Rocketman (2019) - full transcript

[Background talk]

[music]

A California man is getting ready

to launch himself into the air

in a home-made rocket to

prove that the Earth is flat.

Look, any idiot can sit in their bedroom

uploading conspiracy theories to YouTube,

but it takes a special idiot to launch

himself into space for the cause.

Shasta, Haley, Curtis.

He's done it before. He shot himself

like 160 miles into space, not really.

No he did. I think he did shoot

himself 1.6 miles into the air.

It might be something he said,

he might just be crazy.

- I wonder how this ends for this guy?

- Probably, you know how it ends?

- "Fuck. It's round."

- That's how this story ends.

Smart enough to build a missile from

scratch, yet stupid enough to climb inside,

- my kind of crazy.

- You may not learn whether the earth is round,

but I have a feeling you're about

to learn a lot about gravity.

[laughs]

I am Michael Hughes,

better known as Mad

Mike Hughes for some

unknown reason, I guess.

I live in Apple Valley, California,

which is in Southern California.

It's a place called The High Desert.

I live with my four cats,

and live a pretty quiet

existence considering

what I do, which is build rockets.

I'm a limousine driver,

and have been for about 21 years,

and a former NASCAR crew chief, I'm a

daredevil, and self-taught

rocket scientist.

Me saying I'm a self-taught

rocket scientist is a misnomer

because I really don't believe in

science. I believe in formulas, some math.

Not these things where the whole

chalk board's full of some formula

that no one knows, except three people.

I just want the raw truth.

And I believe in the Flat Earth model.

I'm not going to take

anyone else's word for it,

or NASA, or especially

Elon Musk with SpaceX.

I'm going to build my

own rocket right here

and I'm going to see it with my own

eyes what shape this world we live on.

And that's Mad Mike is in a nutshell.

I got started at 6:30 this morning. This

is the first time I've sat down all day.

My back is done. My right shoulder

and both my knees are hurting.

I've got other interests,

other than this rocket, believe me.

There are other things

I want to be doing,

but to do something like this,

it takes everything

and it will take everything from you. This

is what a lot of people don't understand.

This is why a lot of guys get divorced

and it will tear a family up.

It will bankrupt you,

or do all that kind of nasty stuff.

We just ran across this. Some

guy did an artist's rendering of me.

My hair might look like

that first thing in the morning,

but after it's blow-dried, I think

it looks a little nicer than that.

My tongue's not that long,

where I'd be in porn,

but he did a real good

job with the rocket.

But he's got my four cats right here.

This guy says I'm a plant to make Flat

Earthers look stupid. Is that what it is?

This is endless. You can spend one whole

day going through the internet

with people making drawings of me

with rockets stuck up my ass and now,

we've got cats in my video.

It's unbelievable,

but he did a good job

with the rocket, though.

Let's see what Haley thinks about it. Hey,

Haley, someone just sent a picture of you.

Which one is you? See?

It looks like shit, doesn't it?

See that really pisses me off.

You make fun of me and my hair,

I don't give a shit, but

don't make fun of my

cats, ok? I draw the

line right there. Ok?

Most of the stuff I buy is remnants, or

scrap, or whatever from these metal places.

It's very rare I buy something new.

I'll have them cut this down

where I can even haul it

back to the rocket ranch.

Oh hey, Candice. This is part

of the platform for the rocket

because now it's on

its wing standing straight up.

Instead of being on the ground,

it's going to be on this.

And we already got the frame made.

Is this thing really on backwards?

You got it on backwards,

we were telling you that.

[laughs]

- I don't like to wear hard hats.

- I don't think it's good for my hair.

That's the big thing in my

life is my cats and my hair.

Mike is a good indicator

of never giving up.

Regardless of how hard

it is, he keeps going.

It's like this little pelican that has the

frog, and the frog is choking the pelican.

The picture says, 'Never give up',

that's what he reminds me of. He's the

little frog inside the pelican's mouth.

[laughs]

- I brought my own tape today.

- It'll be $42.44.

Being forced to be thrifty and frugal is

everything on this project, everything.

Basically, this is the perfect example

of how some of the parts have

transformed into my rocket.

This is some kind of an air filter.

No one really knows what it's off from.

There's numbers on it

and all kinds of crazy stuff.

I said, "Man, that's a

great shape for a rocket

nozzle." I bought one

and brought it home.

It's on this stand, so I don't use

the stand, of course. It's useless,

but it's kinda cool to keep.

So here is the filter part.

No one knows what it filters, ok? But

now, luckily, when I took this apart,

there is nothing welded inside.

You can see the

shape is perfect for a

bell rocket nozzle.

That's the rocket nozzle

on the rocket right now, $50.

It may be around since

the 1950s, who knows?

Is this something that

NASA would use or SpaceX?

I don't know, but for

my use, it's perfect.

This is one of the many examples of how

something that was scrap and used for

something else wound up on my rocket.

This is kind of funny.

I just noticed this, 'Gravity'.

It's on the sticker,

I don't believe in gravity. There it is.

I was never tempted to

get in the motorcycle

stunt business because

I knew people in it,

only three or four guys

were making money.

I mean there was guys going

and jumping for $200, $300, or $500.

And you can get killed.

But, I thought, you know

I want to do something

crazy, and I thought,

"What can I do?" I sit

down, I watch TV. I

just turn the TV on and

the Teletubbies is on.

Remember that crazy show?

I fell asleep watching the Teletubbies.

I dreamed about jumping a limo

in the stomach of one of the Teletubbies.

When I woke up, I'm thinking,

"Wow! That's a hell of an idea.

Jump a limo, no one has done that."

[crowd cheering]

Let me out. Let me out.

- Can you raise your hand?

- Come on. Are you all right?

- There he is. Mad Mike Hughes!

- [crowd cheering]

I guess it was worth it. It didn't

put any money in my bank account,

I don't think,

but very few things ever has anyway.

The flat earth thing, this time,

has to go up and down

because the rocket is standing up now.

You're doing a vertical

large this time?

Yes, that's the only

way I can do it there.

From the highway, it's a quarter mile

from the road and all this area's flat.

Good deal. I tell some

of the media people this

launch is going to get more viewers

around the world than the Superbowl

is going to get and some of the guys go,

"Yeah, right." Some guys

go, "Wait a second.

No one in Finland

cares about the Superbowl."

This is what's wrong with the world

today, no one knows what's real.

I don't know. I just researched and I

try to research the research

and that's what I always do.

Well, I know I like climbing trees but

if I came from a monkey then

why the hell are monkeys still here?

You know what I mean?

- I think that [mumbles].

- It's okay right here?

- Yes.

- Okay. Cool.

Okay, so we'll watch another video

of some uninformed idiot

that's made one who's got

to much time on their hands,

who doesn't know me.

If they'd walked inside my living room,

they would shut them up

real quickly knowing,

seeing just half of my accomplishments.

