
Flat-Earther's rocket lofts him 1,875 feet up - utopkara
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-rocket-man-blast-20180325-story.html
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eloff
I wonder if he really believes the earth is flat, or if he's just pretending
so the flat earth people will keep funding his rocket hobby.

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sqdbps
No one really thinks that the earth is flat it's just attention seeking
behavior.

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CodeWriter23
My take away from Flat Earthers is how much I rely on third parties as a
source of truth. Or perhaps I should say “truth”. Probably a mixture of both.

Similar to what he said about the Earth being frisbee-shaped, I believe the
Earth is round, but I know I don’t have personally-acquired observation that
my belief is fact.

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jimmies
I have a high altitude balloon+electronics education project and it is very
fun. We were using our pocket money. It can get expensive really quickly was
very hard to raise money for this kind of stuff. We spend about $300 per
launch (not including transportation) given we retrieve the payload
successfully. If we don't, it is going to be $1.5k per launch for a latex
weather balloon. There is a lot of risks involved in the process.

With that in mind, I think being able to launch a hunk of metal to 2k ft with
just $20k is actually really quite impressive. I don't care if he raised money
for the flat earth cause or any other scandalous cause, I think he did a
legitimately impressive engineering feat, risked his life for it, raised money
for it, didn't hurt or rob nobody. I am thoroughly entertained by this guy.
Anyone with an iota of a brain will quickly realize this is just a comedy
sketch, but as they say, a fool and his money are soon parted. If they didn't
give money to this guy, they would have given their money to another stupid
cause. And if anyone decides to give their money to any flat earth cause, I'd
rather see they give money to this one.

With that in mind, I don't think I would go so far as going on the radio
saying stupid shit just to raise money for my hobby project. But then, the
world rewards people with crazy ideas and crazy execution plans when they
work. Clearly, this is one of the instances when an unlikely funny idea
actually worked. If I knew about this earlier, I would have chipped in some of
my money just because it's so hilarious (and I can see many people would do
that too).

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theonealtair
Can't really fault him for literally studying "the natural world through
observation and experiment" as opposed to blindly taking some else's word.
But, he should probably spend his time understanding what others did to "study
the natural world through observation and experiments" and realize it's not so
blind to look at their conclusions.

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guscost
If you’re going less than 2000 feet up, what’s wrong with an airplane?

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mulmen
It’s harder to get flat earthers to give you money for airfare.

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guscost
Well obviously commercial jets have video screens instead of windows, but
surely building an ultralight or using an open cockpit plane is easier than
this.

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smoyer
I'm more interested in the fact that he converted a motor home into his launch
pad. Well ... the steam-punk side of me also wants to see how his steam-
powered rocket works. Unfortunately after looking at NoizeTV I don't think
I'll be watching his launch.

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synthecypher
Does he still believe the earth is flat?

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ggm
I don't think this is high enough to see the curvature of the earth. So,
experientially he probably has a confirmation-bias event which reinforces his
core belief. Well.. the belief he espouses, to further his aims.

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mysterypie
Video of the launch:

[https://gizmodo.com/at-long-last-flat-earth-rocketeer-
finall...](https://gizmodo.com/at-long-last-flat-earth-rocketeer-finally-
manages-to-b-1824059035)

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CyberDildonics
I think putting a gopro on a balloon would have been easier.

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akx
But the GoPro's firmware is probably hacked to show a globe, because GoPro is
in on the conspiracy, etc., etc.

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tgb
Admittedly, GoPro does actually have a lens distortion going on so that it can
be wide angled. It actually makes it look more globe like than it is, as you
can see from numerous sky diving videos. In them you can see this distortion
by noting that the skyline is straight when it goes through the center of the
view but looks highly curved when on the side.

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SubiculumCode
The flat-earth stuff is nonsense, but I am glad he stuck to it and launched.
Congrats, and even a bit of admiration.

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SubiculumCode
I was either downvoted twice because the mods were flat earthers, or because
they view it as impossible to ever admire guts in an idiot. And if you want to
say it was down-voted because the comment was not technically informed or
provided insight as befitting an expert in the field, I'd respond that this
article is clearly asking for flippant comments, no serious discussion is to
be had about this article. It is a fluff article, and deserves fluff comments.
So instead of down voting, as I am sure this comment will also receive, write
why you disagree.

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starik36
If he is a true believer, he is at least willing to test those beliefs by
conducting an experiment. As it should be. How many true believers of anything
are willing to have their their minds changed?

This guy should be praised instead of ridiculed by a bunch of internet non-
contributing zeroes.

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Houshalter
Yeah what he did was definitely cool. But if you just want to test a
hypothesis, it would be much easier to send a camera and not a whole person.
Also a balloon could obtain a higher altitude than any amateur rocket. And
people have filmed the curvature of the Earth with just balloons, they can get
quite high.

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starik36
I am sure just the enormous challenge of actually building a rocket with a
couple of friends also played a major role.

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stusmith1977
Wouldn't it have been more sensible to do the launch from somewhere nearer the
edge of the earth?

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johnnyOnTheSpot
Given people have always known the earth is round based on the shadow it casts
on the Moon...

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saghm
EDITED: Obviously not trying to argue that the Earth is flat, but flat things
can still cast round shadows if they're, well, round

(ORIGINAL: Obviously not trying to argue that the Earth is flat, but there are
round things that are also flat)

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utopkara
He could have gone up to the top of Burj Khalifa instead. But, that wouldn't
have placed him on the headlines. Also, he is running for governor. As far as
I can tell from recent experience, he will win.

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adrianmonk
Or pay for a helicopter tour. You can get a ~10 minute helicopter tour for
under $100 where I live. They don't fly incredibly high, but given that the
minimum safe altitude is 1000 feet in some cases:

[https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/27076/what-
is-t...](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/27076/what-is-the-
minimum-allowed-altitude-for-helicopters-over-a-residential-area-in)

Or, just book a flight on a commercial airliner, which is also cheap but
doesn't get you a panoramic view. But you'll get way higher than 1875 feet.

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selectodude
The windows are actually screens to trick you.

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adrianmonk
Hah, I hadn't considered that!

Probably a skydiving trip would be a better plan then. I've never done it but
it seems you jump from a decent height (13K feet or 4km -- so says
[https://adventure.howstuffworks.com/skydiving1.htm](https://adventure.howstuffworks.com/skydiving1.htm)
) because they want to give you some good freefall time.

But I suppose the truly dedicated flat earther will find a way to dismiss that
too.

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jwilk
Translation for metric units users:

1875 ft ≈ 570 m

150 miles ≈ 240 km

350 psi ≈ 2.4 MPa

350 mph ≈ 560 km/h

86 miles ≈ 140 km

