A Hughes failure: Flat Earther rocketeer can't get it up yet again An American bloke, who reckons Earth is flat as a frisbee, is on a quest to send himself into space to verify his theory. And on Sunday, he failed to even launch a rocket to a few hundred feet. Limousine driver, self-taught rocket maker, and headline generator "Mad" Mike Hughes hoped to blast off his homemade rocket from …
Anyway, how do they explain satellites in orbit, how GPS works, how compasses work, that we can measure our rotation relative to the moon, sun and planets, observe them with telescopes, the phases of the moon, and the above point how otherwise could you sail or fly round the planet?!
Anyway, how do they explain satellites in orbit, how GPS works, how compasses work, that we can measure our rotation relative to the moon, sun and planets, observe them with telescopes, the phases of the moon, and the above point how otherwise could you sail or fly round the planet?!
None of them produces "youtuber ad revenue". Move along.
Anyway, how do they explain satellites in orbit, how GPS works, how compasses work, that we can measure our rotation relative to the moon, sun and planets, observe them with telescopes, the phases of the moon, and the above point how otherwise could you sail or fly round the planet?!
Epicycles.
"how do they explain satellites in orbit, how GPS works, how compasses work..."
I dont believe there is anyone on the planet who thinks the world is flat. I've looked for their websites before now. Plenty of people might say they are a Flat Earther , but they are just attention seeking.
I think there is a "society" but its had to radically revise its main policy and ethos to "ok the earth is round , Us "Flat earthers" will now fight for common sense instead, like our name suggests"
"Plenty of people might say they are a Flat Earther , but they are just attention seeking."
You might think, but gullibility (especially in the US) has no apparent physical limits. Just look for instance at # people who believe in religion and / or deny things with overwhelming scientific and directly observable evidence like evolution and anthropomorphic global warming.
This illustrates it quite well I find: https://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/
"Rubbish! Everybody knows 1,800 feet isn't high enough to observe the Great A'Tuin in all its majesty"
That is one way of describing the act of looking up the business end of a turtle to determine its sex (AKA "The Big Bang Theory").
Oh brutah how I miss the smell of a freshly printed Discworld novel. Today was perfect reading weather and here I am with one less favorite author around. 'Buggrit.
ah... for those unfamiliar with what has now become, like belief it invisible friends, MASSIVE* with our transatlantic cousins - this youtuber is a good summary of what they believe in...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgY8zNZ35uw
*I get comments from the flatards on my paramotor videos claiming it proves you can see the edge, etc... the ignorance is astounding.
so spherical trigonometry is a mystery to them. Orbital mechanics, therefore, is "right out".
Well, to be fair, trigonometry is a mystery to me as well. What I finally managed to learn at school (not all of it) is now a long-forgotten memory. And so for me, orbital mechanics is also right out.
I helped with my nephew's homework last year, and realised that I've completely forgotten how to do long division.
Don't tell anyone that I do water system design calculations for a living...
Pfft, you know nothing, flying around the 'globe' is obviously impossible because your plane would be upside down by the time you got to Australia if the earth wasn't flat.
Remember, the moron is strong with the flat earthers, there is an amazing demo of that by a British GP.
Seems that effort never quite (sorry:) got off the ground:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/Tag/lohan
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/02/lohan_faa/
I'm guessing mainly because the driving force behind it, Lester Haines, checked out permanently a little over a year ago: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/27/the_life_and_times_of_lester_haines/
To be clear: not a flat Earther, so don't lump me with them.
But global is probably not a word that would fit them very well, considering that its etymology is derived from precisely what they don't believe to be true. Maybe they'd think of themselves as a `truly flat organization` instead, which has the advantage of fitting corporate jargon. Truly planar?
..Or he doesn't even have to leave San Bernardino county. Just drive about an hour west to the Rim of the World Highway. Some of those passes are above 8,000 feet.
<quote>..Or he doesn't even have to leave San Bernardino county. Just drive about an hour west to the Rim of the World Highway. Some of those passes are above 8,000 feet.</quote>
Rim of the World Highway. Did you see that, everyone? **RIM OF THE WORLD** HIGHWAY.
They were hiding it in plain sight all along. Just toying with us. The bastards.
re Forthisnotdead
I'm somewhat confuddled now.
