The fine article misquoted by BB says ‘feet’.
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If the earth were flat, cats would have knocked everything off the edge long ago
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No, that is straight up an idiotic argument beyond the link, it purports to answer the ships disappearing hull first beyond the horizon not by describing why hulls disappear first, but by illustrating a reduced apparent angle of separation of the ship—in effect saying “no they don’t!” (And pay no attention to ships disappearing hull first over the horizon through telescopes.) They cloak simple gainsaying in obfuscation.
Flat Earthers are idiots wallowing in confirmation bias, or ignoramuses with strong opinions. (Although, on reflection, they could also simply be liars, also.)
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The only way we are going to crack this round vs. flat earth nut is to drill a hole straight down.
If we emerge in another known location on the earth, the rounders win.
If we end up in the upside down, the flatties win.
If we hit the back of the giant turtle, we are in huge trouble.
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I don’t know. But he did it in less than 12 parsecs.
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Other than headlines, I haven’t really been following this wingnut, so I don’t know how sophisticated his rocket is.
If it’s even mildly so, surely its design and execution required some use of math and physics. How was he confident that physics would be correct for his rocket when it’s so clearly wrong about all the many ways it shows the earth isn’t flat? Why was your math teacher correct when all of NASA are idiots?
Seems an odd disconnect.
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No, I don’t.
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I think this evens out, BB reports on found feet on a regular basis. Bound to lose a few here and there.
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A few facts to accompany the wide-eyed gibberish here:
- This is NOT the first time “Mad Mike” Hughes has launched himself atop a rocket. He did it once earlier – had a partial 'chute failure that left him injured, and damaged the rocket more than intended (i.e., beyond the designated ‘crumple zones’) , but he survived.
So no, this is not the first time he has flown aboard a rocket of his own design and construction. (Which is considerably more than any of the folks blathering about ‘death chairs’ and "Darwinism’ have ever done.)
- Mr. Hughes’ recent conversion to Flat-Eartherism sheds some light on the supposed puzzle of a “flat-earth loving, paradoxical science-hating DIY rocket designer”
He didn’t say anything about ‘Flat Earth’ during his first launch – it was only after his initial attempt to crowd-fund a second launch fell flat that he announced his conversion to Flat-Eartherism, and posted yet another crowd-funding pitch, this time aimed at Flat Earthers, as a way to “prove or disprove” their theories.
After they responded generously, he added sponsor banners to his rocket.
- Please, please, please quit saying “steam-powered rocket.” It’s a pressure-fed monopropellant rocket powered by HTP (High-Test Peroxide, i.e, H2O2 at ~70% concentration.)
HTP can be catalytically decomposed into O2 (oxygen), H2O (water vapor), and a whole lotta heat.
So yes, there is steam IN the rocket exhaust plume.
But almost all rockets produce steam in the exhaust plume - in fact, hydrogen/oxygen engines (like the Space Shuttle, SLS, Delta IV, and New Shepard main engines, as well as the Delta IV, Atlas V, SLS and Saturn upper stages) produce almost nothing but hot water vapor, aka steam.
If you’re going to call Mad Mike’s rockets “steam-powered”, then all those other professional rockets are even more steam-powered, since their exhaust is nearly pure steam, unadulterated by the oxygen you also get with HTP.
Monoprop peroxide engines have a long and honorable history as simple, reliable rocket engines, both large and small. (They’ve frequently been used for small on-orbit maneuvering thrusters for satellites and spacecraft).
Evel Knievel’s attempted Snake-River Canyon jump used a monoprop peroxide engine, and it was designed by Robert Truax, one of the 20th C.'s most talented and inventive rocket engineers. (The jump failed due to accidental early 'chute deployment, but the rocket itself worked fine.)
HTP is room-temp storable, easy and (relatively) safe to handle, allows simple and reliable engine activation and shutdown, and produces low chamber temps and pressures for easier engineering — it’s actually a fairly reasonable choice for a small suborbital manned vehicle built on a limited budget.
No ‘lunacy’ involved.
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Don’t worry about hitting the turtle. You have to go through a lot of elephant first.
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There are no flat-earthers, there are just a bunch of pathetic assholes desperate for attention. Shame on AP for giving it to them.
No matter what you believe about Hughes’ beliefs about the shape of the earth, of the lunacy it takes to strap yourself to the tip of a homemade rocket, you’ve got to respect that he pulled it off.
Uh, no I really don’t. I can beat his altitude with a pair of hiking boots and less time than it took him to set up his “rocket”.
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That one is easily answerable, though: there’s only a few miles of atmosphere between you and the Moon. There’s thousands of miles between the Rockies and China. IRL you can clearly see that distant mountains appear foggy and faded compared to close ones, even over a few miles’ distance; it’s easy to claim that a hundred miles of atmospheric distortion would obscure anything.
Of course that argument is built on sand, but the real point is that there’s no sense in trying to refute flat-earthers. The more evidence you show them, the more it proves that the conspiracy goes even deeper than they thought.
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I’m not sure why you think those are mutually exclusive.
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We had so much fun with this in chemistry class. Rocket in a test tube!
@PhasmaFelis, on a clear day, you can see Mount Ranier from Portland, OR, and it does look flat and misty. Theory confirmed!
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You make a good point, but I do not believe in air, since I cannot see it, so how could it obscure my view if it does not exist? 
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I’m not saying that they are right, only that they have an argument for the phenomenon. If the flat earth theory was so obviously wrong, it wouldn’t have been the dominant theory for so long (among even very bright people) and wouldn’t have persisted to this day. Many of the arguments that people pull out to say “these guys are nuts” are arguments that have been around for a long time, and flat-earthers like Thales, Democritus, and the Norse kings (a) had all seen ships on the horizon, and (b) were not idiots.
I think we can learn a lot from looking at the history and sociology of theories like this, especially when looking at topical modern counterparts such as arguments against gun control. Dismiss goofy arguments too glibly and you end up with Trump as POTUS.
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Then what are you sucking into your face when you seal a glass over mouth and get funny looks at restaurants, and oh, am I the only one in their fifth decade doing this?
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