While we are no closer to determining whether the earth is actually just a giant frisbee, "Mad" Mike Hughes and his steam-powered rocket did indeed take to the skies!
The most interesting point I saw in the NRP article was:
Hughes converted to his flat-Earth beliefs only in recent years, not long after his first fundraising campaign netted just 0.2 percent of its goal. I don't think he falls into the stupid category for his flat-Earth beliefs, on that I would say he is an opportunist (just like most religious leaders), it is the followers who are generally the nutcases.
I don't know what a steam powered rocket is, sounds interesting. If his target was 1800 feet, and he achieved it, then obviously this guy is doing his homework. Hopefully he is also doing his homework concerning safety as well. Having paramedics on standby, and the backboard may be more a safety measure than an indication of serious injury.
I haven't watched any footage yet, nor have I looked into this closely, but my suspicion is that the most dangerous part was the initial acceleration. That is based on my guess what a steam rocket is, and I am making the assumption he did his calculations correctly. The "burn" time would be rather short, and thrust would be decreasing throughout the "burn" - that would produce very high G forces. A chemical rocket (manned) would have a much longer burn, and it would be fairly steady thrust allowing you to keep G forces manageable.
The calculations would be interesting, but there obviously is an altitude ceiling when the G forces become lethal. I don't see ever achieving escape velocity with a steam rocket, for many reasons, but managing G forces is a critical one.
Update: Just watched the footage, and read some more about this. It is basically as I presumed, thrust provided by superheated steam. I couldn't find any technical details other than the initial pressure was supposed to be 350psi but they were unable to achieve that and went with 340psi. The altitude achieved was 1875 feet, I believe the target at 350psi was 2000 feet. The maximum velocity was 350mph, but no information in max G attained. Watching the video, it looked like they had about 2.5 seconds of thrust, but as I pointed out earlier that would be declining over that time. It would be nice to know the size and material used in the pressure vessel. I am assuming they only relied on the track, and fins for trajectory control.
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