Self-taught rocket scientist eyes Monday launch
Self-taught rocket scientist Mike Hughes won’t allow a little red tape to get in the way of his green light for a launch.
All systems go for his rescheduled steam-powered rocket attempt — in his view, at least.
The 61-year-old limo driver who thinks Earth is flat plans to climb into his homemade vessel Monday and rocket 1 mile over the ghost town of Amboy, Calif. He was scheduled to blast off last weekend, but he didn’t have the proper permits from the Bureau of Land Management.
He’s relocated his launch pad 4 miles from its original spot, so he takes off and lands on private property.
It may not be enough. The BLM said he still needs to fill out the permits. Hughes contends that shouldn’t be required since he’s flying on private land and has permission.
“I’m moving forward,” Hughes said Tuesday. “I’m a daredevil. I’m not much for authority or rules.”
He’s readying his rocket in the Mojave Desert and sleeping in a motor home that doubles as his rocket launcher. He still can’t wrap his mind around how his project has generated so much buzz. He’s been contacted by news outlets from all over the globe.
“This is all just nuts, but I guess it’s supposed to be,” said Hughes, who will televise the launch on his YouTube channel and doesn’t want spectators to show up out of safety concerns.
“I’ve had people say so much, that I’m a fraud. I’ve had people email me and say,Y`ou’re going to die.’ I even had one woman ask me if we were all going to die on (launch day). But I’ve also had so much support. It’s just crazy.”
His beliefs that the world is flat and there’s “no difference between science and science fiction” have added another dimension to the reaction to Hughes and his plans.
“When I am in space, it is a sphere. It is a curve. The Earth is not flat,” said retired NASA astronaut and doctor Jerry Linenger, who orbited the globe more than 2000 times during four months in 1997. “I circled it every 90 minutes, and it is a real thing.”
As for the amateur rocket launch?
“Good luck, I hope he doesn’t blow something up,” Linenger said. “Rocketry, as our private space companies found out, isn’t as easy as it looks.”