A friend of mine, at the actual pub and not facebook, last night said that he'd recently experienced the Rim of the World, nonTM, and yet i'm sure he's also said he's never been outside the UK, certainly not San Bernadino and certainly not by train.
Surely there must be some other explanation?
"I'm somewhat confuddled now.
"A friend of mine, at the actual pub and not facebook, last night said that he'd recently experienced the Rim of the World, nonTM, and yet i'm sure he's also said he's never been outside the UK, certainly not San Bernadino and certainly not by train.
"Surely there must be some other explanation?"
How much had your friend been drinking?
> Alternatively he could just say that he went half mile up and the Earth is flat as a pancake. Then ask for more money to go even further to confirm this.
And, if by some miracle, he gets high enough to be able to the whole of the earth's disk is in his field of vision without killing himself, he won't be able to discern any vertical curvature and will triumphantly claim that the earth is a flat disk (with features like continents sliding across it). :-)
<quote>Alternatively he could just say that he went half mile up and the Earth is flat as a pancake. Then ask for more money to go even further to confirm this. Rinse, repeat. </quote>
This sounds like a very good ploy for getting the gullible and the stupid, who outnumber the wise and wonderful, to pay for flights to Mars.
"We just need some more funding for the RTG's, the glasshouses and the Lunar Farside telescopes and we'll *finally* outwit the lying NASA/JPL/NSA bastards. Send donations to SpaceX at ..."
Sending up a steam-driven rocket to check whether the Earth is flat? This was already tried many decades ago and described by the BBC in the report "Wings Over Dagenham" first broadcast on 10 January 1957.
Flat Earth Society member: Er, could you slow down just a bit here, I want to take that photograph of the Earth.
Eccles: Oh here. I just saw the Earth through the clouds.
Flat Earth Society member: Did it look round?
Eccles: Yeah, but I don't think it saw me.
After watching the first YT clip embedded in the article I notice he has adopted the same talking style as the Daddy of All Pseudoscientists Richard C Hoagland - talk in excruciating detail about the most inconsequential parts of the topic while avoiding saying anything of any substance regarding the main thing they are there to talk about.
He will go far.
(Probably about 1,000 feet before exploding in a shower of skin and muscle being blown from his bones, or something)
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NASA ain't got a mission of any magnitude since how many years ago?
I think you'll find they're still being kept quite busy.
I think you'll find they're still being kept quite busy.
Wow, I am sure our lone el'reg flat earther you are replying to is gonna come back at you with FBI^H^H^H,NSA^H^H^H,CIA conspiracy of some kind involving the KGB^H^H^HFSB, 610 Office, MI5, RG, Five Eyes, BND, DGSE, MSS, NTRO agencies ... these agencies all fight each other regularly, however, for some unexplained reason all agree the flat earth reality must be hidden from ordinary folks ...
@el reg: I don't think you can call out flat earthers, earth is NOT round but sort of spherical, at least, that is what I learned at school ...
Crikey, this is funny, I wonder how flat earthers can find boffins literate in rocketery ...
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A tax on stupidity? Serves them well.
By the way, the guy may not be mad, after all. Flying on top of that thing would be insane but pretending to try while counting money seems in the good old tradition of showmanship.
With good binoculars.
You can see ships appearing over the horizon.
You see the top first (sails if a sailing ship).
If someone wants to fund me a trip to Cornwall in the summer I will spend a week researching it.
I will need my assistants.
I reckon £2000 will cover rental of place and food.
Come come MJI, we all know the real reason the ships looked like they disappeared over the horizon - to quote the late flat earth prophet Sir Terry of Pratchett :
"The disc, being flat, has no real horizon. Any adventurous sailor who got funny ideas from staring at eggs and oranges for too long and set out for the antipodes soon learned that the reason why distant ships sometimes looked as though they were disappearing over the edge of the world was that they were disappearing over the edge of the world."
A simple bit of astronomy and travel can show you the Earth has a curved surface. Spot the pole star in your sky, note where it is in relation to the northern horizon. Travel a fair distance south and make the same observation again and see if it changes. If you are in the northern hemisphere then the the pole star will get closer to the northern horizon and on the equator the pole star will be on the horizon and will disappear over the horizon as you travel further south. This can only happen if the surface of the planet is curved.
