Astronomy Down Under

The British shuttle

21 Feb at 11:44 by Wilson

This is all over the net, but it’s too cool not to mention: the folks at Top Gear, a British TV show (seen in Australia on SBS, sharing the 19:30 Monday slot with Mythbusters) built and launched a space shuttle. They based their design around a Reliant Robin, a British three-wheeled automobile. The idea was to have the “orbiter” separate from the boosters and external tank at around 3,000 feet (1km or so) and glide back to Earth, landing somewhat softly. It didn’t quite work out, but the result was very impressive.

It must have been an amazingly expensive stunt, and was brilliantly executed; that was possibly the largest amateur rocket ever launched in Europe, and one of the largest in the world. Oh, the boosters and the external tank were built in, basically, a large garage.

This is the video of the launch:

And Google Video has the whole, 21-minute long, segment.