‘Mad Mike’ Hughes killed in homemade rocket crash | USA TODAY

Homemade rocket-builder 'Mad Mike' Hughes killed in launch attempt crash for science show

The 64-year-old died in his homemade steam-powered rocket. The stunt was being filmed for a new TV series for the Science Channel called "Homemade Astronauts."

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89 comments

  1. Standard Evel Knievel problem that also happened in a steam-powered rocket back in 1974. From an intelligent engineering standpoint, this never should have happened a second time.
    We can all take some comfort in knowing that he might have seen a bit of the Earth’s curvature before he became one with the planet.

    1. You need to be 40+miles, before you can visually detect curvature…this mike morons??!! steam fart thing barely made 400 meters. High enough to see gravity though.

    1. @Robbie K Yes he was a bona fide idiot. If you think his folly has any scientific merit, you need some education yourself. With education you can make rockets that work and even got to space. Oh, and educated people did all the work to ensure that you sit there and use internet to spout drivel. Education work – it has brought you almost everything that makes your life, healthy, safe, convenient, interesting and fun.

    2. @Lucky W I thought the simulation theory was a belief that our universe is computer generated. You don’t find those same people arguing flat earth.

    3. @Lucky W But we are not talking about history through a white lens. We are talking science. By your own logic you should disregard everything you learnt at school, including the English language. Do so by all means.

    4. ​@Lucky W Who the f taught you that? Discovered i have heard and we know it was wrong, but also right depending on how you look at it…..He did not because people already lived there…But to others at the time he still did because for them it was unknown territory so a “discovery”, but with modern science we still know he did not….because for example vikings traveled there before Columbus so people knew land existed over there, but that knowledge was lost due to them not recording history in written form that much but instead by storytelling….
      So it was lost when people forgot…..

    5. I don’t think this man believed in a flat earth. It took intelligence to build what he did. He was a conman, scamming flat-earthers out of money so that he could afford his hobby.

  2. Watch now as flat earthers will turn this into how the government had him killed because he was going to prove the earth was flat.

    1. @James Koehn Answer is in: they’re blaming the illuminati.

      Not bad for a group that was never more than a handful of members, and went extinct about 300 years ago.

    2. Nona he isn’t an actually flat earther. Someone just paid him to put that sign up on his rocket. Just a sponsor ad.

    3. @Jau Ju I’ve just watched the video to check for sure. The parachute didn’t “fall off”, it was prematurely fired fractions of a second into launch, and ripped off by the thrust of the rocket exhaust. Most likely the switch he was using to trigger the chute moved on its own during the forces of launch (you think it was mil-spec rated for G forces? Or a car part from the local scrap yard?), or was hit by him during the forces of launch, or something shifted and shorted out the wiring.

    4. @TheFlatEarthChannel.com He may or may not have been a flatearther, but he certainly was after fame and fortune regardless of any advertising sign. Just like Evil Knievel. He didn’t say he was doing it because “it was there” like Knievel or mountain climbers or Niagara Falls barrel pilots. The “excuse” of flat earth was most likely to bring on a pre-assembled group of fruits and nuts to buy his T-shirts. it certainly would have been cheaper, safer, and a lot more comfortable to just buy a plane ticket to see the earth from 40,000′.

  3. Why didn’t they mention that he tried to prove that the earth is flat?
    And instead he proved that gravity is real.

    1. @Robert Rosenthal he told the truth at least once so i dont care what his web sight said. Its clear to me that people exploit the flat earth idiocy and he was no exception.

    2. @10,000 of you for 1 Charlie Whiskey his death is proof that he surrounded himself with idiots…probably flat earthers

    1. Another two words that should never go together.. Flat-earther & Science…. that thing barely made it a few thousand feet.

    2. @Kristofer Clark Not really. I’ve seen lots and lots of home made large rockets up to near this size fly higher. And some spectacular crashes. But, with the experts in high power, it’s not that frequent. I only had one crash out of a few dozen launches of my own homebuilts. All the rockets are still in perfectly flyable condition.

    3. Peter Nope, that’s actually how rocketry got started. From Goddard, Hermann Oberth and its pupil Von Braun and Korolev & Co., to the actual brains behind Space X, Tom Mueller. But you do you 👌🏻

    1. @areyousure? Well not all around…….some of us just don’t care….we could have told him about shape and such.

    2. A few brothers years ago decided to make a bird like object and fly through air. The Wright Brothers are the innovators of todays aviation thingy.

  4. By now he understand the earth wasn’t flat as he thought, sad to see him go this way he was such a talented character, RIP Mike!

    1. @Mike Olson and you’re not? how many original jokes have you come up with? please give us some legendary stuff, mister Olson. A funny joke remains a funny joke. Now piss off and come up with something constructive, since you’re claiming that’s your thing

    1. I would be surprised if he didn’t have some kind of comm system. That means someone either had to listen to his last words or even has a recording.

    1. no one would know a god exists if they had not been told of one or conjured one in their own mind
      such individuals in the belief of the christian faith would then be condemned to hell through no fault of their own
      regardless of your answer i have no plan to continue the conversation because i find that someone be it you or another will always try to push nonsense or poke holes into such arguments without careful consideration if any and a never ending back and forth will ensue

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