And before you ask, yes I have carried out this test when I went on holiday from the UK to Crete a few years ago ago and got a definite change in position of the star patterns. If you accurately measure the angles involved you would be able to calculate using some simple trig the actual diameter of the Earth.
Yes, there's an entire battery of things we've been doing to demonstrate it since the Greeks at least, long before we had the ability to return from more than a handful of metres above the surface while surviving to report observations. Flat earthers can be divided into wind up merchants and those who have their natural scepticism tuned to paranoic levels. (Edit: or fraudsters out to make money from category #2.)
That only works if you start from the assumption that Polaris is essentially infinitely far away. If instead you assume it's a bright dot a mere few thousand or million kilometers directly over the north pole, of course its angle relative to you will change as you travel away from the pole.
Note: not a flat-earther. This is just an example of how you can wrestle with evidence until it matches your assumptions.
A flat earther will say that the curvature you observed while on Concorde (so jealous by the way) was due to the curved windows distorting the view outside.
A flat-earther will thus insist that we return to the days of rectangular windows on the Comet.
(I'm not going to provide links. Look it up for yourselves.)
My mum flew on a Comet once. Fortunately she lived for another 62 years.
Perhaps he could ask SpaceX nicely to hitch a ride on the maiden flight of Falcon Heavy, which is (hopefully) being tested on 6/2/18: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c
Seeing the so-called "Earth Curvature" proves nothing! Very sophomoric to try to use a rocket, manned or not, to "prove" the Earth is not flat.
That "curvature" results from an optic illusion due to the density of atmospheric gas near and far from the surface, something that is well known and easy to measure.
Just notice that, as you go UP, which is only one way (up!), the "curvature" seems to increase, though when you are close to the ground there is no such a thing, actually the appearance on flat ground or by the sea is as if you were inside a bowl, that "horizon" seems to be higher than you are.
"you're just confirming the curving effect of atmospheric gases at different presures, i.e., altitudes. You're correct, those pictures show that, which proves my point and very simple and basic physics. Optics is science, you know."
So how come no flat earthers have crowdfunded the cost of a cheap aircraft and flown to the edge the flat earth and taken photos or video to prove it yet? Gotta be cheaper than building rockets that only "prove" the "optical illusion".
So please provide an experiment that will show, one way or the other, that the earth is flat, or (approx) spherical.
ie. not "it looks flat, so it's flat" but "X can't possibly occur if the earth is flat" and conversely "Y can't possibly occur if the earth is not flat".
That's how science works. Not on opinion and "it looks to me like.."
As an example, physicists repeatedly attempt to verify relativity by performing experiments that are consistent with it, and which have the ability to disprove it. Not because they don't believe it but because they are seeking to confirm what appears to be correct. So far it's held up every time.
"Pictures of Chicago taken from lake Michigan ..."
Pretty convincing, though as a scientist so always on the look out for sources of experimental error I must point out you "might" be looking at a wave. Yes I know it's a lake, but its a big one and has big waves too.
Seeing the so-called "Earth Curvature" proves nothing! Very sophomoric to try to use a rocket, manned or not, to "prove" the Earth is not flat.
Yes, one would think that simply going up would not be useful.
He should really fire that thing horizontally, in a perfect straight line (which should, technically, be easier). At some point he will the fly over the edge of the disc, and can then have the satisfaction of sending back images of the elephants as he sails off into space, knowing he was right. Or something.
@ A-nonCoward
Listen, you are not funny anymore, you are on tech site, here, not youtube ... you are wasting everybody's time with your delusion. We all know we cannot convince you because it is your faith, spherical earth is not a faith, it is common knowledge, we know, can prove by experimentation. Eratosthenes proved it over 2000 years ago ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes
End of story, good bye!
It's hard to tell whether this mental midget is just trying to stay relevant and in the news or seeing how long he can milk this thing. I wonder if he knows you can stand on any one of 1,000 ft. cliffs overlooking the ocean and notice that the horizon is, in fact, curved. It doesn't require much effort or much money, but it does require common sense, of which he has none. SMH
To show him the curve all he needs do is take a skydiving class & make his first real jump. You're high enough to see that "optical illusion" very well. You're also high enough that should you fail to pack your chute properly, Darwin will erase your Flat Earth arse from the role of Humanity.
