He finally went up — just like the self-taught rocket scientist always pledged he would.
He came back down in one piece, too — a little dinged up and his steam-powered vessel a little cracked up.
Still, mission accomplished for a guy more daredevil than engineer, who drew more comparisons to the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote from his critics than he did to iconic stunt man Evel Knievel.
Photo: AP
“Mad” Mike Hughes, the rocket man who believes the Earth is flat, on Saturday propelled himself about 571.5m into the air before a hard landing in the Mojave Desert.
He said that outside of an aching back he was fine after the launch near Amboy, California.
“Relieved,” he said after being checked by paramedics. “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.”
The launch in the desert town —320km east of Los Angeles — was originally scheduled for November last year.
It was scrubbed several times due to logistical issues with the US Bureau of Land Management and mechanical problems that kept popping up.
The 61-year-old limo driver converted a mobile home into a ramp and modified it to launch from a vertical angle so he would not fall back to the ground on public land.
It looked like Saturday might be another in a string of cancelations, given that the wind was blowing and his rocket was losing steam, but some time after 3pm and without a countdown, Hughes’ rocket soared into the sky.
Hughes reached a speed that assistants estimated to be about 563kph before pulling his parachute.
He landed with a thud and the rocket’s nose broke in two places like it was designed to do.
“This thing wants to kill you 10 different ways,” said Hughes, who had an altimeter in his cockpit to measure his altitude. “This thing will kill you in a heartbeat.
“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,” he said.
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