A California man wants to launch himself 1,800 feet high in a homemade rocket in an effort to prove that the Earth is flat, according to The Washington Post.
Mike Hughes, a 61-year-old limo driver, told The Associated Press that he has spent the last few years building a steam-powered rocket out of salvage parts in his garage. His $20,000 project includes a mobile home he bought that he converted into a ramp.
Hughes told the AP that he intends to launch the rocket Saturday above the ghost town of Amboy, California, and accelerate to a top speed of 500 mph.
“If you’re not scared to death, you’re an idiot,” Hughes said. “It’s scary as hell, but none of us are getting out of this world alive. I like to do extraordinary things that no one else can do, and no one in the history of mankind has designed, built and launched himself in his own rocket. I’m a walking reality show.”
According to the Post, Hughes told a flat-Earth group, which funded his endeavor, that his project will “shut the door on this ball earth.” He argued NASA lied about the moon landing and the shape of the globe.
“John Glenn and Neil Armstrong are Freemasons,” Hughes said. “Once you understand that, you understand the roots of the deception.”
Though an amateur rocket scientist, Hughes nonetheless told the AP that “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,” he said. “There’s no difference between science and science fiction.”
According to the Post, Hughes managed to fly a quarter-mile over Winkelman, Arizona, in one of his rockets in 2014.
