Rejoice! A 61-year-old California man best known for his belief that the world is in fact not a globe but a flat disc successfully blasted himself nearly 600 metres into the air in a homemade rocket on Saturday.
Mike Hughes, a limo driver and flat earth truther, has been slowly working at his rocket project for some time, working towards his ultimate goal of launching himself over 80 kilometres into Earth’s orbit in an attempt to prove the planet is in fact flat. He believes that all NASA astronauts are merely paid actors who perform in front of computer-generated images, which is normal.
His steam-powered rocket, which was emblazoned with the phrase ‘RESEARCH FLAT EARTH’, launched at about 3pm Pacific time, hitting a top speed of 560km/h before gracefully sailing back down to Earth’s (not flat) surface aided by parachutes.
“Am I glad I did it? Yeah. I guess. I’ll feel it in the morning. I won’t be able to get out of bed,” he told the Associated Press. “At least I can go home and have dinner and see my cats tonight.”
He was, according to the AP, injured in the launch, and was taken away from the launch site in an ambulance via a stretcher, but he seems largely okay. Unfortunately, he did not seem to have gleaned any conclusive proof that the earth is flat from this brief sojourn. One day!
