“Mad Mike” Hughes, a self-described daredevil and proponent of the Flat Earth theory, died about 1:45 p.m. Saturday when his homemade, steam-propelled rocket crashed in the desert near Barstow. A video of the launch by freelance journalist Justin Chapman shows a parachute falling off the rocket seconds after the launch; the rocket climbs into the sky for about 10 seconds before it begins its fall to earth and pancaked into the desert about 1 ½ miles northeast of the Slash X café and bar south of Barstow.
Chapman told Z107.7 News that the rocket had three other parachutes on board that didn’t deploy; Hughes’ team believes he was knocked unconscious on take-off, as they were unable to reach him via radio during the launch.
Hughes had made a similar launch near Amboy in 2018; in that launch, the rocket had a hard landing, but Hughes suffered only minor injuries. Saturday’s launch was being filmed for a television series, “Homemade Astronauts,” for the Science Channel. Hughes said he wanted to go up in a rocket to prove for himself that the Earth was round, but he also admitted his claims of a flat Earth were a publicity stunt to raise money to build his rocket.
Mike Hughes was 64 years old and is survived by two children.
