The daredevil “Mad” Mike Hughes was killed in a rocket launch gone wrong Saturday in Barstow, Calif., two witnesses to the accident confirmed. He was 64.
It was the third launch for Hughes in one of his homemade rockets and part of his eventual plan to be able to determine for himself, up in the sky, if Earth was as flat as he proclaimed to believe.
A steel ladder was attached to the rocket’s launch ramp to make it easier for Hughes to enter the cockpit. But when the rocket launched, it hit the ladder, setting the launch on course for disaster.
“It ripped off a parachute can, which deployed the parachute, which got caught in the thrust of the rocket and kind of took the rocket off course a little bit,” said Justin Chapman, a freelance journalist who was at the launch site.
The steam-powered rocket wobbled and did a huge arc before crashing less than a minute later.
“He went way up in
The daredevil “Mad” Mike Hughes was killed in a rocket launch gone wrong Saturday in Barstow, Calif., two witnesses to the accident confirmed. He was 64.
It was the third launch for Hughes in one of his homemade rockets and part of his eventual plan to be able to determine for himself, up in the sky, if Earth was as flat as he proclaimed to believe.
A steel ladder was attached to the rocket’s launch ramp to make it easier for Hughes to enter the cockpit. But when the rocket launched, it hit the ladder, setting the launch on course for disaster.
“It ripped off a parachute can, which deployed the parachute, which got caught in the thrust of the rocket and kind of took the rocket off course a little bit,” said Justin Chapman, a freelance journalist who was at the launch site.
The steam-powered rocket wobbled and did a huge arc before crashing less than a minute later.
“He went way up in
