Daredevil ‘Mad’ Michael Hughes poses in front of his homemade, steam-powered rocket, ahead of a planned launch on August 11, 2019. (Source: Popculture PR)
A Flat-Earther is looking to blast off toward space in a homemade, steam-powered rocket, in a launch he’s dedicating to U.S. President Donald Trump.
Self-taught scientist “Mad” Mike Hughes plans to launch himself more than 1,500 metres into the sky on Sunday.
The 62-year-old limo driver and amateur rocketeer has gained attention in the past for his launches. He had several failed attempts before his first successful launch in March of last year.
Hughes successfully launched his rocket off a ramp made from a mobile home and scaffolding, making it 572 metres into the sky on the rocket before deploying his parachute and gliding back to Earth.
Amazingly, he walked away from the launch with only a sore back.
This time his sights are set even higher, tripling the height of the previous launch with an upgraded version of the rocket that he launched last year.
Decked out with emojis and the logo of the mission’s primary funder hud, a “hookup and casual dating” app, Hughes is looking to blast off to new heights.
Hughes says that Sunday’s launch is the first step towards his eventual goal of reaching the Karman line, which is the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space.
While there is no universally accepted number for the Karman line, NASA’s standard is 80 km above sea level.
To get to that point, Hughes told The Associated Press in 2017 that he was working to design and build a “rockoon” – a rocket that is carried into the atmosphere by a gas-filled balloon before being launched – theoretically taking Hughes the 109 kilometres he would need to see the curvature of the Earth.
Hughes is an outspoken flat-Earther, telling The Associated Press: "I don't believe in science … There's no difference between science and science fiction."
"Do I believe the Earth is shaped like a Frisbee? I believe it is," he told AP back in 2018. "Do I know for sure? No. That's why I want to go up in space."
Hughes is dedicating the launch to Trump, saying he hopes inspire Americans to make the “country great again.”
The launch is set to be filmed as part of a new Science Channel show titled, “Homemade Astronauts.”
With files from The Associated Press.
Well there you go! Steam rules, baby! No-ones ever gonna build a diesel-powered rocket!
Seriously, I hope his life insurance is paid up.
You know, there was a really well done sci-fi movie back in the 50's called "Destination Moon," and if I remember correctly the rocket in the film was steam-powered, a nuclear reactor was used as part of the steam gneration system. I could be wrong though, it's been years since I've seen it.
This makes me nervous.
Euclid This makes me nervous.
I'd only be nervous if I lived downrange from him!
Who wants a rocket in the living room?
Flintlock76 Well there you go! Steam rules, baby! No-ones ever gonna build a diesel-powered rocket! Seriously, I hope his life insurance is paid up. You know, there was a really well done sci-fi movie back in the 50's called "Destination Moon," and if I remember correctly the rocket in the film was steam-powered, a nuclear reactor was used as part of the steam gneration system. I could be wrong though, it's been years since I've seen it.
Johnny
A large part of the techical advice and scripting on "Destination Moon" was done by Robert Heinlein.
How will he make it back to Frisbee? Don't they move laterally in order to be self-stabilizing? And, how will he keep the phlogiston from leaking out along with the steam?
He needs to reconsider.
I think "Destination Moon" was on one of the old movie channels a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't watch it... If they repeat it, I will be sure to watch it.
But I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED your comment about a Diesel-powered rocket. No way that'll ever work, but I have seen photos of the results of Dismals that attempted to launch a piston or two into orbit.
As for life insurance... I mean no insult to any family he has, but no one should benefit from his stupidity.
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
Lima design no doubt! Must have twin stokers as no mention of Firemen.
I have an Uncie like this, rich, has thousand acre hobby farm in Alberta. Will argue with you until blue in the face that the earth is flat. Gets worse, he was a pilot!
So the Warbird thread was locked for being off-topic?
And this thread?
charlie hebdo So the Warbird thread was locked for being off-topic? And this thread?
I guess the railroad connection comes from the rocket being steam-powered?
I wonder if it has a whistle? Two sharp blasts before take-off? Three before he puts in in reverse?
The photo doesn't show too much, but I don't see a "Camelback" type cab, so I guess it's fueled with bituminous coal.
Bending over backwards to keep this "rail-related," I may need help!
Flintlock76Bending over backwards to keep this "rail-related," I may need help!
I'm not sure what we're looking at in that picture, but is the rocket launched from rails?
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
It does have rails!
Is this the ultimate in steam power? Guess we will know soon enough if he's successful.