Go get a life, okay? How

am I bothering you?

Because I may believe in

something you don't believe in?

It's just nutty that people actually

do this. Don't mess with me!

Go mess with someone else. Dude,

you don't know my background. Okay?

Have I beat up people? Yes. Have I pushed

people through plate glass windows? Yes.

Have I rammed people's-their head

into the quarter panel of the suburban

and then kick their ribs in? Yes.

And heard their ribs snap, yes. Okay?

But I'm a nice guy.

There is not an employee of NASA,

of Virgin Galactic,

of Blue Horizon,

that's ever designed, built,

and launched himself in a rocket.

So, there you go.

They started all this

space crap in the late '40s

and all the way through

the 50s. They're priming people, okay?

They will do a fake

attack through holographic images

in the sky, which they

can do, and they'll

simulate attack from

UFOs to unite the world,

to fight these beings from another

planet or another solar system

so we need the one world government,

the one world religion,

and one world everything

and currency. That's

how they want to bring

some of that stuff in,

in my opinion.

I haven't had a steady girlfriend

in about, what? 11 years,

which is my choice also.

Do I want to live in Apple Valley?

Uh... no. It's not exactly

the Mecca of entertainment

but it's inexpensive to live

here and I've got a shop.

To have this down the hill where you're

close to everybody and everything else.

That is $1,500, $2,000, $2,200 a month.

There's some months,

I don't make that much money,

so now how do you eat?

And even worse, you can't buy cat food.

That's Jojo. That's my first cat.

Had her for 11 and a half years.

I grieved about this cat more

than the death of both my parents.

This is something I can't read.

It's about cats.

It's about animals and

where they wind up.

They cross the rainbow bridge.

This was her leash.

She was an old soul.

People loved this cat.

In fact, some people loved

this cat more than their own cats.

That happened several times.

She was just a wonderful thing.

One of the few things in

my life I've ever loved.

This is her paw print.

This is a part of her fur.

My goal when I go to space,

is I'm going to take this with me.

Okay. Let's see here.

Here we go. There's one of them.

What's up, Waldo?

I think I want to do a round table

at 9:00 in the morning. Can you do that?

- Tomorrow?

- For the space thing?

- Yeah we can do that.

- What do you think about the colors?

I'll take a look at it as

soon as I fix this wire.

You've done a lot of work since I've

been gone. You've been a busy boy.

My name is Waldo Stakes.

I've been building flight rockets

since I was 10 years old.

I got interested in rocket-powered

vehicles when I was about 19, 20.

I'm a self-taught rocketeer, everything

I learned, I learned from books

and from experimentation pretty much.

I'm currently retired and so

I have more time for this kind of stuff.

If you come to my house,

you'll see rocket engines everywhere.

I've been collecting them for 40 years.

All kinds of rockets

from maybe 1,000 pounds

of thrust to 60,000 pounds of thrust.

I help people because I like to see

people succeed and most of them

have this dream and

nobody helps them out.

This guy, this Mike here,

I don't consider him a friend.

He's like a bad little brother,

that's what he's like, but we get along.

We work together.

We help each other out.

I read about him, something

or other, and I figured

it might be a way to make a few bucks. He

was going to build a rocket, steam rocket,

jump over the Snake River Canyon.

So I called him

up, he's like, "Ya, ya. I'm

building this rocket."

And blah, blah, blah, and then he goes,

"I heard of you." And stuff like that.

I said, "How's the rocket coming along?"

I expected him to say,

"I'm going to get going

on it as soon as I get funded."

Which means, you'll never see

that rocket, but he didn't say that.

He goes, "Yes. It's coming along really

good. "He goes, "Do you want to see it?"

I said, "Ya, I want to see

it." I took a look at it

and he said, "What are you thinking?" I

said, "It sucks. It's going to kill you."

I said, "The balance is off.

The structure's okay but in my opinion,

if you're asking me,

it's going to kill you."

He goes, "Would you show me

how to have it not kill me?"

I said, "Ya, I will. I will."

- Hey, Waldo.

- Anytime, babe. Give me a countdown.

- Three, two, one.

- No. Got to go farther.

A rocket at 400 degrees

will become superheated water.

When it reaches the atmosphere,

when the plug is pulled and the water goes

shooting out the bottom, it becomes steam

and the steam expands 400

times its size and it gives

thrust to the rocket and

pushes the rocket up.

That's how it works.

I keep this with me all the time.

This is ideas and concepts.

Let me see if I can find Mad Mike here.

Wait, I think it's here. It's right here.

See it started with napkin drawings.

This is the first rocket. I said,

"You're going to be tucked down inside.

You need to be tucked down so you can

make the fins anything you want,

shaped any way you want. You can shape

it like a penis. You can paint it tan."

I said, "You could go to Viagra,

or Cialis or one of these companies,

Pfizer, and have it

sponsored from them."

Did he tell you the story of the

launch that he actually did?

Mike goes, "I want to make

sure I beat Evil Knievel's record."

So what he did is when he put the

ramp on that shipping container,

he took a section out of it

and made the ramp 52 degrees.

Now when you're 45 to 50 degrees or so,

you're just in a ballistic arc.

You're at the same

velocity when you reached

here that you're hitting the ground at.

That's basic physics. I said "You

can't have that." But he didn't care.

Daredevils have a different mindset.

And I can't explain it to you.

I can just tell you I've

met dozens of them.

All these guys they got the...

this is it:

If you can give them 50/50 that they've

got a chance of surviving, if they go,

"What do you think my chances are?

Are they 50/50?"

"Yes, you've got 50."

"Okay, let's do it."

Where a normal person would go, "That's

crazy. I want 70/30. I want 90/10.

I actually want 100%."

See, once you get to 100%,

it's not a daredevil stunt

but in their hearts,

they have a different way

of looking at stuff,

see? So here's what

happened with the rocket.

Ok, we had rockets on both of

those chutes, to pull the chutes out.

He goes, 'I don't trust

them damn things."

What ended up happening was he

disconnected the rocket from one of them.

Just before he's ready to get

into the thing, he hears a noise,

and they're looking around

and the rocket has sprung a pin leak.

The pin leak means that's going to crack

the weld and it's going to go BOOM.

It's going to blow up and kill you.

You know

what Mike does? "Everybody

out of the pit!"

He puts his helmet on,

he climbs up the thing, he gets in there

and he wants to beat the explosion.

This is true!

See a 5-point harness, it takes

10 minutes to put a guy into it."

You got to put him in there, keep

scooting him back. There's a pattern.

He goes click, "Get away! Get away!"

Everybody gets out of there, right?

Boom. He hits it.

Here's what happened with the rocket.

When the rocket come off the ramp,

it didn't have enough velocity

to rocket off the ramp.

Instead, it hooked up off

the ramp and it did this.

Then it went into horizontal flight.

