Flat-Earther FINALLY Launches Himself Into The Air, Crashes, Goes To Hospital

Infamous flat-earther Mike Hughes has finally managed to get his homemade rocket off the ground.  Of course, who could have predicted that launching yourself into the air would result in a horrific crash, and a trip to the hospital?

Anyone, really.  If you can’t see the curvature of the Earth from a plane, as many flat-earthers proclaim, how are you going to prove the Earth is flat from a substantially lower elevation?  Common sense isn’t a flower that grows in everyone’s garden, however.

According to The Independent, “Mad” Mike, built the steam-powered rocket using scrap metal and ended up spending around $20,000 (£15,000) on the beast. Truly living up to his name, “Mad” Mike went for it and launched himself into the air, as an online video proves. However, it’s only true to say that his flight into orbit was pretty damn short, to say the least.  His “flight” lasted around 4 seconds in total before he landed crashed hard in the Mojave Desert.

In all honesty, a plane could have taken him quite a bit higher.

After paramedics checked him over, Mad Mike said, “I’m tired of people saying I chickened out and didn’t build a rocket. I’m tired of that stuff; I manned up and did it.” After his hard landing, 61-year-old Hughes, who works as a limousine driver, claimed he only had a bad back.

Upon impact, the nose of the homemade rocket, which Hughes had been creating from hand over the past few months, shattered as intended although Hughes admitted the landing was a close call. “This thing wants to kill you 10 different ways. Am I glad I did it? Yeah, I guess. I’ll feel it in the morning. I won’t be able to get out of bed. At least I can go home and have dinner and see my cats tonight.” Hughes said.

It is estimated that Mike reached a speed of 350 mph and a height of 1,875 feet before parachutes, reportedly supplied by NASA, were deployed allowing the rocket to land, relatively safely.

A year ago, Hughes said, “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.”

So, did Hughes prove that the Earth is flat? No. But he is a true eccentric.

Elon Musk proposes city-to-city travel by rocket, right here on Earth

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveiled revised plans to travel to the Moon and Mars at a space industry conference today, but he ended his talk with a pretty incredible promise: using that same interplanetary rocket system for long distance travel on Earth. Musk showed a demonstration of the idea on stage, claiming that it will allow passengers to take “most long distance trips” in just 30 minutes, and go “anywhere on Earth in under an hour” for around the same price of an economy airline ticket.

Musk proposed using SpaceX’s forthcoming mega-rocket (codenamed “Big Fucking Rocket” or BFR for short) to lift a massive spaceship into orbit around the Earth. The ship would then settle down on floating landing pads near major cities. Both the new rocket and spaceship are currently theoretical, though Musk did say that he hopes to begin construction on the rocket in the next six to nine months.

Via The Verge

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The Dark Side Of Independence Day

For most people, the 4th of July is all about great barbecues, ice-cold beer and stunning fireworks displays. However, as Statista"s Niall McCarthy notes, for an unlucky few, the holiday has a dark side...

You will find more statistics at Statista

Last year, 4 people were killed and thousands more were hospitalized due to accidents involving fireworks.

According to Journal of Surgical Research data published by Vox, young men and teenage boys are far more likely than anyone else to get injured by fireworks. Last year, they accounted for 61 percent of all hospitalizations. In 2016, 1,300 hospitalizations were caused by firecrackers, 900 were attributed to sparklers, 500 were from Roman candles, and 400 were caused by bottle rockets.

As the infographic above shows the toll inflicted by fireworks every month in the U.S. between 2006 and 2010. New Year"s Eve resulted in 1,515 visits over those four years but that has nothing on Independence Day. The spike in July stands out like a sore thumb with over 15,500 people hospitalized due to fireworks over the same time period.

NASA is Trying to Launch a Small Rocket to Create Multicolored Clouds in the Sky

(image: One of NASA’s sounding rockets, from a launch in 2012. credit: NASA)

(The Verge) NASA has postponed the launch a small rocket from the coast of Virginia tonight, blaming cloudy skies at observation locations. The craft — a Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket — is now planned to launch tomorrow, and will create multicolored clouds high in the sky for the purposes of studying our planet’s ionosphere and aurora.

If tomorrow’s launch does go ahead, the rocket will release canisters filled with various chemicals, forming green and red artificial clouds that may be seen along the US East Coast. It’s all part of a plan to study how particles move in the upper atmosphere, which could help us better study the aurorae and the parts of our atmosphere that are electrically charged by solar and cosmic radiation.

Don’t worry, the chemicals the rocket is releasing are in no way toxic to your health. They’re vapor tracers — gases that create visible clouds high in the sky. They’re made of barium, lithium, and tri-methyl aluminum. Those chemicals may not immediately sound familiar but you have likely seen them in action before — in fireworks. And fireworks usually release a whole lot more of these gases than a typical NASA mission, according to the space agency.

NASA has been deploying vapor tracers for a while now using sounding rockets, the small vehicles designed to take instruments to sub-orbital space, though NASA is testing out a new method for getting those vapor tracers into the upper atmosphere. Normally, the tracers were released directly from the rocket’s main payload, but this mission’s rocket is carrying up a specialized contraption called the “multi-canister ampoule ejection system.” After launch, the instrument will fling out multiple canisters filled with the tracers, in order to cover a wider area of the sky.

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