It doesn't require much effort or much money, but it does require common sense, of which he has none. SMH
No, nor does calling a mate in Australia, we all know they are dishonest when they claim it is summer down there and time for the kids to go to bed as I write this comment ... You cannot trust Aussies or Kiwis, OK, what about Argentinians, no, cannot trust them either (Falklands!!!!!!!!), Chilians, maybe ? Maybe ? Go explain seasons, time zones on a flat earth ... good luck, matey!
Don't be ridiculous! Clearly Australia is fictional!
Every so-called Australian that you meet or see on telly has been on Neighbours. I mean, I know they claim it's a documentary, but we all know it's really one of those scripted-reality shows like TOWIE. It's a show about a drama school, like Fame, only with less singing. They all leave that for when they come over here and go on Top of the Pops.
Basically transportation was a con. They really just loaded them on ships, sailed off, and chucked them over the edge. It was only introduced because juries wouldn't convict in many death-penalty cases - and this was the only way to persuade them.
Transportees had been sent to America before, but that was massively unpopular, and they revolted. They couldn't send them to real colonies (like India) for the same reason, so they had to invent Australia and New Zealand. Hence faking the ridiculous Duck Billed Platypus.
For further proof, who would willingly drink XXXX? And why would anyone share a country with all those snakes, spiders, crocodiles, drop bears etc? I mean - giant stinging nettle trees!?!?
How can you launch a rocket to altitude without a basic comprehension of gravity?
Formation of planets is a function of gravity, at a certain mass gravity will drive the surface towards the centre and that generally forms ball like objects, A celestial body rounded by gravity is one of the criteria of being a planet. That is what I remember from high school science.
By his reason the moon is flat too and every other planet we have seen is flat. Rings of Saturn become the 2 dimensional handles of Saturn.
We should ban him from launching his rocket on the off chance he knocks the frisbee that is the moon off the fabric that that the stars are painted on.
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An infinite planar Earth of constant density will have a constant gravitational field (independent of height above the Earth), e.g. https://physics.info/gravitation-extended/practice.shtml#2. Flat-earth rocketry is *easier* than N(A)SA-funded rocketry.
"Contrary to some press reports, Hughes was not trying with this particular flight to prove the Earth isn't a sphere. He is a believer in the Flat Earth theory, and is mostly funded by Flat Earthers. His goal is to get into space – or at least above the 62-mile mark that officially marks the Kármán Line where the atmosphere ends and space begins – and prove whether or not our planet is a ball or a disc."
Er, so he's not trying to prove the Earth isn't a sphere, by trying to prove the Earth isn't a ball? If basic geometry is beyond him, no wonder his rocket didn't work.
-- until he found he could get money from them for his steam-powered rocket. Though not very much money.
"Hughes is actually a fairly recent convert to the truth of a flat earth, as he tells a fellow flat-earther in a recent fundraising interview for the project. ... Completely coincidentally, this conversion to horizontal honesty came around early 2016. This just so happened to be about the time Hughes’ previous Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for an Evel Knievel-style rocket flight to space—in which he didn’t say a word about flat earth or conspiracies—raised exactly $310 of his $150,000 goal." Alex McLevy writing for AVClub.
It's cupidity, though that does not rule out stupidity (of a certain flavor).
The crack about stupidity notwithstanding, I would not be able to do what he's done so far. Nor would I want to... especially the "pulled moaning from the wreckage" part: YouToob.
Aligns with my thoughts on the matter. There are plenty of flerfers out there who probably think that funding this is 1) upping publicity for the Flat Earth cause 2) sticking it to The Man 3) makes a change from clicking on flat earth 'proofs' on YouTube.
He could ride this for a while. A quick look at aforementioned YouTube videos or twitter and he'll have all the tropes of flat earthers which he can repeat to keep them hooked. Any failure can, if required, be put down to intervention by government agents, illuminati, NASA, HAARP, chemtrails, Elders of Zion trying to stop THE TRUTH being shown to us 'sheeple' who've been indoctrinated by teachers combined with mind altering aluminium in vaccinations.