When it went into horizontal flight,

it wasn't fighting its weight in the climb

so it picks up another G of acceleration.

So now, he's doing 350,

370, 400 miles an hour,

and then he comes to. He said he

wasn't out, but he was fucking out.

Just so happens that when he came to,

he reached for it on the right

and pulled the one that had the rocket,

the chute went, BOOM!

When it comes out like

this and you're doing 400

miles an hour and it's

designed for 100 or less,

it just starts shredding it. So

that's why the chute looked like shit.

It was a perfect chute. I packed it and

it was perfect. It was riddled with holes

but there was just enough there.

It slowed him

down enough and we figured

he hit the ground

at 60 miles an hour.

When he hit the ground, I never looked, but

he said his balls were black for a month.

I had to get him a walker.

He could not walk.

He doesn't tell you all

that because he doesn't

want to tell you the bad side of that.

Essentially, he was in a

walker for two months.

- Back up!

- Mike's dad neglected him.

He never got any attention as a kid.

He's been driving the limousine so long,

he wants to be in the back.

That gate's such a hassle.

I was tired of it five years ago.

I'd rather have an

eight-foot fence all way

around this place, you

couldn't even see through.

I'm going to go check my mail.

Fuck, it's like a maximum security.

They call my mailbox

'the rock' around here.

Alcatraz hasn't got

nothing on my mailbox.

No mail today.

If I still had my limo today, that's

what I'd be driving it right now.

I loved the car. It's just different,

people look at it. It's a fun car.

It looks like a cross between

a Batmobile and a gangster car.

And I miss it, I think about it every day.

I started making my own license plates,

which is nothing new.

A lot of people have done it.

The California highway patrolman walks

up, "What's with that license plate?"

"It's my license plate."

"Where's the real one?"

"It is a real one. I made it.

It's my private

property. I don't

have to register it."

They called up the towing

company and that's

how I got two cars down in impoundment.

I'm just wanting to check on the

status of my '89 Lincoln

town car limousine that

was taken from me by

force. Is it still

there on the property?

- Just one moment, okay?

- Okay.

- Hi, can I help you?

- Hey, how are you? It's Michael Hughes.

Just checking on the

status of my '89 Lincoln

limousine to see if it's still there.

Your Lincoln limousine was taken to

a junkyard and destroyed over a year ago

when it became our legal property.

Okay - It hasn't been here

in a very, very long time.

You are aware that I am the equity

owner of that and you actually-

- No, you're not. No, you're not. We liened

the vehicle, it became our legal property

and we disposed of it legally.

What we're going to do we're going to

citizen's arrest within

the next two weeks.

Good luck with that. Go fuck yourself.

We're going to ask for

the fucking death penalty.

We're going to go for the

fucking death penalty.

I want people to fucking,

just lose their life over this.

I wish I could have more animals.

I've had two rabbits since I lived here,

they both passed away. Hoppy and Jazzy,

they're both buried on the property.

The thing with animals,

there's no ulterior motives with them.

They only ask for a very

few things and that's it.

Where a person or another

man or a woman or a girlfriend,

it's a lot more complicated.

A lot more complicated.

I wish my parents would have live

longer. I wish my dad could've seen this,

what I've done, what I've accomplished.

He'd probably be very proud.

I would like to think he would be.

He'd probably be very surprised.

I wish I could have stayed

closer with my sons.

Maybe this is the best time of my life,

this year, right now.

Maybe I'm living the

best time of my life.

A lot of the times we live the best

time of our lives, we don't know it.

And for most people, that

time's in high school.

Have the most fun, the most friends

and you don't realize it.

Within a few years, you're in some kind of

corporate job or some kind of profession,

I guess, seeking that security,

wanting the house,

and it's all downhill from then

because then your dreams

are sucked out of you.

[music]

- Hey, man. How have you been?

- Boy, busy as ever.

You've built these rockets, you've talked

to the media, people have called you insane

and crazy or a fraud

and that it'll never happen.

I was never trying to prove

the flat E arth with this rocket.

This is just a publicity

stunt to get publicity

to raise some money

to get me into space.

We have a valid plan

to get me 62 miles up,

but you would see that

Felix Baumgartner went

up 130,000 feet, that is

not the edge of space.

They said it was, it's not even close.

It's another 40 miles away.

I'm planning on going up there.

We built a model of the rocket

and there's a valid, four-page

plan that explains this.

Guys, there's something

wrong with this model.

- What's wrong with it?

- It's round. It should be flat.

That's because we have

a different opinion on that.

The plan to get me up

to the space 62 miles up is,

of course, Waldo's plan because

that's above my pay scale,

but I guess I'm the

guy who is going to ride that thing up.

I'm looking forward to it. I wish

we could do it in the next 30 days,

but I think we're probably at least

10 to 12 months away from doing it.

The people we've got here

today is some people

that will be part of the space launch,

I guess is what we're going to call it.

My buddy, Pat's here from

Carson City who worked incredibly

without pay at the launch site

in Amboy for at least four days.

And I'll never forget it.

I will never forget it, Pat, okay?

So he's with me from now on.

Of course, Danny, I met through Waldo

at the museum in Boron and he's

been nothing but a gentleman to me.

And I met this other gentleman

this morning, and Steve.

Who knows what this

world is shaped like,

but I think the only way to do it is one

man go up with a camera or several cameras

that you can talk to all the way up

and see what's up there.

These are oxygen bottles,

breathing bottles

because he's going to be

up there two to five hours

depending on the weather for

him to climb the altitude.

Two to five hours,

he's going to go up to 24, 26 miles.

Then, when the balloon

starts moving sideways,

it can't lift him any higher anymore,

this essentially will trigger and

release him. The rocket will fire.

As you can see here, and I'll use

my hands here, the thrust lines

will pull this straight up.

He'll probably be doing,

I don't know, maybe 18,

20 miles an hour a second

and he'll burn out somewhere

around 1,800 miles an hour.

So he goes from 24 miles to

62 miles, but just before

he gets there, there's a

sensor in this thing.

Just when it's just about out of fuel,

it disconnects Mike, boom.

Disconnects Mike like this.

It boogies away from him.

It'll reenter the atmosphere

automatically and have its own parachute.

It'll lower itself to the ground.

That's gone. This is helium.

This is a cylinder of helium. The idea

is he'll be flying upwards like Superman,

without a spacecraft.

He'll be doing the speed of a Blackbird,

but he won't know it because there's no air

there to ruffle his clothes or anything.

All he knows is he's just climbing up.

He'll hit apogee.

This is where this

thing really comes in.

Then he'll start to fall.

As he falls, the air will

rocket around his suit

and go into this cone inside and

outside and it'll act like a parachute.

He will basically come

all the way down to

10,000 feet where he'll

deploy his parachute

and he should just be able to stand

up and go, "Ta-da." That's the plan.

It's as simple as I can

think about it and make it happen now.

Will this get him to space?

