Steam Rocket

Las Vegas limo driver and amateur stuntman "Mad Mike" Hughes is at it again. Tomorrow, the Flat Earther is out to launch himself to 5,000 feet in a steam powered rocket. Hopefully this works better than his last flight. Unsurprisingly, this is done at the behest of a new show called Homemade Astronauts on The Science Channel. You can positively not make this stuff up....

Ken

Ken,

Evel Knievel’s “Skycycle X2” was a steam powered rocket as well. I remember the crazy hype that preceded the anticlimactic dive into the Snake River it ended up being. Perhaps Mr. Hughes will have better luck...it’s for reality TV so what could go wrong?

Jamison

Hi Jamison,

He actually built this thing originally to duplicate Evel's Snake River jump, but to do it successfully. He failed at that, got injured,swore off and tried to sell the rocket and ... apparently ... decided he needed the bucks enough to try again. A professional stunt man, with the help of Robert Truax's son (builder of Evel's machine) built as an exact a duplicate of the original rocket as was possible and easily surpassed the Snake River distance. Amazing what a bit of expertise will accomplish. I wrote it all up in a president's message for the Bulletin a few years back.

Regards,

Ken