steam-fueled rocket??? 
Posted on 01/27/2018 4:52:44 PM PST by Simon Green
When last we heard of “Mad Mike” Hughes, the 61-year-old limo driver and stuntman who planned on launching a $20,000 steam-fueled rocket with “RESEARCH FLAT EARTH” painted on the side some 1,800 feet into the air at 500 miles per hour, the gosh darn government had intervened to tell him he couldn’t conduct any such launch on public lands.
But Hughes has not been deterred, and in a number of posts on his Facebook page he claims to have a real launch planned for February 3rd. This one will be a vertical rather than horizontal launch, which Hughes believes will prevent him from crossing over into public property and thus getting in trouble with the government.
“That way we got enough buffer that when it lands, it will not be on [Bureau of Land Management] property,” Hughes said in a video last week.
Hughes has launched homemade rockets with himself as the human cargo before, but he’s only recently become a Flat Earth convert at the same time he needed to raise further funds for DIY rocketry, according to the Washington Post.
It’s still not entirely clear what Hughes intends to prove with the launch because, as LiveScience noted, observing the curvature of the Earth requires one rise some 35,000 feet (10,700 meters) above the ground. Hughes’ rocket will not be capable of attaining anywhere near that height, which is good because videos of his parachutes are far from reassuring.
However, our guy is not a huge fan of the scientific disciplines anyhow, as he told the Associated Press in a prior interview:
I don’t believe in science. I know about aerodynamics and fluid dynamics and how things move through the air, about the certain size of rocket nozzles, and thrust. But that’s not science, that’s just a formula. There’s no difference between science and science fiction.
We’ve all been let down on this Flat-Earth-rocket stuff before, but Hughes seems pretty insistent that this time there will actually be a launch.
Well, lets see...
500 mph * 5280 ft/mile / 3600 sec/hr = 733 ft/sec = V0
Max height when velocity equals zero
Acceleration is -1 * g = -32.2 ft/sec^2
V = a* t + v0 : t = (v - v0) / a since v is zero then
t = -v0 / a = -733/ (-32.2) = 22.75 seconds
So the amount of time it takes to stop ascending and start falling is 22.75 seconds which does not include the very substantial air friction especially while the body is above terminal velocity, so in reality the time and distance will be way less, but lets pretend the is no air resistance.
So distance traveled is x = 1/2 * a * t^2 + v0 * t + x0
x0 (the starting position) is zero, so substituting...
X = 1/2 * (-32.2) * (22.5 ^ 2) + (733 * 22.5) = 8343 feet
Considering that you cant even see the earths curvature below 40 kilofeet, I dont think he will quite make it
Flat earthers eat a lot of pancakes.
Zatso? You do know they have members all around the globe.
This’ll turn out well.
steam-fueled rocket???
Except there is actual logic to back up the concept of sovereign citizenship. Most are still kooks, don’t get me wrong, but the average citizen has no idea what we have given up the last 100 years.
With the escape velocity from earth at a little over 25,000 MPH I predict that his journey won’t end well.
This is going to leave a scar.
Only for the guy holding his beer...
Watched a couple of this nutjob’s launches. They are entertaining.
Can’t wait till this dude launches. Do a little digging if this guy interests you....he’s built a bunch of crazy crap. The latest one is the best...repurposed RV for a launcher...
Too funny...Can’t wait for the video.
I think he’s using an old water heater as a container for his propellant... XD
Heck, my house sits much, much, higher than that above sea level. I'll be glad to take a picture for him from my front lawn.
Not a whole lot of functional equipment in that display.
that’s the whole SteamPunk thing, all kinds of odd looking stuff that for the most part does nothing but uses steam power for everything, cars airplanes etc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk
He may need a FAA flight exemption to exceed 250 knots below 10,000 feet.
Idiot
Some kinds of stupid can’t be fixed
“It’s still not entirely clear what Hughes intends to prove with the launch...”
He is going to prove that what goes up comes down. Must have failed first grade science.
More like a 62 year old ambulance patient.
Well at least it’s not rocket science.
I think he’s going to get a crash course in the law of gravity. He will be able to prove that things, falling from great heights, do become flat when they hit the earth at high speed.
Why doesn’t he just take a plane?
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