Absolutely, this will work.

What do you think? You've seen all

this stuff. What do you think?

It's not pure O2 so there's no chance

of any fire or any issue like that,

which you have with pure O2 and

actually Buna o-rings in it too

- but with Viton and everything.

- So you're saying

what the O-rings are made of

can contaminate the oxygen supply?

- No. They can start a fire.

- If you had the pure O2, yes,

just a Buna o-ring can ignite and burn.

- Your face could start a fire.

- Yes.

- That's the truth.

- Oil on your body.

- Holy moly.

- Fellows, before we can start this project

and get it going, we'll have

to finish that one outside.

- All right. Beautiful.

- Let's go do it.

- Yes, let's do it.

- Thank you.

Thanks, everyone. I appreciate it.

I wanted more water

because altitude is your

friend. It gives you another

couple of seconds.

- [phone rings]

- Hello, it's Michael.

- Hello this is Nationwide Financing.

- Oh! Nationwide Financing!

Okay, great. I'm really

looking for some funding,

but what I'm looking for

is about $2 million to

put me into space to

prove the earth is flat.

Can you help me with that?

No, sir. Actually,

I'm not offering any funding today.

Are you at the time making

any daily or weekly

payments for the merchant cash advance?

I'm not a merchant because

that's an admiralty term. No,

I don't have any kind of

credit cards or anything like that.

I'm looking for $2 million if you'd

help, or maybe a rich girlfriend.

[laughs].

It's Monday before the proposed

and planned launch date.

We're just loading things up. The rocket

is already loaded on a flatbed trailer,

which is about two or

three blocks from here

and he'll show up about

9:30 this morning.

I just wish we were

already there set up.

That'd be nice and just

do media stuff all week.

It's great. It's getting ready to happen

but you know I just know how much

work's got to happen in the

next four or five days.

It's nice to be rested up before you do

all this stuff instead of already worn out.

I don't know what that is.

I just wish all the stuff

was together. Hope

we don't run into any kind of problems.

I'm hoping the motorhome's fine.

The rocket launcher,

hopefully, no one's broke into it stolen

stuff. I don't even know that yet.

See?

Boy that's a lot to

tie down, man. A lot.

When I started out to do this,

I just did it cause I wanted to do it.

That's a lot of things happen.

You just want to do it

and then pretty soon you get so much time

and money invested into something, you go,

"Wait a second man, I need to

recover something on the this."

Then, you start trying to monetize it

and that gets evil in itself.

You think, "How can I make money off this?"

When initially you just wanted to do it.

I blame myself a little bit

on that. Or maybe a lot.

Okay.

- Hello?

- Hey, how are you?

- How are you guys?

- Fine. We're ready to get on the road.

It is this weekend, isn't

it, the big weekend?

Yes, that's the plan of Saturday.

We've asked people not to come

there but it hasn't done any good.

- Well, it's big news.

- They want to witness it.

We have some questions

if you're up for it.

All right, so tell us about what

you're doing. Why are you doing this?

You know the main reason

to do this is to inspire

people to do great

things for their lives,

that you can actually do something

with your bare hands in your garage

and with your own mind and affect

people's lives across the world.

I don't want to say around the

globe because I'm a Flat Earther.

[laughs]

I don't know if it is or not,

just I cannot dismiss it.

So, what is the most compelling

piece of evidence that

proves the Flat Earth theory to you?

What was the thing that was like, okay,

now I think something's up?

So, we gotta think about

this, if you're going around

the globe, the plane's got

to dip every 5 minutes.

They're telling you that it's following

the atmosphere, it's following the

globe and this and that so

it keeps it the same height.

I don't buy it. Think about this,

if there's a big vacuum in space,

it should have sucked the

atmosphere off this planet anyway.

- There is a lot of things.

- Why should the general public trust you

- if they can't trust NASA or the government?

- NASA receives over $50 million a day.

Now, who's going to turn

that water faucet off?

People are born to really ridicule

anybody that thinks outside the box.

How high will you be going?

We're thinking this should

reach three-eighths of a mile.

You are going to be

doing a launch that will

send you higher up into space.

Is that correct?

We're just raising publicity, raising

awareness because to get me into space,

the edge of space, which is 62.8 miles,

it's called the Kármán line,

it would take about

$2 million to do this.

What if you get there

and you see the curvature of the earth?

It's round. Why would I lie?

- I have no agenda.

- Okay.

- Have no agenda? All right.

- I just want to know the raw truth

- about everything.

- Back to your plans for the weekend,

- Are you nervous or are you calm?

- I'm tired already.

I just wish I had the

energy I had 30 years

ago. That's what I wish.

I miss being young.

I miss being young because

I was unstoppable 30 years ago.

You're unstoppable now

by the sounds of it, Mike.

Maybe.

- Good luck with everything.

- Thank you so much.

- Bye.

- Bye-bye.

Okay.

My name is Patrick Marquese,

CEO of Markzware software.

I came across Mike back in November

during his first rocket launch attempt

and it didn't work out so well. He needed

some help and I decided to come out

here and help him during this attempt.

- What about the taillights?

- Well, that's why I asked yesterday.

- I got them. I got it.

- What do I do plug that in there?

Yes. Oh, I've still got

to ground that. God damn.

- The jack stand pinched it.

- Did you get hurt?

Yes, the jack stand

pinched my fucking hand.

- Fuck. I'll get a better one.

- That's okay.

That isn't the best one in the world

- Here's your...

- It's doing the same thing.

I don't even understand that.

[music]

This is the road, the back way to

Amboy from my home in Apple Valley.

There's less traffic and the

speed limit is not as fast so

that's the way to go.

Instead of getting on

I-40 and going through

Barstow and all that kind of stuff.

- These people behind those are going to hate us.

- That's okay, they can hate us.

We're going to get there safely.

You guys don't break

lights either cause I didn't

have time to look up the

ground to the trailer.

I've never ever been involved

in something like this before ever.

- This is this a complete adventure.

- This is unchartered territory, right?

Anybody can go to a bar

or a restaurant at any time

but doing this? Gee whiz.

It's been three months ago now since

we made this journey with the rocket.

The first time we were trying to jump

right around Thanksgiving or whatever,

but it just didn't work out it.

You know, these things

are not easy to do.

Just trying to get it turned here guys.

Wait a second.

For me, it's about the man

versus machine thing.

That's what it is. It's

not about flat Earth.

If when they got up there into space

and it was flat would they tell us?

- I'm thinking no, they wouldn't.

- I guess understanding that the Earth is flat

gets people to know or realize

that there's a creator.

- Yes.

- Like a god, or in my case, God.

That brought me back to believing

in a creator because I was an atheist.

I just figured out everything was a lie.

Everything was a lie.

Bible, God, this. The only thing that got

me even believing in the Bible initially

was the mark of the beast.

That's the only thing that

grabbed my attention.

