government has thrown a few obstacles in his way. Per the Post, the Bureau of Land Management has confirmed it had no record of giving Hughes “verbal permission” to hold the rocket launch on public lands as he had previously claimed, meaning that the rocketeer has decided to delay the launch date and move the location “three miles down the road.”

“I don’t see [the launch] happening until about Tuesday, honestly,” Hughes told the Post. “It takes three days to set up... You know, it’s not easy because it’s not supposed to be easy.”

“Someone from our local office reached out to him after seeing some of these news articles [about the launch], because that was news to them,” BLM spokesperson Samantha Storms told the paper.

It’s not the first time Hughes has planned to launch himself into the sky in a homemade rocket—a prior attempt in 2014 earned himself injuries from intense G-forces and a rough landing—but as the Post noted, he’s only recently become a Flat Earth convert “after struggling for months to raise funds.” Hence the “RESEARCH FLAT EARTH” slogan on the side of his rocket, and Hughes’ plans to launch himself progressively higher into the sky if Saturday’s planned event was a non-lethal success.

In a Kickstarter post from 2016, Hughes wrote “Mad Mike Hughes always wanted to be famous. So much that he decided ‘What can I do to become and instant super star dare devil?’ So he decided to break the world record for the longest ramp jump in the world ... He is the current world record holder for a ramp rocket jump, but he wants to shatter that record on February 12th 2016 (Just 1 day before his 60th birthday).”

While crowdfunding only raised him $310 of his $150,000 goal then, the Flat Earth connection later helped him raise $8,000 of the eventual $20,000 it cost to build the rocket.

However, the BLM decision seems to have bought Hughes some time before the potentially deadly manned test of his DIY scalding steam missile—time which he apparently does not intend to use to reconsider whether this is a good idea.

“I don’t believe in science,” Hughes previously told the Associated Press. “I know about aerodynamics and fluid dynamics and how things move through the air, about the certain size of rocket nozzles, and thrust. But that’s not science, that’s just a formula. There’s no difference between science and science fiction.”

[Washington Post]

The cover-up continues.

[Solauren]

Why can't we just declare belief that the Earth is flat a form of paranoid delusion/insanity and get these idiots the help they need?

[Sky Captain]

Actually, the weather balloon thing has been done - Larry Walters in 1982. Wound up sitting in a balloon-supported lawnchair above LAX in commercial airspace with a pellet gun across his lap (also sandwiches and beer). There is now a sub-sector of aviation in the US called "cluster ballooning" inspired by his antics.

There is also a definite group of rocket enthusiasts in the US, some now launching all the way to the edge of space (I once had to re-route a weekend flight around some airspace one such group had reserved for a launch) but as far as I know there is no amateur manned rocket activity. Just costs too damn much money to bring the risk down even to the level of average homebuilt amateur aircraft.

Yeah, found out after a little google search one guy has flown multiple times with cluster of balloons
http://clusterballoon.com/index.asp

Seems that if done properly this is no more dangerous than flying normal hot air balloon. Flat Earth guy with 20k $ definitely could do similar thing.

[Richelieu]

I am not proud of asking a question about flat earth lunacy, but aren't there much less expensive (and safer) experiments for him to disprove his ideas than observing the curvature of the earth from space? Like, say, observing it from a boat? Or if the world is flat and centered on the north pole and antarctica is a ring around the map, just by simply circumnavigating the south pole? Aren't sailors in the round-the-world Vendée Globe Challenge race just doing that? I am not sure straddling himself to a weather balloon or riding his home-made rocket would even be required to disprove the fact that Earth is a sphere...

[Iroscato]

"That's not science, that's just a formula"

Fuck me dead, I need that on a t-shirt

[Simon_Jester]

Richelieu, you'd be amazed at some of the elaborate, make-my-eyes-bleed geometries that Flat Earthers have proposed to explain how the sky can look the way it does. And how the manifestly true examples of people circumnavigating the globe in various ways.

There is almost no limit on how much you can justify if literally the only thing you care about is having a pat excuse for every obvious question other people ask you, and if you don't mind contradicting yourself. It's like Young Earth Creationism, only even more obviously stupid, as opposed to being merely factually wrong and mendacious.

[Raw Shark]

I've got to give it to Larry Walters: The guy didn't have the worst plan. If I want to risk dying in a spectacular and uniquely-memorable fashion for lasting infamy and an awesome view, I'm definitely taking sandwiches and a 12-pack. Assuming I wasn't going to go home and just not do it at all, the only improvements I can think of offhand would be a wrist-tether for the pellet gun and Swiss army knife, some serious cold weather clothing, at least one balance practice run 10' off some soft grass for the whole balloons vs ballast thing, and a parachute in case it really went ass-up.

[The Romulan Republic]

Why can't we just declare belief that the Earth is flat a form of paranoid delusion/insanity and get these idiots the help they need?

Because of the First Amendment.

[Zaune]

I've got to give it to Larry Walters: The guy didn't have the worst plan. If I want to risk dying in a spectacular and uniquely-memorable fashion for lasting infamy and an awesome view, I'm definitely taking sandwiches and a 12-pack. Assuming I wasn't going to go home and just not do it at all, the only improvements I can think of offhand would be a wrist-tether for the pellet gun and Swiss army knife, some serious cold weather clothing, at least one balance practice run 10' off some soft grass for the whole balloons vs ballast thing, and a parachute in case it really went ass-up.

Don't forget a launch site a safe distance from controlled airspace. Larry nearly got run over by a couple of airliners when the wind pushed him across the approach path to LAX.

[Soontir C'boath]

Why can't we just declare belief that the Earth is flat a form of paranoid delusion/insanity and get these idiots the help they need?