If the Earth did not rotate, I don't want to live on the dark side, but could we please make sure I'm located somewhere that it's permanently dusk? That would mean it's always evening, and that tomorrow would never come - which is when I would next have to go to work.
TIA.
"... exactly why is it so vital that the truth about flat Earth is kept from us? Seems like a lot of effort... for what?"
Good question. Especially in light of the fact much of the population until fairly recently already believed the Earth to be flat anyway from their own basic experience. Actually, it probably never crossed the minds of most people, other than maybe sailors.
....that observations throughout the centuries that fit with established theories that the earth is round would be enough to show that the earth is not flat. Everything seems to point that way, and nothing seems to point to the earth being flat.
Isn't this all enough for him? Doesn't he follow the whole thing through logically and see that established fact after established fact just falls apart from his illogical beliefs. Just from that simple premise, everything needs to change, for the flat-earther. Gravity? Pah! there's no such thing, the earth, stars, sun and moon are *accelerating* upwards at 9.8 m/s/s! They really believe this shit.
The trouble is, there are flat-earthers from all around the world...
"Duh! The south pole does not exist as such. It's a ring of ice around the edge of the *disc* that is the Earth"
You missed the disc edge effect by which if you try to keep walking away from the North Pole you actually travel around the circumference of the ice ring. So does light, which is why it's pointless to try to visit the edge.
(There's an A C Clarke story a bit like this.)
The standard Flat Earth replies to pictures from amateur balloons and rockets is "fish eye lens"
Because to get a wide angle view on a lightweight camera they generally have a lens that introduces distortion.
And they stick to this line even if experts apply image correction to de-spherical the image, or show that the image is not distorted in the central part of the image.
If there was an answer easy enough to convince Flat Earthers it would have been deployed by now. Unfortunately they are that bone-headed.
Well presumably he could satisfy himself that the camera he's using has a lens that isn't distorting images by taking a wide angle picture with it and comparing it to what his eyes see. Unless he thinks the conspiracy from the round Earthers goes so far as to make cameras that switch to a fish eye lens when they detect they are above the atmosphere!
I did recently read an article on the hollow earthers - even they think the flat earthers are nuts!!!
The flat earth lot claim that it's a conspiracy about the earth being flat - but I can't work out who would gain from it? You could claim that the moon landings were faked in order to save face for the US*, but why hide the shape of the earth?
I do find it interesting how people can believe in something so much despite evidence to the contrary.
*I believe that they did land on the moon, using it as an example
Hmm, so he's actually in the rocket? I have so many questions...
Looking at the size of rocket, I don't think he has enough solid fuel to achieve the height he is after, let alone the edge of space.
What shielding is between him and the rocket engines?
Is there a parachute module at the front to bring this back to ground safely?
Has he had training for the g forces he'll experience on launch and not black out?
"You can't get anyone underneath there – that thing will kill you, blow you apart," he said on camera. "It'll scald you to death and blow the skin and muscle off your bones, OK? You'd be a skeleton and then it would probably blow you back around 50 foot."
Surely that's what everyone was paying $5 a pop to see...
I'm glad to hear he's trying to get to space and not just high enough to see the "flat horizon" that he expects to find. All the sudden I'm rooting for him to succeed. If a flat-earther gets into space and comes back saying he was wrong maybe we can finally put this idiocy to bed.
Sadly, unlike a lot of you, I think most flat earthers actually believe it. Depending upon the day it's either because I have great faith in the power of stupidity or no faith at all in any basic level of intelligence.
...if the Earth is a disk centered on the North Pole, why it doesn't take several times as long to fly from, say, Sao Paulo to Johannesburg as it does to fly from Chicago to Zurich? On a globe, each pair is on a (very roughly) east-west line and are comparable distances -- in the 4500 - 4600 mi. range, while on a flat disk SP-JB should be at least twice as far, being 2 - 3 times further out from the center.
It's piss-easy: stand on a beach at the water's edge and look at a ship at sea. Even without binoculars, you can see the ship disappear over the horizon. Watch the hull disappear first, then the superstructure.
Anyone who sails going back millennia has known this.
In fact when sailing, when sitting in the cockpit, if you can't see the bow-wave of a moving ship, it means it's more than about 2 miles away.
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