A flat earther's homemade rocket launch went as well as you expect it would

There’s video of the failed launch on Twitter also

Here’s a previous bb article about him

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He couldn’t have just strapped a GoPro to his rocket instead?

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Wow. That’s one way to do it. Got to at least respect his determination.

Had a marine biology teacher in high school who left a lasting impression with his exhortation that “belief” had no place anywhere in or near science. This was somewhat radical for the time at a public school in a fairly conservative leaning area - and was squarely aimed at those supposed challenges to the teaching of concepts like evolution, (climate wasn’t a big topic yet, but would have been included).

(maybe Bernie’s Secretary of Education can make R.A.W. part of the required curriculum)

RIP in any case

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Hughes was scheduled to launch his homemade rocket for a new Science Channel series called “Homemade Astronauts,” according to the Discovery Channel website.

Pretty sure there are some corporate lawyers desperately trying to make sure the network axes that idea yesterday, if not sooner.

Meanwhile there’s some dumb TV producer begging for another chance from the corporate execs: “How was I supposed to know that flat-earthers weren’t actually rocket scientists??”

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Cameras in space can’t be trusted as they consistently show the earth to be spherical… :smirk:

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According to the article this rocket was only intended to go 5000 feet up. He could have driven to Mt. Whitney (less than three hours from where he died), strapped a GoPro to his head and hiked to a peak nearly three times that altitude.

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That actually went significantly better than I would have expected. The launch was pretty all right, for a DIY project. It was the landing that didn’t go so well.

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I think that’s because he used hydrogen peroxide (I guess that’s what they mean by steam-powered), a relatively safe and simple propellant. If he used something more typical, like nearly any kind of hypergolic propellant, things wouldn’t go this far.

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Fisheye lens. Totally biased.

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He could just taken a commercial flight and gone 7x that.

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But the windows on commercial flights are special lenses that make the earth look round. Duh.

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Nonsense. The psychoactive drugs they put in the chemtrails are also dumped into the cabin aircon (albeit in a different concentration) to keep the passengers from noticing the plumbing for making the chemtrails. The so-called “jet-lag” is one of the side-effects, basically a hangover. Sometimes the airlines use a higher concentration on the passengers to make them think they’re on a flight when in fact they’re being put into special containers and hauled to their destination in UPS trucks.

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Honestly, (as a relatively large and inflexible man) that would be better than being awake in economy class.

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Usually not. Did you ever notice a bruise somewhere on your body, but couldn’t for the life of you remember where/how you got it? Well…

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Alternate conspiratorial headline: “Man discovers truth about flat earth cover-up conspiracy, killed immediately in probable government conspiracy”

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Rocket Science Is As Hard As The Ground.

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Earth flattens you!

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From what I’ve read about this guy in the past, he may have never really been a committed flat-earther. From Wikipedia:

In 2016 Hughes launched a failed fundraising attempt for a rocket that earned $310.[2][9] After professing his belief in a flat Earth later that year, Hughes gained support within the flat-Earth community. His post-flat-Earth fundraising campaign made its $7,875 goal.

I don’t think that scientific discovery was his main motivation. I suspect that he was just looking for any means to get himself a ride on a rocket, and he found that latching on to the flat-earther guys was the most expedient way to get funding and publicity.

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Well, If he wasn’t a flat earther before, he is now.

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Indeed, the earth is not flat, but flattening

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