FLORIDA, USA – Two Red Bull Air Race competitors shared an unforgettable aviation spectacle as they witnessed the launch of the STS-130 Space Shuttle launch earlier this month. American Michael Goulian and British pilot Nigel Lamb watched the mesmerising event just three miles from the Kennedy Space Center launch pad on 8 February. The Space Shuttle Endeavour and the six astronauts on board rocketed into the night sky at 04:14 EST.
“The real excitement of being up close is the noise really and the fact that it turns into daylight and there’s the emotional buzz of the crowd,” said Lamb, fired up after the event. “The noise hits you about ten or 12 seconds after lift off. You’re about three miles away – which is as close as you can be in the VIP area – and the noise is just mind-blowing. You can see the air beating against your body; it’s just fantastic. That’s all over in about 20 seconds and then you have the commentary to follow. Even people hundreds of miles up the coast were watching and seeing a really spectacular sight of the flame and the separation.”
The STS-130 crew’s mission was to deliver a third module known as the Tranquility Node that connects to the International Space Station. They also transported a cupola to be used as a control room for robotics. Goulian has a particular interest in the mission as a personal friend was aboard Endeavour. Mission Specialist Nick Patrick, on his second voyage into space, flew at the Goulian family’s flying school in Massachusetts back in the 1990s.
“I have so much respect for the astronauts,” confided Goulian. “It’s downplayed a lot but it’s a very dangerous thing and they are such a bunch of great dreamers, so smart and really still pioneers even today. I get really inspired watching a launch. I’m a little bit of a space geek and this is my third shuttle launch and the second time we’ve had personal friends going up. You just can’t believe how much thrust and power these machines make and it’s hard to believe that man can create such a machine.”
Lamb, also captivated by the idea of space travel added, “I’ve always been fascinated by the space race. I remember as a little kid, Uri Gagarin being the first man in space. It was fantastic to be at Kennedy and the VIP area is the Saturn V building, so seeing the scale of it all was amazing. The whole of space was an unknown and these guys were climbing into a tiny capsule on top of what was the size of a fairly big building – a huge explosive device. It must have been incredibly exciting. The power to weight ratio must have been about 1:1.5 within minutes it was doing thousands of miles an hour.”
The shuttle landed back on Earth on Sunday 21 February after 13 days in space.
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