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Mike Hughes, born on February 9, 1956 and died in Barstow, California on February 22, 2020, was an American limousine driver and stuntman, considered by the press to be an amateur astronaut, known for his homemade rockets (the last of which caused his death) and for trying to prove the idea of a flat Earth.
Hughes lived in Apple Valley, California. In 2002, he set a Guinness World Record with a 31m jump in a Lincoln Town Car limousine. Hughes said in an interview with the Associated Press in 2018 that he plans to run for governor of California.
According to the Associated Press, Hughes is building its first manned rocket in 2014. On January 30, it rose to 419 meters in just over a minute over Winkelman, Arizona. According to CBC News, Hughes collapsed after landing and took three days to recover. Hughes said injuries sustained during the flight kept him incapacitated for a fortnight.
In 2016, Hughes launches a fundraiser for a rocket and raises $310. Announcing that his goal would be to prove that the Earth is flat, he enjoys the support of the Flat Earth Society and the Platist community and receives $7,875 in sponsorship. The announced aim of his initiative is to produce a photo of the entire Earth in the form of a flat disc. After the stuntman’s death, sources close to him claim that he used Flat Earth as a means of promoting his funding, without being a true supporter.
The launch of the rocket was initially planned for 25 November 2017 but Hughes postponed it for the first time until 2 December because of difficulties in obtaining the necessary authorizations: he moved a launchpad 6 km away so that it could take off and land on private property.
On 22 February 2020, at the age of 64, Hughes died near Barstow, California, after the rocket he was flying crashed near Barstow, California when his parachutes accidentally stalled on take-off.
The scientific press reported the day after his death that if he believed in the Flat Earth theory and other conspiracy theories, it was out of love for rockets that he built his own, not to prove his ideas.