This might be old-fashioned of me, but when someone tells me that they’re going to launch themselves in a home-made rocket into the air at 800km/h in the service of Flat Earth trutherism, I expect them to follow through on it.
When stuntman, limo driver, and Flat Earth researcher (what an epitaph) “Mad” Mike Hughes promised to do just that in November last year, I expected very shortly to hear news of a stuntman exploding in the Mojave Desert in a crash that surprised no one. Instead, the bastard piked. Or, at least, he was given a very convenient out by the Bureau of Land Management, who told him ‘Hey, you can’t do that shit on public land, you weirdo.’
Not one to be deterred by things like laws (both man-made ones and the laws of physics), Hughes has announced that he will geniously circumvent those pesky restrictions by launching from private land and launching himself straight up.
Following the press he received from the last attempt, Hughes has since clarified that he doesn’t believe he’ll be able to prove whether or not the Earth is flat, but that he’s using the jump to raise the $1.8 – $2 million required to get him into space later in the year. Much less insane sounding.
Hughes has been vociferously defending his methods on Facebook, not mincing any words when replying to doubters:
Brian it is all about a manned privateer flight to the edge of space. If you can not get your mind around flat earth then go put your head back in the sand dude this is not the only time I have been at the leading edge of something[,] I revolutionized NASCAR[,] I am the worlds top limo driver and I am the only man in history to design then build then launch myself in my own rocket. So fly your drones up your ass.
Yeah, Brian, shut the fuck up.
Commenters have suggested to him that, instead of, manned space flight, he could prove or disprove the spheriness of the Earth by simply sending up a camera on a balloon, but Mike has no time for this, telling one commenter “this flat earth debate is a lot deeper than strapping a camera to a balloon“. Sure.
The launch is scheduled to take place February 3 in Amboy, California. Godspeed, noble dickhead.
