After announcing back in November that he was preparing to launch himself into space so he could finally prove that the earth is flat, “Mad” Mike Hughes actually took a ride in his homemade rocket this weekend and now everything we know about science has changed. He didn’t prove the world is flat, of course, but he did defy all of the rules of reality by surviving the journey.
As reported by Vice, Hughes’ steam-powered rocket—featuring the words “Research Flat Earth” on the side—was launched from a metal rail attached to the back of an RV, and it managed to get up to 1,875 feet at 350 miles per hour before its parachutes deployed and carried Hughes safely back to the planet (be it flat or spherical). That’s pretty impressive for a man who rejects a lot of basic science facts, but as Vice points out, you need to be at about 35,000 feet before you can see the curvature of the Earth. That means he wasn’t able to get conclusive evidence for either side of this debate, but he does have plans to get himself higher up into the air with a future launch.
He could save himself some time by reading a book and discovering conclusive evidence that way, but then nobody would be writing news articles about his wacky rocket adventures.