Stakes and Hughes meant for this launch to be a steppingstone to the creation of what they called their 'rockoon,' a combination of a rocket and balloon. 'When you climb inside the rocket there's a 50% chance you're not gonna climb back out of it.' But, Stakes added at the time, 'Mike is a daredevil and he's willing to take the risk.'

'This is a 50-50 deal,' Stakes added in a 2019 interview with. 'It's a dangerous thing to do,' he told. But, while that launch was a success, he told in a 2019 interview that he landed pretty hard in the Mojave desert, and this hard landing even caused him to get a compressed vertebra.Įspecially with a difficult, painful landing under his belt, Hughes was aware of how risky the daredevil feat was. In 2018, Hughes successfully launched to 1,875 feet (0.57 kilometers) in an earlier version of the homemade rocket. According to Chapman, the rocket 'appeared to rub against the launch apparatus, which might have torn the parachutes attached to it,' AP reported. Justin Chapman, a freelance journalist, witnessed the crash along with his wife, he told the AP.

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