All these parables and

stories, I'm going, "I don't know."

That mark of the beast

thing that made sense

to me because once you

see these scanners

at the stores and whatever...

Maybe we all have the mark of the beast

already with a social security number.

- Who the hell knows?

- Well, the thing about the social security number

is that it's three sets of three.

- That's it? No.

- Yes.

One, two, three, one, three, it's four.

It's nine digits

- Is it?

- Yes. It's nine digits and it's just a...

One, t-

So three, three, three.

If you have three, three, three.

- Well, mine is for 446...

- Well, no, no, don't say it.

But no, it's nine digits.

Several places in the Bible

talks about the Earth is flat.

Does not move and everything revolves

around it. It's the center of the universe.

Now there's a place where I guess

Lucifer had taken Jesus up to what the,

where did He take him?

Had the tallest mountain on the planet

and he saw all four corners,

which is impossible on a globe.

- There's a lot of places.

- Now do I think

at one time that it was possible that

big bang thing could have happened?

And then all these magnetic particles

stuck together and

formed these different

planets and whatever.

I thought, well fuck,

that could have happened, you know?

But then again, you're thinking

that everything started from nothing.

Everything was just a black hole. Nothing

existed all sudden this explosion.

And that was my hole in that thing all

along. What caused the explosion?

But really, you look at that sun right now

man, does that look 93 million miles away?

Doesn't to me.

Now you've got to make

a wide sweeping turn here man.

- Still a little bumpy.

- Yes.

- I think I'm coming up on it.

- That's it. Is that right?

- Think it's what it is?

- Yes, that's it yes.

Yep, it looks like they did

some work right here.

- Right here.

- Holy shit, guys.

- That was something, wasn't it?

- I mean, seriously.

Okay let's start

disconnecting this thing.

Did we bring the jack stand

or did I leave it there for Waldo?

We want to put the rocket I guess

just right here where it's flat

and unload all that

stuff right here on this side.

Okay, let's go back down

to Amboy get the RV.

On launch day there will probably be a

bunch of people around here.

I just don't want anybody

down by the launch site.

It's too distracting. Then you get

people doing things nefariously.

- So how's Manny doing?

- He lost his mom.

Oh, shit.

I know someone else who lost their

mom this last week who does my eyebrows.

Well, in the 1950s

only about 1 out of 10

people died from it,

now it's 1 out of 3.

- So you go figure.

- Yes, well there's so many different types now.

Yes, do you think it's chemical

related or vaccine related?

Hey we're here.

Everything's still here man even bottled

water was still left there so that's good.

I think that my hammer at your house.

We want to remove this

part that's hanging

down because we aren't going to use it,

it's gonna go to the scrap yard.

Just need a small uh,

small little something to beat with.

Beat with? Well, alright,

beat it with this.

- Okay, that'll work.

- If we start pushing

it down we need to

have someone kind of,

I don't want to smash out the

windshield, you know what I mean?

- What are we doing now?

- We're going to remove this thing.

Is that what we're doing?

Fuck yeah, we're going to

leave it right here.

- Okay.

- Yes. Let's see if we can manhandle this.

Yes, all right.

Can you lift up on the end a little

bit? I don't know, see if that will-

- I need a hammer.

- Okay. All right.

- Wait a second.

- What?

Let me try this.

Yes, there you go.

Uh oh, watch out Mike, just

easy does it, don't hurt yourself.

- Okay, it's not working.

- Well, we need a hammer.

That ain't working. Let's figure

out another way to do this, okay?

- You hit your face?

- Yes, fucking busted my nose open.

Okay. This is - we're

going to get a

fucking hammer, like we're gonna need.

All right.

- Well it didn't hit the window.

- [laughs]

That's so heavy, Mike.

It's going to have to

yank it off with the-

-Yes, we're just move it forward here.

Fuck. That's what you wanted Mike?

Yes, well I wanted to do it with that.

Motherfucker.

- He needs my jump. Hold on Mike.

- Let me give you a jump.

- Let me give you a jump.

- I don't need a jump.

- All right.

- Okay, maybe I'll get us there.

Man that was some crazy stuff, huh?

[laughs]

[crashing noise]

It's stuck.

You guys need help? Are you good?

Yes.

- Mike, where are your lights at?

- Let's set those up.

Staying up here just keeps the-

- All right. Sorry about that.

I didn't mean that.

Okay, forward.

Beautiful. Yes, good job man.

All right, we got that taken care of.

You guys missed a little excitement. Mike

was doing some welding, a spark flew off,

hit the blanket and started a fire.

I go, uh oh. The first thing was,

what do I do? How do I take

care of this problem, right?

The only thing I could think

of was ice. I got a bag

of ice and I just dumped

it right on that blanket.

Then I thought I just wasted a

bag of ice that was not so smart but

I think that Mike got a little bit upset as

well. He threw his glasses in there and his

earmuffs or whatever and it's out.

This rocket, every time I've tested

it, or the time I jumped four years ago,

we took it apart right afterward.

We took the

rocket nozzle off just knowing

what had happened there

and check the parts there the course of

the parachutes were hanging

out of it everything

and just knowing what

this thing - it was exhausted.

It exhausted all the water vapor

out of it, it exhausted me.

It exhausted itself,

and there's a certain,

there's something to that.

It reminds me of a

friend of mine told me,

“We're supposed to come

to the end of our lives,

not with anything left but everything

exhausted. The tires are blown out,

you're out of gasoline,

you're coming to a screeching halt

and you've done everything

you can possibly do.

I guess there is some sense to that.

Anyway, we've got

someone coming up the road

here, I don't know who it is.

Hopefully, it's not anyone official.

I'm tired of dealing with people.

And it is.

How’re you doing?

Fine buddy.

I heard you're going to

try again for this Saturday.

I just wanted to come out and see exactly

where so we didn't have any conflicts

- with the other properties.

- Oh yes, so

They relooked at the

property, of course, and

in fact even weirder he

says "Michael, at the edge of the prop-"

Charlie's the one who

used to run everything

- for the most part for Albert here at Amboy.

- Mmmmhhm.

He was his righthand man,

now he's just hanging

around in Barstow

running his restaurant.

Okay.

He said even at the edge of this property

there's an abandoned car at the very edge

of this property. It has been there since

1963. Someone was killed in the car.

He thinks they hijacked

him for the gold he had.

Oh, really?

Yes.

They checked all this

property, this is the best way

to build the road and

that's what they did.

Okay.

We needed a flat place and

that's where we're at.

We're actually going to go vertical up.

Okay.

That way there's not, just like

I send an email to everyone,

there's a buffer for everywhere.

Okay.

We just want to

get through this and move on.

Well, yes.

So, it looks like this is all

on private property.

Oh, it is.

- It's all off BLM so

- Yes.

I just wanted to come

out here and just make

sure that there weren't

any issues with BLM Property.

Right.