Just being honest, but during all those months that I ignored the "Classic Warbirds" thread, I did so because I suspected it might be some dry debate on "Barfbonnet vs Grinstein" or which locomotive model looked best wearing a warbonnet.
Miningman Is this the ultimate in steam power?
Is this the ultimate in steam power?
I don't think so, I bet it will be a shop queen.
Takes forever to build, and requires significant structural repairs after each use. Not great by locomotive standards.
How would you calculate its starting tractive effort?
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Flintlock76 Well there you go! Steam rules, baby! No-ones ever gonna build a diesel-powered rocket!
Ever hear of RP-1? Been in use since the 1950's.
OTOH, Space Shuttle SSME's and the engines for the Delta IV are LH2 and LOX fed, so they effectively are steam powered.
Ah, RP-1's not diesel, it's a highly refined form of kerosene.
Which means it should work just fine in steam-era lanterns as well.
Back to Rocket Man...
I wonder how he can tell if there's enough water over the crown sheet?
And you know something? I hope the crazy guy pulls it off!
Mythbusters test a prototype!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bU-I2ZiML0
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Awwww man, I MISS the "Mythbusters!"
Flintlock76Well there you go! Steam rules, baby!
How quickly you all seem to have forgotten the Skycycle X-2...
No-ones ever gonna build a diesel-powered rocket!
... or the Volksrocket X-3...
Didn't it say he's only getting something like 1500' altitude* out of this prototype? Suspect he is riding the thing as a stunt, not any kind of effort to actually reach space in the thing, rather than the tongue-in-cheek 'toward space' in the coverage.
This is not like the Komet 163 that liked to detonate for what seemed 'any reason and no reason' -- although I strongly suspect he's using catalytic decomposition of concentrated H2O2 as at least a significant part of his engine cycle and if he is not reasonably careful in his 'homemade' fuel refining he is likely to encounter some interesting, theoretically amusing but NOT if you are riding nearby, characteristics of high-concentration peroxide. There is a reason we kept the Oxford-cycle concentration at around 30% and used a co-fuel for the railroad project (although I grant you the design 'criterion' was for use in engines at some nominal degree of superheat like 850 degrees F as "throttled")
I do think he would do better to study Truax a bit better to see what is possible for 'homemade' builders to achieve, although I suspect his 'rockoon' approach still remains the closest he is likely to get to his stated objective. (I am tempted to point out that air launch of the 'rockoon', say from an external package at what is now typical bizjet achievable altitude, might be still better...)
You know, there was a really well done sci-fi movie back in the 50's called "Destination Moon"...
It will pay you to go back and look at this. Idea and script consultation by Heinlein, paintings by Chesley Bonestell, careful use of reasonably good engineering to make the thing work. This was the same Pal who did When Worlds Collide, another SF staple, just a year later, and then his famous adaptation of War of the Worlds a couple of years later; I believe this significantly contributed to mainstream interest in science fiction in the mid-Fifties.
... and if I remember correctly the rocket in the film was steam-powered, a nuclear reactor was used as part of the steam generation system.
You remember correctly. Note that part of the premise, that 'atomic power' could provide high Isp, is reasonable physics but as things turned out remarkably impossible engineering. In this movie it was also important (for plot reasons) for enemies of the rocket project to make false claims about radioactive danger from the 'water' exhaust that could be demostrably disproved by the actual launch ... something I doubt would actually have ensued if a NSSS with adequate pad thrust for vertical launch and insertion were actually fired... Ah, to be in those heady days of nuclear rocket expectation, or power 'too cheap to meter' again! The Walker Cislers of today don't seem to be as capable...
A good nuclear rocket using water as working ejection mass would heat it far beyond dissociation. perhaps all the way up to ionized plasma, using perhaps prompt nuclear release; it might then charge-separate the atoms, electrically accelerate them to produce a resultant reaction thrust, then recombine them chemically as in the atomic-hydrogen (this is the chemical sense, H and not H2) combustion reaction which as I recall has one of the highest nominal Isps. Of course it is easy to do this in a movie with a little well-chosen patter and a little more CGI than to implement it all with crowdfunded contrarian contributions...
Meters. Not feet. Ask certain Mars-landing planners if they now think this is a significant distinction.... but the point is the same; he's ridiculously far even from getting out of the troposphere, let alone where he'll see incontrovertible truth of curvature ... or get a dwell time long enough to observe measurable rotation at given observed curvature, which is the actual criterion necessary to shut English-twit variety of flat-earthers up incontrovertibly by their own standards.
