Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, there are still those who believe that the Earth is flat rather than the sphere that it actually is. “Mad Mike” Hughes (no relation to your humble reporter) is one of them. Popular Science reports that in February, Hughes intends to prove, once and for all, the flatness of the planet we live on by launching himself into space to see it for himself. Hughes doesn’t trust NASA not to propagate its round-earth lies.
This will be Hughes’ second attempt to launch his rocket. He intended to make his flight last year, but the Bureau of Land Management forbade Hughes from launching on public land as he had originally planned—clearly a government plot to prevent Hughes from busting the government’s official story that the Earth is round. The BLM permits a wide variety of activities on public land throughout the American West, but apparently launching yourself into space is not one of them.
Hughes seems to have found some private land to launch from this time and has planned his launch for Feb. 3. As the great space explorer, Darth Vader once said, “There’ll be no one to stop us this time.” Except, of course, for the vast complexities involved in launching a rocket into space, most of which involve the science that Hughes seems to soundly reject.
May I propose the alternative of a high-altitude balloon instead? I’m not talking about a Felix Baumgartner style manned flight, but a simple camera and GPS tracker attached to a weather balloon. The components will be yours and entirely under your control, aside from the whims of the wind patterns at altitude. You prepare, you launch, you track, you retrieve, and you view the results on the equipment you own and trust. It’s much safer than launching yourself on a rocket, which you may or may not survive depending on how good the science you don’t believe in is.