Well, good luck and I wish you well.

Okay, buddy, thank you for your time.

I've had people come up

here while I'm digging

holes here 4 months

ago, on my hands and

knees, okay?

And they're asking me, “Can

I give you my number

and you can text me

were you getting ready

to jump?”

Really?

Yes, I'm going to stop

what I'm doing and text

about 50 people who

wants to come out and

see me where I'm asking

for people not even be here.

It's bizarre, it's bizarre.

We made a lot of progress

this morning, getting

the ramp in a position

to lay the other rails

on to it so now we're just waiting

on the crane to help us out really.

So what are we getting here?

I think water and ice and a propane

little tank for maybe grilling something.

They have water.

Do you have ice here?

No we don't.

Okay, so we know that.

Do you need a bag?

A bag for what?

Do you need a bag of ice?

Yes. I need a bunch of ice if you can.

- How many do you need?

- A lot.

I only got about four bags,

I can give you two of them at my place.

- Oh, really?

- Really!

- That's pretty cool.

- We'll take those two.

When I get done here, I'll go get them

and bring them back over to you.

- You will, will you? Okay. That's awesome.

- Thank you so much, really appreciate it.

I'm here to help.

- You're awesome and you only have-

- Don't let it go to my head.

- Well, only God is awesome, really.

- You're good. How's that?

- [laughs]

- Will you take that one?

Okay.

All right, great.

Amboy California rocket launch.

Bunch of these shirts right here.

And they have the neat Route 66 logo

in the front. Oooooo!

Neat, huh? So yeah, this is pretty cool.

And uh, I think if-

You want them maybe signed, Mad

Mike himself can sign them for you.

But they're only $20.

So get them while they're hot!

Because I think February 3rd all these

are going to be gone without a doubt.

[background noise]

This needs to be scooted this way.

Why isn't it going up?

Okay, there it goes.

Hey, Waldo, how are you doing?

- Good.

- Yes, good!

We're getting it.

It's good.

- He knows what he's doing. I know.

- Yep. Yep. Yep.

Now, what we got to do is,

we lash the whole thing together,

then we lift the whole rocket

up, and slide it in here.

Yes, that's fine.

Okay, cool.

- Yeah, unwrap it. Take your time.

- Get all the shit clear.

- Here I'll help.

- Let me get up there and help.

It almost looks like we know

what we're doing, you know? [Laughs]

Almost.

Let the crane do the work. Let's go.

Get ready. It's going to happen now.

Come on!

Let him lift it.

Easy. That's it.

Waldo, remind me to

recheck all this stuff

tomorrow, Okay? I was in a hurry.

Please?

Okay.

Thursday we put the water

and start heating all Friday.

Launch, Saturday.

We're there.

It's going to happen.

Yes.

What a fucking nightmare, huh?

[laughter]

[music]

Man, what a day yesterday.

You got that right.

I have never seen so much stuff

to get done in six hours.

That was a lot.

Mike we have footage of

the lunar eclipse last night

- Okay

- Which is the Earth's shadow, hitting

the moon, from the sun from being back

behind the globe.

So you don't know what the

flat Earth explanation is?

Once again it's perception.

Some people think in the

flat Earth the moment

that basically the moon

is just a disk facing us.

I don't know.

That's really interesting because

belief dictates behavior, right?

It does.

People may be walking

around in a false reality.

Okay. Read what's in that right there.

One of the first ingredients.

High fructose corn syrup.

Your body don't know what to do with it.

How about with that sweeteners from

aborted fetuses and stuff?

I mean, that's in food and everything.

That's some really,

it is crazy, isn't it?

I don't subscribe to the flat Earth.

This whole flat Earth thing made

this whole thing a bit popular.

But I don't like to be played.

I don't like to be played

as a tool or whatever

and to believe stuff that isn't real.

To find the truth, a good

place to start would

be to look in the Bible

and to research some

of the things that are said there.

The word firmament is in

the Bible many many times.

It's sort of a snow globe analogy.

The sky, the stars, and the heavens,

Outer space essentially.

That's all encapsulated

in this thing that the

King James Version refers

to as the firmament.

It leads people to the intelligent

design model of the universe.

This is Hebrews 11:1, Now faith

faith is the substance,

it's real, you can hold

on to it, right?

Of things hoped for.

The evidence of things not seen.

Do you get what I'm saying?

That's Hebrews 11:1. I think

it's a very powerful verse.

It's beyond us.

See you, Mike!

With no services out there

in Amboy, you think

that you bring everything, but

then you run out of stuff.

You need extra stuff or whatever

and it's back and forth, back and forth.

How long it will you

take you to fill that thing?

Look at all these tanks here.

It's pretty cool, huh?

Do you know if they sell those little

propane bottles, for a barbecue?

I need ten of these, and four

or five of these.

I'm going to buy you out.

I'm going to get them

all, eight of them.

I wonder what these things are.

[laughs].

Oh, boy, huh?

This is so cool.

It used to be peace out in the old days.

Now it's peace in, okay?

Yes, my man.

Peace in guys.

Pass it on man.

If you guys need anything else

you know where to find us.

- You betcha.

- Take care.

All right, we'll see you.

Yes!

[laughs]

I think a steel cable is

the way to go, don't you?

I mean, this is important.

A life is on the line.

Where's your beer at?

Just one twelve pack?

Some kind of organic

crackers or what have you?

This stuff can go in juices too.

I got spinach.

I got a whole bunch of spinach.

I got two things of spinach.

I do.

Here we go.

We found something!

That's what we're looking for, right?

[laughs]

Peace in to you. It's not peace

out anymore. It's peace in.

Peace in?

- Yes, it's peace in. Pass it on, okay?

- I will.

All right.

If it heats, nothing will stop it.

Think about that.

You're doing 100 miles an

hour, boom you launch,

you climb in fact,

you're going to arc over

my head a little bit.

You climb, you stall, your engine

cuts out a couple of seconds later.

Now you are going to go

higher, you'll still

climb, that's when

you'll start coming back.

What will happen is everything,

you'll tunnel vision.

In fact, you'll get two

little tunnels that go like

this like you're looking

through binoculars.

Then once it comes off

power, it will come back.

Look for the ground.

You'll know.

You'll know when you stop.

You quit climbing, and

then you stop for a second.

If you're climbing

straight up, which you

could be because even

though we've got a tilt

on it, it might act like a model rocket

where it comes off and makes squirly

stuff and then climbs up.

It could do that.

When it stalls, you'll stop.

It'll fall back like a

hammerhead stall like

an aircraft does when

you're doing stunts.

It'll fall like this and it'll go.

When it does that, boom, hit the chutes.

One, two.

One, two.

Do not use one.

Use two.

You're counting on something 10

years old to save your life, use two.

They won't jam up.

You're planning on using

one chute, aren't you?

Well, it depends on how it comes

down initially.

I knew it.

