Dare Devil Flat Earther Dies in Rocket Crash

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If he wanted to get a few thousand feet up to somehow prove that the Earth is flat, I can think of several easier ways than a flying a steam powered rocket. I think his real goal was fame, and he achieved that. About 20 seconds of it.
 
Nathan said:
If he wanted to get a few thousand feet up to somehow prove that the Earth is flat, I can think of several easier ways than a flying a steam powered rocket. I think his real goal was fame, and he achieved that. About 20 seconds of it.
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I think the appeal to flat-earthers was to obtain funding. He just wanted to be Evel Knievel.
 
Some people with a lot more guts than I have don't mind the possibility of losing their lives trying to achieve a dream of theirs. Jessie Combs lost her life last year trying to achieve a dream of hers. There are plenty of high risk sports/ activities out there that I think that you have to be "nuts" to try.
 
Sad end to an otherwise entertaining story. I remember his first successful flight a couple years ago. I was glad he survived that one and also a little bit surprised. Too bad he didn’t get it out of his system with that one successful flight. He seemed like quite a character.
 
It's said he was not a flat Earther.
He just said this to get funding.

Some of us may have dreamed of doing what he accomplished as child. A child's dream of course, as most of us went on to raise families.
He died doing what he was passionate about.

RIP Mike
 
I’ve also been following Mad Mike since his launch in 2018. There is a good documentary on Amazon (free with prime) that chronicles his life and the 2018 launch. Very crazy stuff! Given the success of that launch it really isn’t clear what he had to gain by doing the same launch over again, except for the new TV publicity.

my take is that he was more Evel Knievel than rocket enthusiast. Knievel also used a (not well tested) steam rocket “skycycle x2” to attempt a jump of the snake river canyon in 1974. In a similar twist of fate, his parachute deployed prematurely in mid flight also, but Knievel survived the crash landing in the canyon.

the documentary of Mike’s 2018 launch showed he had an automatic chute deploy at apogee, followed by a manual second chute deploy. In 2018 he pulled his second chute late, It fully deployed, but he still came in fast and ended up in the hospital.

the video of the launch yesterday shows one of his chutes deployed within a few seconds of launch. It got dragged a few hundred feet and then shredded as the rocket climbed straight up to a few thousand feet, hit apogee, and came down with no chute. His second chute mechanism was likely damaged or he passed out due to g forces and the second chute never deployed.

It was sad and unnecessary, but he knew the risks and lived for the stunts. Hopefully we aren’t entering an era of “how high can you launch yourself in a homemade rocket”.
 
PXR5 said:
It's said he was not a flat Earther.
He just said this to get funding.

Some of us may have dreamed of doing what he accomplished as child. A child's dream of course, as most of us went on to raise families.
He died doing what he was passionate about.

RIP Mike
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Only if he was passionate about disregarding science and engineering.
People who knew him and worked with him have commented on his hubris and ignorance, a sometimes fatal combination.
There’s absolutely nothing admirable about this death. Parents should be using him as an example of why their kids should pay attention to STEM courses.
 
Seems the Science Channel has less and less to do with science all the time, I don't know about anyone else but I'm boycotting their idiot show Homemade Astronauts.
 
FlyBoy said:
Seems the Science Channel has less and less to do with science all the time, I don't know about anyone else but I'm boycotting their idiot show Homemade Astronauts.
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I wouldn't be surprised if any footage is shelved and the show never airs.
 
I wonder if the FAA has to approve of flights like this, and if so, what that process looks like.
 
The whole Idea of Amateur Astronauts may not be dumb, but to dismiss Science and feel so strongly about the Flat Earth is Mind Boggling to me.
Also, Steam Powered ?? THAT seems such a bad Idea. Seems like a huge amount of weight for an inappropriate amount and duration of thrust.

And Buddy ………. Please tell me your not riding in that big metal rocket with out substantial testing !!
 
Glasspack said:
The whole Idea of Amateur Astronauts may not be dumb, but to dismiss Science and feel so strongly about the Flat Earth is Mind Boggling to me.
Also, Steam Powered ?? THAT seems such a bad Idea. Seems like a huge amount of weight for an inappropriate amount and duration of thrust.

And Buddy ………. Please tell me your not riding in that big metal rocket with out substantial testing !!
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The plan was never for me, or anyone to fly in ours. The plan is for us to launch a rocket, with a 160-180lb sand bag to space, with all of the equipment needed for a human launch. The goal is to prove that a civilian could launch a rocket into space with a human. Mad Mike was taking it more serious by wanting to use A huge balloon full of $160,000 worth of helium than use peroxide engine, which 90% H202 is 11lbs per gallon. Sounds like a accident waiting to happen with any kind of wind throwing you sideways when the motor lights. I am not sure where the show is going to go, I don’t think this will have a impact, we have shot 6 episodes so far, Mike has shot 4 I think. Homemade Astronauts has absolutely nothing to do with Mikes death, he was going to do this with or without cameras.
 
