Flat-Earther to blast off Sunday in homemade, steam-powered rocket
Daredevil ‘Mad’ Michael Hughes poses in front of his homemade, steam-powered rocket, ahead of a planned launch on August 11, 2019. (Source: Popculture PR)
Flat-Earther to blast off Sunday in homemade, steam-powered rocket
Well there you go! Steam rules, baby! No-ones ever gonna build a diesel-powered rocket!
Seriously, I hope his life insurance is paid up.
You know, there was a really well done sci-fi movie back in the 50’s called “Destination Moon,” and if I remember correctly the rocket in the film was steam-powered, a nuclear reactor was used as part of the steam gneration system. I could be wrong though, it’s been years since I’ve seen it.
This makes me nervous.
I’d only be nervous if I lived downrange from him!
Who wants a rocket in the living room?
I well remember that movie itself, but I do not remember many details. It was quite interesting.
A large part of the techical advice and scripting on “Destination Moon” was done by Robert Heinlein.
How will he make it back to Frisbee? Don’t they move laterally in order to be self-stabilizing? And, how will he keep the phlogiston from leaking out along with the steam?
He needs to reconsider.
I think “Destination Moon” was on one of the old movie channels a couple of weeks ago, but I didn’t watch it… If they repeat it, I will be sure to watch it.
But I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED your comment about a Diesel-powered rocket. No way that’ll ever work, but I have seen photos of the results of Dismals that attempted to launch a piston or two into orbit.
As for life insurance… I mean no insult to any family he has, but no one should benefit from his stupidity.
Lima design no doubt! Must have twin stokers as no mention of Firemen.
I have an Uncie like this, rich, has thousand acre hobby farm in Alberta. Will argue with you until blue in the face that the earth is flat. Gets worse, he was a pilot!
So the Warbird thread was locked for being off-topic?
And this thread?
I guess the railroad connection comes from the rocket being steam-powered?
I wonder if it has a whistle? Two sharp blasts before take-off? Three before he puts in in reverse?
The photo doesn’t show too much, but I don’t see a “Camelback” type cab, so I guess it’s fueled with bituminous coal.
Bending over backwards to keep this “rail-related,” I may need help!
I’m not sure what we’re looking at in that picture, but is the rocket launched from rails?
It does have rails!
Is this the ultimate in steam power? Guess we will know soon enough if he’s successful.
Just being honest, but during all those months that I ignored the “Classic Warbirds” thread, I did so because I suspected it might be some dry debate on “Barfbonnet vs Grinstein” or which locomotive model looked best wearing a warbonnet.
I don’t think so, I bet it will be a shop queen.
Takes forever to build, and requires significant structural repairs after each use. Not great by locomotive standards.
How would you calculate its starting tractive effort?
Ever hear of RP-1? Been in use since the 1950’s.
OTOH, Space Shuttle SSME’s and the engines for the Delta IV are LH2 and LOX fed, so they effectively are steam powered.
Ah, RP-1’s not diesel, it’s a highly refined form of kerosene.
Which means it should work just fine in steam-era lanterns as well. [;)]
Back to Rocket Man…
I wonder how he can tell if there’s enough water over the crown sheet?
And you know something? I hope the crazy guy pulls it off! [bow]
Mythbusters test a prototype!
Awwww man, I MISS the “Mythbusters!” [:'(]
How quickly you all seem to have forgotten the Skycycle X-2…
… or the Volksrocket X-3…
Didn’t it say he’s only getting something like 1500’ altitude* out of this prototype? Suspect he is riding the thing as a stunt, not any kind of effort to actually reach space in the thing, rather than the tongue-in-cheek ‘toward space’ in the coverage.
This is not like the Komet 163 that liked to detonate for what seemed ‘any reason and no reason’ – although I strongly suspect he’s using catalytic decomposition of concentrated H2O2 as at least a significant part of his engine cycle and if he is not reasonably careful in his ‘homemade’ fuel refining he is likely to encounter some interesting, theoretically amusing but NOT if you are riding nearby, characteristics of high-concentration peroxide. There is a reason we kept the Oxford-cycle concentration at around 30% and used a co-fuel for the railroad project (although I grant you the design ‘criterion’ was for use in engines at some nominal degree of superheat like 850 degrees F as “throttled”)
I do think he would do better to study Truax a bit better to see what is possible for ‘homemade’ builders to achieve, although I suspect his ‘rockoon’ approach still remains the closest he is likely to get to his stated objective. (I am tempted to point out that air launch of the ‘rockoon’, say from an external package at what is now typical bizjet achievable altitude, might be still better…)
It will