Flat-Earther postpones homemade rocket launch

  • 25/11/2017

An American flat-Earther who planned to shoot himself into space in a piece of scrap metal had his masterplan foiled after failing to get federal permission.

Californian man 'Mad' Mike Hughes, 61, planned to launch his homemade rocket hundreds of metres into the sky on Saturday (local time) in an effort to prove his theory that the Earth is not round, once and for all.

The flight is a test ahead of another that he expects will take him high enough to see that the world is completely flat, and show Earth is just a mass of land surrounded by large walls of ice.

But he's had to postpone after failing to get permission from a federal agency to conduct it on public land.

"It's still happening," Mr Hughes insisted to The Washington Post.

"We're just moving it three miles down the road."

The limo driver claims the federal agency gave him verbal permission more than a year ago.

However a spokesperson told The Washington Post they have no record of this.

Mr Hughes has spent NZ$29,000 building the rocket in his garage over the past few years. It is not known when he now plans to leave Earth.

Newshub.