Photo: AP
Hip-hop star B.o.B., who last year started a minor feud with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson over the extremely resolved question of whether the Earth is flat (it is not), apparently does not consider the matter settled.
Last week, B.o.B. created a GoFundMe page to prove to him that the world is, in fact, curved. His plan?
“I would like to send one, if not multiple satellites as far into space as I can or into orbit as I can to find the curve,” B.o.B. said in a promotional video for the campaign on Monday. “I’m really … I’m looking for the curve.”
Of note is there are already approximately 1,456 operational satellites in orbit around the Earth, according to a Union of Concerned Scientists survey from earlier this year, and innumerable photos and videos taken during the launching and subsequent spaceflight of said satellites which support that the planet is round.
OK, look, we can and already have gone into extreme detail on all the scientific information showing the planet is roughly spherical (more accurately, an ellipsoid). But given that B.o.B. has now been on the flat-earth beat for well over a year, perhaps some sort of physical demonstration of the laws of physics is in order so we can all just move past this already.
Image: Screengrab via GoFundMe
So hear me out. B.o.B. has only raised $US581 ($732) of his $US200,000 ($252,027) goal as of Monday evening. Fortunately, Popular Mechanics noted that the raw materials to send a camera up to 17.5 miles (28 kilometers) into the stratosphere using a balloon, as a group of MIT students did in 2009, could cost as little as $US150 ($189). At that price point, B.o.B. could already launch four missions if he threw in $US20 ($25) of his own money.
Alternately, he could spend the extra money on a better camera. Photos from the 2009 flight are certainly taken from high up to capture the curvature of the planet, if not necessarily very well.
If B.o.B. raised closer to $US1,000 ($1,260), he’d be able to afford a much more high-definition series of images such as those captured by a pair of Florida students in 2015.
A more recent University Of Leicester project, seen below, did not have a listed cost, but it’s certainly much less than $US200,000 ($252,027).
The only other prominent people to back B.o.B.’s interpretation, basketball stars Shaquille O’Neal and Kyrie Irving, have since insisted they were just joking.