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

[Jeremiahcp]

Seeking to prove that a conspiracy of astronauts fabricated the shape of the Earth, a California man intends to launch himself 1,800 feet high on Saturday in a rocket he built from scrap metal.

Assuming the 500-mph, mile-long flight through the Mojave Desert does not kill him, Mike Hughes told the Associated Press, his journey into the atmosflat will mark the first phase of his ambitious flat-Earth space program.

Hughes’s ultimate goal is a subsequent launch that puts him miles above the Earth, where the 61-year-old limousine driver hopes to photograph proof of the disc we all live on.

“It’ll shut the door on this ball earth,” Hughes said in a fundraising interview with a flat-Earth group for Saturday’s flight. Theories discussed during the interview included NASA being controlled by round-Earth Freemasons and Elon Musk making fake rockets from blimps.

Hughes promised the flat-Earth community that he would expose the conspiracy with his steam-powered rocket, which will launch from a heavily modified mobile home — though he acknowledged that he still had much to learn about rocket science.

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

Stupid has no limits.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Wow! And, grief! I hope he survives! It might be another addition to the Darwin awards.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

At first I thought this was a joke, but....
Already a thread about it.

 

[David T]

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

Stupid has no limits.

yes but god bless them they are entertaining.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Wow! And, grief! I hope he survives! It might be another addition to the Darwin awards.

He'll have to die to get the award. And they already awarded a guy who strapped a jet engine onto his car, so I'm sure a crude home made rocket pieced together by a non-rocket scientist to attempt to prove the Earth is flat will get his own award upon completion of a fatal collision with a sphericalish (I forget the proper term) object floating around the sun.
*edited to add* If it somehow manages to leave him alive but sterile, he could also get it. But, compared to the chances of death, I don't see that as likely.

 

[siti]

Headlines on 26th November:

Turns out the earth is not flat after all, the man, on the other hand,...

 

[Brickjectivity]

I have never gone around the world, and it seems flat to me. Why should I acknowledge what strangers tell me? I know. I'll build a rocket out of spare plumbing and washing machines.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I simply cannot accept this story as being real, there must be some other plot going on. The monumental stupidity required to believe what the man purports to believe means that he is either utterly insane (in which case any decent person would stop him and get him the attention he needs), or he is setting us all up for some other purpose.

 

[Brickjectivity]

I simply cannot accept this story as being real, there must be some other plot going on. The monumental stupidity required to believe what the man purports to believe means that he is either utterly insane (in which case any decent person would stop him and get him the attention he needs), or he is setting us all up for some other purpose.

Tell it like it is!

 

[Jeremiahcp]

I simply cannot accept this story as being real, there must be some other plot going on. The monumental stupidity required to believe what the man purports to believe means that he is either utterly insane (in which case any decent person would stop him and get him the attention he needs), or he is setting us all up for some other purpose.

The man has already nearly killed himself with a homemade rocket before, I have little doubt he actually plans to launch himself into the air with his homemade rocket. However, I do doubt he is actually doing it to prove the Earth is flat, I think it is possible he just said that to get the flat Earth idiots to fund his rocket.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I simply cannot accept this story as being real, there must be some other plot going on. The monumental stupidity required to believe what the man purports to believe means that he is either utterly insane (in which case any decent person would stop him and get him the attention he needs), or he is setting us all up for some other purpose.

You simply under estimate how stupid people can really be. If you look over the Darwin Awards website (the actual website as they try to fact check and not the random memes that claim Darwin Awards) you'll see this is really no stretch of the imagination to think someone would actually try to do this. He does, after all, already believe the Earth is flat.

The man has already nearly killed himself with a homemade rocket before, I have little doubt he actually plans to launch himself into the air with his homemade rocket. However, I do doubt he is actually doing it to prove the Earth is flat, I think it is possible he just said that to get the flat Earth idiots to fund his rocket.

Why would he get funding for his rocket if he doesn't plan on launching?

 

[Jeremiahcp]

Why would he get funding for his rocket if he doesn't plan on launching?

He tried earlier to get funding for his rocket but failed miserably, only 300 sum odd dollars. After that failure is when he started pitching to the Earth is flat people, and that is where he found people dumb enough to fund his rocket. I think it is possible he just wants to shoot himself in the air as high as he can go, and he doesn't care how he gets there or even if he dies.