There is a reason why orbital trajectories curve east rather than blasting 'straight up' (it is much the same reason that rockoons originally had limited application in the days that 'rockets' were sounding rockets and not ballistic delivery vehicles and whatnot) and it could be argued that even the launch methods useful for EKVs won't give him the combination of atmosphere, rotational arc and dwell he will want.
Would like to see this guy get into a 'discussion' with you Overmod. He states he does not believe in science, that it's the same as science fiction.
well whatever, I do wish him safety, luck and hope he gets an answer to satisfy himself. Of course a Frisbee is curved! Interesting choice on his part, hes always going to see a Frisbee.
http://voyagesextraordinaires.blogspot.com/2016/11/charles-golightly-and-his-steam-rocket.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omWRxonewL4&t=3m42s
MiningmanWould like to see this guy get into a 'discussion' with you Overmod. He states he does not believe in science, that it's the same as science fiction.
That he is conducting the experiment to go up to 'see for himself' puts him essentially in the ranks of the true scientists. Proof you can re-create for yourself is part of the confirmation of a theory, and if (for any reason or no reason) he thinks that a round Earth is part of a conspiracy or whatever, he is right to check the answer for himself, whether or not he 'starts out' believing (as a 'null hypothesis') it is round, flat, or weirdly pear-shaped.
There is a common story in HPS about Leonardo da Vinci espousing Aristotelian scholasticism as a youth of about 18. He apparently got into an argument with a fellow student about whether things accelerated under the influence of gravity or fell with constant speed (as Aristotle claimed). Leonardo actually won the argument through logic, but the defeated fellow went away mumbling 'if you actually did the experiment you'd see I was right' and, for some reason, Leonardo went to check. Of course you know what he observed, and he wrote 'if I could not trust Aristotle on this point, I could not trust him on any other, and I would have to devote my life to testing and confirming every point. Which in a sense he did.
The important thing is not to design the experiment so it confirms what you think you know. Aristotle hypothesized that there were only three colors, with all the others being admixtures. He noticed that sprays of water produced rainbows which separated sunlight into colors, carefully designed different types of spray with different droplet sizes, ran careful investigations, and surprise! observed ... three colors. Because that's what he expected to see.
Note that if he goes straight up by rocket and then re-enters straight down, he won't be able to distinguish the Earth as a spheroid. He will need some combination of time and lateral motion, so he can distinguish the 'curve' of the Earth as constant as he sees the features on the surface rotate with that curve. That's the proof, not that 'it looks like a ball from space'. Interesting that this does not seem to been used in any of the snarky arguments either for or against a spherical rotating Earth.
Give me time and I will figure out some way to put an obligatory comment with the word 'railroad' in this post. Oh wait... I just did.
Please tell me what the railroad connection is on this thread?
Steve SweeneyDigital Editor, Hobby
Steve SweeneyPlease tell me what the railroad connection is on this thread?
Steam - that powered railroads for over a century.
Steam.. the science of steam, how it works and how fascinated we are with it.
He's likely using a technology to produce his propulsion steam that has been carefully developed and optimized to produce power steam with the 'correct' characteristics for use in piston-powered locomotives, at perhaps the absolute minimum emitted 'carbon footprint' (as measured at point of emission, not 'well to wheel') of nearly any practical locomotive fuel. With methanol and H202 as fuel, the 'net result' is around 11 molecules of steam at "normal" reciprocating-locomotive superheat per carbon atom in fuel, and almost no incidental 'losses' in the reactions producing steam generation from the liquid, pumpable precursors.
The problem, of course, is that the amount of H2O2 needed to make 'comparable' power for, say, the equivalent of a 4400hp diesel-electric burning a tankful of good biodiesel or blend can be diverted to make literally tons of TATP, a terrorist liquid explosive notorious because it is a 'state explosive'. While there are some supposedly workable detection technologies for TATP even in sealed containers (e.g. ICx Nomadics) I don't think it makes that much sense to make the means to produce it by the kiloton relatively easily...
It is on the Trains Magazine forum.
Are not most aircraft carriers plane launchers STEAM powered? Seems like he's just axpanding that design.
Steve Sweeney Please tell me what the railroad connection is on this thread?
The rocket appears to be mounted on a track. Therefore it is technically a steam locomotive.
In a similar vein, the mobile Canadarm2 is mounted on a track on the International Space Station. It therefore holds the distinction of being the first railroad in space.
Note last paragraph
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