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'Mad Mike' Hughes, daredevil who built a homemade steam rocket, dies in launch attempt | Space
"Mad Mike" Hughes was a desert rat who resided in a mobile home near Apple Valley, California; a non-conformist who spent his days thinking outside life's orthodox box. As an example, he preferred to believe the Earth was one flat pizza pie as opposed to a big blue sphere in space. And to that end he decided to build an amateur rocket to prove the validity of that theory.
Heretofore, most ambitious ventures that endeavor to reach the inhospitable reaches of space-- defined as 62-miles above terra firma-- relied on the vast resources of wealthy nations like the United States or multi-billionaires like Elon Musk. Mike Hughes decided he could copy his idol Evel Knieval and construct a steam-powered rocket for roughly thirty-seven cents out in his ramshackle shed. And whatever engineering expertise he lacked he could more than make-up in guile and guts.
His first attempt in 2018 ended unceremoniously after his rocket blasted-off from the rear of a modified RV, Hughes' counterpart to Cape Kennedy's historic Pad 39A, reaching an apogee of some 1,875-feet before he parachuted to the ground with severely compressed vertebra. Yep, those super-heated steam engines sure do give a helluva kick on liftoff. Upon refection, Mike Hughes' rockets had all the sophistication of those imaginative contraptions Professor Fate invented in the movie The Great Race: 1920 Great Race Rail Car | Volo Auto Museum
Undeterred by failure, "Mad Mike" Hughes yesterday stepped into a much improved version of his 2018 launch vehicle, kicked the tires, lit the fires, and (as Ronald Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan excerpted from the poem High Flight) "slipped the surly bonds of earth and touched the face of God."
"Mad Mike" Hughes was a desert rat who resided in a mobile home near Apple Valley, California; a non-conformist who spent his days thinking outside life's orthodox box. As an example, he preferred to believe the Earth was one flat pizza pie as opposed to a big blue sphere in space. And to that end he decided to build an amateur rocket to prove the validity of that theory.
Heretofore, most ambitious ventures that endeavor to reach the inhospitable reaches of space-- defined as 62-miles above terra firma-- relied on the vast resources of wealthy nations like the United States or multi-billionaires like Elon Musk. Mike Hughes decided he could copy his idol Evel Knieval and construct a steam-powered rocket for roughly thirty-seven cents out in his ramshackle shed. And whatever engineering expertise he lacked he could more than make-up in guile and guts.
His first attempt in 2018 ended unceremoniously after his rocket blasted-off from the rear of a modified RV, Hughes' counterpart to Cape Kennedy's historic Pad 39A, reaching an apogee of some 1,875-feet before he parachuted to the ground with severely compressed vertebra. Yep, those super-heated steam engines sure do give a helluva kick on liftoff. Upon refection, Mike Hughes' rockets had all the sophistication of those imaginative contraptions Professor Fate invented in the movie The Great Race: 1920 Great Race Rail Car | Volo Auto Museum
Undeterred by failure, "Mad Mike" Hughes yesterday stepped into a much improved version of his 2018 launch vehicle, kicked the tires, lit the fires, and (as Ronald Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan excerpted from the poem High Flight) "slipped the surly bonds of earth and touched the face of God."