Spend money on psychiatric services? You jest.

“I don’t believe in science,” Hughes previously told the Associated Press. “I know about aerodynamics and fluid dynamics and how things move through the air, about the certain size of rocket nozzles, and thrust. But that’s not science, that’s just a formula. There’s no difference between science and science fiction.”

What a lovely world he lives in.

He probably is just someone taking advantage of Flat Earth enthusiasts, but boy is his mind certainly warped.

[Broomstick]

Why can't we just declare belief that the Earth is flat a form of paranoid delusion/insanity and get these idiots the help they need?

Er.... what help do you think they need?

If they can stay employed, pay their bills, and aren't hurting others what, exactly, is the problem here? Sure, they're deluded, but it seems pretty harmless. Unless you can show harm I can't condone coercing them into treatment.

[Broomstick]

I've got to give it to Larry Walters: The guy didn't have the worst plan. If I want to risk dying in a spectacular and uniquely-memorable fashion for lasting infamy and an awesome view, I'm definitely taking sandwiches and a 12-pack. Assuming I wasn't going to go home and just not do it at all, the only improvements I can think of offhand would be a wrist-tether for the pellet gun and Swiss army knife, some serious cold weather clothing, at least one balance practice run 10' off some soft grass for the whole balloons vs ballast thing, and a parachute in case it really went ass-up.

He did, in fact, wear a parachute.

I can't help but think "death wish" is part of what these guys do. Walters did some years later eat a shotgun. This current guy also seems to have a certain disregard for longevity.

[Lagmonster]

The cover-up continues.

Called it on the other page. Now wait for him to get busted for cocaine possession, and I'm a goddamn prophet.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

2 out of 3 chances says it explodes and kills him.\
BEST out come is it fails to launch period and he calls it a day.

The whole thing is obviously a stunt for press and money. If he was serious about science in any way, there are several other ways you could attempt to study the curvature of the earth.
You know... If it wasn't for the fact that it would be a massive slap in the face to the entire history of Astronomy... I would love to sponsor this guy to go up on a ride to the ISS just to see what he says.,

That it's all fake, an elitist conspiracy, and NASA dosed his drink? That about cover it?

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Calling this man "Jebediah Kerman IRL" would be an insult to the Kerbals. Even without the Flat Earth tinfoil-hattery, what kind of reckless idiot do you have to be to think a manned suborbital flight in an oversized bottle-rocket powered by high-pressure steam is a good idea? Especially when by his own admission he can't do a few unmanned test flights like a sane person because he could only afford to build the one?

Wile E. Coyote, Superrr Genie-us.

[Swindle1984]

Why can't we just declare belief that the Earth is flat a form of paranoid delusion/insanity and get these idiots the help they need?

Because then third-world immigrants with no formal education who have never seen electric lighting or indoor plumbing would be declared insane and put into an asylum.

Flat-earthers, on the other hand, should definitely know better. Which convinces me that they're trolling. I'm sure there's a few people out there stupid/insane enough to genuinely believe it, but the rest have to be doing it just to fuck with people.

Every time there's a thread on space exploration on any other forum I frequent, it gets flooded with two groups of people: flat-earthers and moon-landing-is-a-hoax people spamming the thread, and people who claim space exploration is just a waste of money and we should 'solve our problems here before spreading them to other planets'. Both groups post the exact same 'arguments' every time ("masturbatory fantasy" appears nearly every time), sometimes nearly verbatim, and they immediately swarm any and every space thread and attack anyone who is in favor of space exploration.

If I were more paranoid, I'd think they were paid shills under orders to make people lose interest in space exploration and exploitation of resources. I mean, why else would they target space threads specifically, and so vigorously?

[PhoenixKnig]

This shall be interesting to watch

[Isolder74]

Right now the Flatties are crying about how the big government coverup is preventing him from making his flight because they are afraid he's going to prove the world is flat.

There two problems with that idea.

1) He only planned to get his rocket up to 1800 feet nowhere near high enough to prove anything about the shape of the Earth even if he did manage to get his steam powered rocket to work. In fact the only place that getting only that high could possibly see the curvature of the Earth would be the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah on a clear day.

2) If he didn't log his flight plan then he'd have to deal with being arrested because he flew into commercial flight lanes risking possible collision with another aircraft.

Lets not forget that according to most flat earth believers the sun in only 5000 feet above the surface of the Earth. So it is not a surprise he has such little grasp about how high 1800 feet actually is.

[Sea Skimmer]

Flight plans aren't legally required for all flights. Certainly not for a daylight 1,800ft high rocket launch over a middle of nowhere salt flat.

[Isolder74]

Flight plans aren't legally required for all flights. Certainly not for a daylight 1,800ft high rocket launch over a middle of nowhere salt flat.

But he wanted to launch someplace just outside of San Fransisco….in California. I was just saying the flats would be the only place that getting that high might actually mean something.

[Broomstick]

The Earth doesn't look any more curved from 1800 feet than from the ground. I speak from experience.

Also - even near a lot of urban areas 1800 still is not in "commercial airspace" or a location requiring a flight plan, at least not in the US.

The FAA does want you to let them know when you'll be firing rockets into the air, but that so they can pass the time and location onto aircraft to minimize collisions. Reserving a block of airspace for a launch is not that big a deal , model rocketry clubs do it routinely.

[Isolder74]

I know but the flat earth guy is trying to make it sound like they just won't let him do it and are hiding something. I'm not even sure anymore that the rocket actually even works.

[Sky Captain]

IIRC for around 20k one could fly in a copilot seat in a Russian MIG 31 to 20 - 25 km altitude and enjoy the spectacular view of black sky and curved Earth.