- Depends on how it comes down.

- If it feels like I'm coming down slow.

I wouldn't use one chute. You can do

it if you want. It's your life, man.

Another thing too is you

don't have the hammock seat

so you're going to take

all the loads of the impact.

If you use that back chute, she's

going to be hanging straight down.

Pop!

You know what, I'll tell you, if you

use one chute, it's not a good idea.

But if I were you, what I

would do is, put my feet

against the floorboards,

put my head up against

the back 'cause you're going to hit like

a motherfucker.

Sunday, your life is different.

Sunday.

Now, if we can get people

out of here, we're

probably going to do it

before the ambulance shows up,

like maybe noon or one o'clock.

Someone starts circulating that it ain't

going to happen today.

No, we're not saying that it's not

going to happen.

But we don't want people by the

side of the road!

I want people to leave.

No, listen.

We cannot say that it's

not going to happen today.

That's a lie.

I don't lie.

Okay. Well, Pat, you got to

realize I don't want anyone here.

- I understand.

- Believe me.

I'll put that caution tape all

the way through so it's handled.

Well it depends, if

there's 1000, 2000 people

on the side of this

road, it ain't handled.

There ain't going to be no 2000 people.

I mean, shoot, you only have $65

on GoFundMe.

Really, you think that the

whole world's looking at you?

I don't think so!

All I know is there's

been people from about

6 to 10 different

countries come out here.

Yes, well, ya know, we'll see.

Something else you need to be

concerned about with is my safety, Pat.

My safety, someone may come out

with a fucking gun to shoot me.

Hey, wait a second, Mike.

Wait.

I just want to be clear, okay?

And I understand what you're

saying and believe you me,

throughout this entire

process, your safety

has been my major concern in

every single way, shape, and form.

Someone could come here

with some weird thing

and they could shoot the

rocket, they could

They're going to be all over here.

I promise.

I will make that promise.

If I have to be out here,

I'll make sure about it.

Well, when people are wishing me dead,

I take that pretty seriously.

I guess they're going to have to

come through me first. How's that?

Pat, I'm going to put you in charge

of putting the water in the rocket.

Me and Mike, I'm going

to carry up the welder.

I brought the little welder.

It's here.

You're going to weld the other things.

Can you climb?

Are you going to be okay?

I don't know.

- Okay, well here's what I'll do.

- I'll go up there.

I'll put the welder up there.

I'll hang it.

Lord, Father, help me.

Give me the strength I need

to pull this shit off.

We just got to balls up and go up there and

weld or trust me to weld it, I'll weld it.

You always bitch about my weldings, so

I don't want to hear it.

Nice job, Pat.

I got to check the perimeter.

Who gives a shit what he believes?

He's launching something pretty cool.

This is America.

We can believe whatever we want.

Interesting theory but,

hey, get up there,

find me some proof and

I'll become a believer

because this guy's really the true

Rocketman, not the guy in Korea.

If he's successful, Amboy will

always be known as Rocket Town.

- Let's get the water in the rocket.

- Yes, let's get the water.

- You okay, Waldo?

- Yes, I'm okay.

I'll never use this hand

again, but I'm okay.

Stick it down in there, Mike.

- It's going to take a little while.

- Yes.

The reason I love steam rockets so

much is they're just so stinking simple.

I just love the fact

that you can get that

much propulsion out of

nothing more than water

that's heated up that hot.

Water has the unique ability

to store so much heat.

You could do it with liquid carbon dioxide

but getting liquid carbon dioxide is a heck

of a lot more complicated

than just opening

the faucet and filling

the thing with water.

This bottle right here is the last gallon

you're going to put into the rocket.

I have a few drops of

water, that's holy water,

blessed by the Pope that

came from the Vatican.

It's powered by the faith

of the Catholic Church.

So when you put that in there, I'm hoping

it's going to add a little bit more

good luck to the project.

- Yes, we could use all of it.

- [laughs] I hear you.

Don't spill it.

Yes, we're going out

to the main road, put

up our barricades to

keep the public out.

That's what Waldo and Mike asked me, at

least, people be back a quarter mile.

That's close to a half mile on the

highway and that'll be just great.

There we go. They know where

to come in. All right, back to the

- Back to drawing board

- Launch pad.

That's all there is to it.

Now, it's all a matter of time.

After the water hits 212 degrees, it'll

start turning into steam.

Then a few hours after that, it'll

start making really good pressure.

Then he gets in and goes.

I'm a science teacher.

I teach at probably the closest

middle school to this place.

Flat Earthers, they give knowledge

something to push off of.

They're getting people to question.

Hopefully, the real science

flies like a rocket.

If the moon's going

around in a circle, there

has to be a force that

makes it go in there.

Why can't it just be

angels suspending it all?

Why can't it be what?

Angels or why can't it be magic or God?

Well, Kurt Vonnegut

said science is magic that works.

Like Mike, he had a scale rocket

he tested.

He believes in science

because I know he has

force divided by mass

equals acceleration.

Whether he walks away from this,

it's going to be based on science.

That's it.

- Danny, this is my daughter Stephanie.

- No way, hi!

- Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you!

There's never a dull moment with him

as my father.

He's always doing some crazy project.

This isn't his dream but he sees that same

thing in Mike and I think that he's here to

support that as best as he can.

That's my biggest fear

today is that something

goes awry and he holds

it on his conscience.

This one here on the side.

When it comes down to

that last few moments,

there's going to be some hesitation,

I don't care how tough you are.

We came out to watch the rocket launch.

A lot of people's got the idea

that he's just some kind of a nut.

This is the Wright

Brothers all over again

but it's 2018. This

is amazing stuff.

Give it a little tap.

Danny, it's 150. The rocket's now taboo.

Tell everybody, okay?

None of you are allowed past this tent.

This is why.

It's a bomb.

It could spring a leak and it'll

explode so fast it'll tear you apart.

It'll kill everybody within

a few hundred feet of it.

Remember, that's a bomb.

All right, so I just got to

pull the pin on the big chute.

You're going to pull the pins on those

inside and hand them to me, right?

Yes.

I'll tap on the canopy and when

I tell you that,

we're going to pull

the blue thing away.

If there's any problem

It don't even seem real.

What do I do if shit goes south?

Did you leave a letter or something?

What the fuck do you want me to do?

If worse comes to worst, do you

want me to give your shit to your son?

Your son, okay. Whichever

son shows up, right? Okay.

We're about ready to make

some fucking history here.

That's what we're going to do.

You are armed and dangerous.

Are you ready?

I guess so.

I'm going to close the son of a bitch.

Here we go.

I'm leaving you now, okay?

Take it to your right. Okay, Pat, let

it fall on your side. Let it go.

Stay clear of it.

Let it fall.

Let's get out of here.

Let's go, Mike!

- Come on, Mike.

- Hang in there, buddy.

We're all clear?

- Mike, launchpad is clear.

