No giant leap for mankind
Posted by Jeremy Clarkson at 12:55PM on Monday 19 February, 2007 14 Comments
They failed. Hammond and May spent 13 days working on something which crashed into the ground and made a big hole.
Meanwhile, on what I keep reminding them is a car show, I reviewed a Brabus Mercedes and a Porsche 911, which are cars.
Not very good ones, if I'm honest, but cars nevertheless.
It's coming to something when I'm the sensible one...
That said, I loved the moment when that Robin Shuttle actually took off. And my respect for the boffins of Glossop who built it is immense.
If they hadn't had Hammond and May wandering about getting in the way, who knows, the final explosive bolt might have worked as well.
It was a great piece of television, made even greater by the fact I hadn't had to go to Northumberland or Glossop to make it...
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14 Comments for "No giant leap for mankind"
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I was really quite impressed. The fact that you were able to develop and execute such a plan in such a short time should be a lesson for NASA.
Overall an amazing feat. One thing I don't remember being mentioned - do you know how high it went?
But I do agree, 13 days to end up with a big hole in the ground is a failure, but it didn't stop me laughing at it.
As it happens, I was wondering whether my next car should be a 911 or a Brabus Merc.
Who says Top Gear isn't relevant?
Keep it coming!
You need to balance the sensible stuff with the crazy stuff. Too many car reviews and it's just another car show, too much crazy stuff and it's useless (but fun) T.V. Like everything else in life, it's about balance.That's probably why TG is one of the only car shows I really watch.
We're a few series behind in Australia. The last episode on TV was the one with Clarkson in the Honda NSX and the Playstation challenge. It's really getting a warm welcome down here so keep up the good work guys, you really have one of the best jobs around.Amazing display of courage and engineering.One small step for Top Gear, one giant explosion for a Reliant spacecraft. Maybe with a few changes, the next step is surely the moon
Was the blackbox recovered??
That Brabus looked about as uncontrollable to drive round the track, as it was trying to steer the Robin into space!
No offence but it played like a very scripted event to me. I still laughed my butt off during the whole thing. The big explosion at the end was what made it fake.
Did anyone really think the Robin would make it safely back to the ground even if the bolts hadn't exploded?
From my point of view, it's better that the thing crashed and created a big hole.
Also, just think for a second of how much work it would take to make a car actually spaceproof - you'd be a lot better off just making the damned thing from scratch!