A flat-earther, Hughes planned to go high enough to see the curvature of the earth with his own eyes.
Charter a plane you dumb-ass.
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yes, them too
I’m guessing he didn’t care about the height reached as much as the method getting there.
“Sometimes, I feel like the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote, when he suddenly runs off a cliff,” Hughes told The Times ahead of the jump. “But it’s the price I pay for a life that’s not boring.”
Hughes didn’t believe in gravity. Unfortunately, gravity believed in him.
He was primarily an attention-seeker, though, aka “daredevil.” That was why he risked his life - the flat Earth thing seemed to just be a hook to get himself more attention (and funding).
Although all his existing efforts were precursors to bigger and better rockets that would eventually allow him to go quite high, there were easier existing methods for even that (e.g. balloons). And his flights started at low elevations, too. This is all part of the evidence that he was just a dude who wanted to get famous for breaking height records for flying in a home-made rocket, rather than caring about any flat Earth stuff.
Unfortunately he totally invited that upon himself by adopting this flat Earther persona, even if it was just a (rather cynical) means to an end. He literally asked for it (having his efforts framed that way).
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Curved.
Obviously I’m being facetious and there’s a difference between being 5000 feet above the ground and 5000 feet above sea-level.
This was still a terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible idea though.
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I suspect if the engineering team all have the same jackets/outfits then the effort is legit.
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Yes, the James Bond films were always better when the bad guy issued some sort of “uniform” to his henchmen.
I guess this was bound to be said at some point: From Flat Earther to Flat Liner…
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The only thing that ended up being flat was him.
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With respect, no one other than the fool is responsible for what occurs when someone attempts a foolish thing. And even more so when there is a century of prior art to draw on for engineering design and construction.
It is not and should not be society’s duty to prevent otherwise rational adults from attempting stunts of this sort if they so choose.
Want to go over Victoria Falls in a Styrofoam ice chest? Cool, so long as you post a bond sufficient to cover the cost of finding and disposing of your corpse before it pollutes the water table. Stupidity does not remove then requirement for personal responsibility.
“Seems to be a deep instinct in human beings for making everything compulsory that isn’t forbidden.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"
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Entrapment is a real thing - consult the FBI if you need details.
Came here to say basically the same thing: damn, he didn’t even get high enough to see the curvature of the earth.
“Entrapment” is a legal concept relating to inducing someone to commit a crime and the actual criminal intent involved by the other person. Nothing at all to do with stupid people doing stupid things of their own free will. I’d have to say that is about as invalid an analogy as could be constructed.
No need to bother the FBI with basic inquiries. Wikipedia will do well. I am retired from a career that included 25 years working in an Intelligence outfit for the Treasury Department so I am more than a wee bit familiar with the concept anyway. 
I guess he is a “flat” earther now.
What? Too soon?
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I completely agree with your #3. Even people who are misguided have relatives and loved ones who feel real hurt at their loss.
#1: That is why most countries include hands-on science as part of basic education, so that young people can observe basic principles in physics, chemistry, and biology first-hand. The problem is, people forget those first principles as they age.
#2: You may be overstating the point. While science leaves open new avenues of exploration, it depends heavily on building blocks of prior knowledge. Once something basic is agreed upon, new experiments start with that as a basis. Revisiting the fundamentals like Newton’s Laws, stoichiometry, and natural selection usually requires a direct observation that seems to go against that fundamental. Even then it’s exceedingly rare to revise that base understanding, because a legitimate new discovery most often involves edge cases, where the fundamental understanding distorts a bit at the extremes.
While that seems like uncertainty, which is often used rhetorically by anti-science folks, it is simply open-mindedness. Anyone who has been through a rigorous scientific training has performed experiments where the results were unexpected.
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So despite what you wrote, you agree with the concept that it is possible to induce … how did you phrase it? “fools to attempt foolish things”, that it is unethical and at times illegal to do so, and that society does have a duty to prevent otherwise rational adults from doing foolish things, or at the very least to not actively encourage that behaviour.
“entrapment” is a legal concept, but it’s not only a legal concept.
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Thanks for this. I still think the evidence points to his being a sad, deluded conspiracy theorist first; and that he realized the potential for fleecing other wingnuts after the fact.
Whatever the case, the world’s a little less colorful today. A bit smarter, but definitely less colorful.
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Darwin Award?
…or too soon?