- Godspeed, my buddy. Take care.

- Oh, shit!

- Hey, tell him to hold one second.

Tell him to hold one second!

Tell him to hold one second!

Mike, hold one second.

Waldo, he didn't acknowledge.

Get out of there!

You're clear, Mike.

Go for it.

Mike, what is going on?

- [unintelligible]

- What did he say?

Say again.

Mike, you got a copy?

It's not releasing!

I don't know what to do.

The ball valve is stuck!

Did it move at all?

- No, it's stuck. [Unintelligible]

- Say again.

I think if it hasn't fired

by now, it's not going to fire!

- Okay.

- I'm going to come get you.

Shit, I'm going to regret this.

- We're going to get him out of there.

- It's on hold right now.

Okay. What's the chance

of it blowing right now?

- A lot!

- A lot?

- Seriously. Honestly.

- Yes, I know. That's why

What about, is there any way to

relieve pressure from somewhere else?

There's no safe way

to discharge this from inside

or I would already have done it.

Okay. Hang tight. We're going to

get the ramp up and get you out.

Get on that. Turn your back

in case the fucker launches.

- Relax.

- Don't jerk!

- Fucking give me a fucking break, would you?

- I'm sorry, Waldo.

I'm getting you out of a

fucking armed rocket.

Hold onto the back of my neck. Hold onto

my shoulders. I'm going to pull you out.

- Ready?

- No, no, no!

- Be careful.

- Don't bitch. Come on.

Fucking do not touch that rocket.

I couldn't unarm that guy.

- Come on.

- Hoist me out.

Dude. Come on out. Here you go.

Step up on the platform.

Come on.

That was my worst fucking nightmare.

- Get me away from this motherfucker!

- Okay. Hold on. Hold on.

- We won't be doing this today.

- The piston's locked inside.

Back up, please!

The pistons locked inside

the rocket nozzle.

Come on, walk it off.

I thought maybe I left in the plug

for the vent because it will not fire

if the vent's plugged.

I kept pulling and pulling.

It was behind my helmet.

I finally got it through the tie

strap and there was no vent on it.

- That one rocket is still armed.

- Okay?

We're going to have to do

some reengineering here.

What we got to do is, here's what we do.

We let the rocket cool down.

When it's down to

The Piston's stuck in the nozzle.

I can't get it. I've armed it five

times. I yanked on the ball valve,

I turned the, it's got

the proper pressure.

Shit. Just kill me.

Ten, nine, eight, seven,

six, five, four, three, two, one!

Ignition.

Liftoff. Go Falcon Heavy.

[applause]

My life is basically

stopped until this happens.

Everything I got is into this thing.

I'm in the World Series Poker.

I'm at the final table, okay?

And all my chips are pushed in.

I tell you that because I don't have my

rent money right now.

I was laid off from my job last Friday.

I don't have a car.

Everything's on that

ramp right now, okay?

So I'm going to take pretty big offense

to anyone who thinks I chickened out

or didn't want to see this happen.

I've got to do this.

Everything I've got is

in that rocket right now.

So what happened is the actuator last

time was a little too small.

It wouldn't launch.

It didn't have the power.

Now, he's gone to a bigger actuator

which was set at four inches in diameter.

Now it's six inches diameter.

It's double the size so the

rocket should fire today.

I got the whole inside of the

cockpit foamed and taped.

'Cause, when he builds

things, he has bolts sticking out.

He doesn't realize when

he's going to hit so

hard, all this stuff

becomes a razor blade.

It'd be silly that he survives the launch

and everything happens and then he hits the

ground and gets opened

up and bleeds out before

we get to him, so all

that stuff is foamed

up the best I could figure out.

I have lived with Waldo

and his rocket adventures

all these years, 20 years

almost, but to actually

see a launch, I haven't

been a part of that.

If anything happens to Mike, I

just didn't want that in my head.

For some reason, today, I

just thought, "You know what?

Today's the day.

I need to come out."

I forgot my lucky jacket.

It's time we're going

to rock and roll now.

I can't launch a rocket or do

something crazy without lucky jacket.

God does work in mysterious ways

especially here in the desert.

The whole reason for the faux pas last

time was just to get it right this time.

So, here we are.

We have all the right

stuff and it's countdown.

It's countdown to launch.

Okay.

- Hang on.

- I got it.

- I'm touching.

- Too high.

Okay. Everyone away. Let's go!

All right. Here we go.

Everything clear?

Over.

Is everything clear?

Over.

Everything is clear.

Go for it.

Go! Go! Go!

[cheers]

- Chutes!

- Oh shit!

I love it!

It's coming right down over here!

How am I coming down speedwise?

How am I coming down? Over.

- You're looking good.

- A little fast baby.

You think a little fast?

Chute! Say hit the chute!

Throw the other chute.

Let's go!

Mike, you there?

You got a copy?

This is something about dreams.

It's got to be big enough to scare you.

That's the first thing.

And for that kind of dream,

it takes everything.

It takes all your time, your

income, emotionally, physically.

It takes everything from you.

And it's supposed to.

Is it worth it? I think that's

another thing I ponder every day.

I don't know.

We'll see in the end.

Mission accomplished

as self-taught rocket scientist

successfully launched himself into

the California sky.

The Associated Press

reports 61 year old Mike

Hughes propelled himself

nearly 1900 feet into

the air in the Mojave Desert

before landing pretty hard.

Other than injuring his

back, he should be fine.

He says he's "relieved"

after the launch and

his ultimate goal is

to launch himself at

least 52 miles above Earth by the end of

the year to prove that the planet is flat.

All those naysayers were wrong,

weren't they?

Is that bizarre?

You didn't want to miss that, did you?

I wish I could've watched it.

I'd have a stunt double but I can't find

anybody with the hair like mine.

You really kicked some A.

Waldo I couldn't do it without you.

Go, Waldo.

Of course, you couldn't.

Now we go to space!

[cheering]

Michael Hughes, Mad Mike

to his fans, now has

a plan to go 62 miles up

to the edge of space

where he'll be able to see,

or not see the curve of Earth.

My rocket will fire, pull me through

the balloon

and then actually once

the rocket quits firing

I will actually fly like Superman

for like another 30 seconds.

- [laughs]

- My favorite, barbecued moron.

- Where do you want me to put my money?

- I'm being honest.

I would think putting Mad

Mike in space for $2 million.

You better make that motherfucker

a two seater and I want to sit in front.

I don't want to sit behind

you because I don't

want the last thing of

us going into Earth

is me penetrating through you.

[laughter]

What would it take for me to

convince you that the world is round?

I don't believe anyone

could convince me the

world is round because

they have no proof.

Well, have you ever seen the

Queen of England?

- Not in person.

- Okay, then does she exist?

I don't know.

Bet you've never seen the face of

a sexually satisfied woman. Burn!

[laughter]

Mad Mike, you done?