Buddy Michaelson said:
The plan was never for me, or anyone to fly in ours. The plan is for us to launch a rocket, with a 160-180lb sand bag to space, with all of the equipment needed for a human launch. The goal is to prove that a civilian could launch a rocket into space with a human. Mad Mike was taking it more serious by wanting to use A huge balloon full of $160,000 worth of helium than use peroxide engine, which 90% H202 is 11lbs per gallon. Sounds like a accident waiting to happen with any kind of wind throwing you sideways when the motor lights. I am not sure where the show is going to go, I don’t think this will have a impact, we have shot 6 episodes so far, Mike has shot 4 I think. Homemade Astronauts has absolutely nothing to do with Mikes death, he was going to do this with or without cameras.
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I'm going to have to disagree with you, a responsible media outlet would have had nothing to do with encouraging and even offering to film something everyone knew was going to end badly. He may have continued to do this on his own but their offer to publicize this fiasco just played into his desire for publicity.
 
FlyBoy said:
I'm going to have to disagree with you, a responsible media outlet would have had nothing to do with encouraging and even offering to film something everyone knew was going to end badly. He may have continued to do this on his own but their offer to publicize this fiasco just played into his desire for publicity.
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Hah. You are making the rather large assumption that a film crew was smart enough to know that it was going to end badly. Or you're assuming that a media outlet is going to even care about such things in the first place. With or without outside encouragement I bet they were filming it either way...even if they knew for a fact it was going to end in Huges demise.
 
DAllen said:
Hah. You are making the rather large assumption that a film crew was smart enough to know that it was going to end badly. Or you're assuming that a media outlet is going to even care about such things in the first place. With or without outside encouragement I bet they were filming it either way...even if they knew for a fact it was going to end in Huges demise.
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Agreed. A lot of reporters/film crew/etc are as passionate about their vocation as we are about rocketry. More than a few would film and report on something even if there was a chance in four of them not making it out alive. Reporters...report.
 
My guess is that the crew expected everything to be just fine. As a showman and stuntman, he certainly exuded the confidence that he knew what he was doing and everything would be okay. After all, most of those big stunts go off fine and the performer exaggerates things to out on a good show. That said, we all know what can happen, it just usually ends up okay or with broken bones.

I don't blame the TV show. I've had their crews on our sites filming and they have been to rocket events before too. The producers often ask for larger than life "characters" and asked us to repeat things if they missed for a shot, but they never pressured us to do anything we didn't want to do or encouraged anything more dangerous than we were already doing.

Like I posted earlier, I don't think the folks on the site were prepared to witness a death. It isn't easy and it isn't easy watching a traumatic event unfold before your eyes. I feel bad for them, this changed their life.
 
NateB said:
My guess is that the crew expected everything to be just fine. As a showman and stuntman, he certainly exuded the confidence that he knew what he was doing and everything would be okay. After all, most of those big stunts go off fine and the performer exaggerates things to out on a good show. That said, we all know what can happen, it just usually ends up okay or with broken bones.

I don't blame the TV show. I've had their crews on our sites filming and they have been to rocket events before too. The producers often ask for larger than life "characters" and asked us to repeat things if they missed for a shot, but they never pressured us to do anything we didn't want to do or encouraged anything more dangerous than we were already doing.

Like I posted earlier, I don't think the folks on the site were prepared to witness a death. It isn't easy and it isn't easy watching a traumatic event unfold before your eyes. I feel bad for them, this changed their life.
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You are dead on with everything you said Nate, I know all 7 guys on the film crew like family now, they have a safety guy on the crew, who even quit because he couldn’t take all the insurance they had to go through with Mike. So we have a new guy, everything we do is way over board on safety meetings, and it has always been #1. The rule is if they ever feel uncomfortable/unsafe, anyone can drop their gear and leave. I can promise you that they had no clue this would happen, as the past launches Mike made it out alive, and it was simply another launch for him, without changing any factor on the propulsion side (who knows about recovery, but I’ll find out soon). I know the producer is very startled, and the crew didn’t even stick around after the crash in panic. The ambulance that was there didn’t even move for 5 minutes, because they already figured it was over with.
 
According to the APA,

Death Wish - an unconscious desire for one’s own death, as manifested in self-destructive or dangerous behaviors.
 
Just talked to the team, there were 4 chutes onboard, 2 fires with rockets, 2 fires with compressed air. The 1st was fired most likely on accident and ripped on the ramp, other 3 were intact when the rocket landed. Looks like he most likely passed out from g forces or had a heart attack. And that was it... this would’ve been a normal flight, but something happened.
 
C'om on...The film crew had no clue this was going to happen because they didn't look at the prior history of this vehicle objectively. 2 out of 3 flights prior flights causing injury ought to give anyone with more than one brain cell to rub together pause.
 
Buddy Michaelson said:
Just talked to the team, there were 4 chutes onboard, 2 fires with rockets, 2 fires with compressed air. The 1st was fired most likely on accident and ripped on the ramp, other 3 were intact when the rocket landed. Looks like he most likely passed out from g forces or had a heart attack. And that was it... this would’ve been a normal flight, but something happened.
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So the chute deployment was manually activated?! Seems stupid. Wonder what Mad Mike's IQ was...

Really, these idiots should not be put on TV. It is like watching Hoarders. Serious psychological issues!
 

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