The Top Gear Story by Martin Roach Page B

Robin Reliant into a Space Shuttle (although they did not actually ask the ill-fated question, ‘How hard can it be?’, this stunt certainly falls into that category). I can’t quite imagine the production meeting when the idea first came up but clearly no one dismissed it as absurd, so in Episode 4 of Series 9 (a very strong period for such mad features), we have the team working with space engineers to create the impossible: a three-wheel re-useable space rocket built from a car normally associated with Peckham’s finest market traders. Perhaps only Top Gear could think of this and certainly,only Top Gear would actually go and do it! The show’s production notes class this as ‘easily Top Gear ’s most ambitious film’.
    Again, like the ‘Toybota’ feature, this is a stunning example of a clearly ludicrous idea being executed with considerable cost and precision. Despite the hilarious premise, they set about the challenge with no expense spared. The mechanical process started from a fairly simplistic base with Hammond saying they chose the Reliant because it was light, cheap and ‘pointy’. The team called on the skills of The Rocketeers – the same team who helped them send a Mini down a ski-jump in an earlier challenge.
    Very quickly, however, the project escalated and within a few seconds of screen time, we are shown an engineer’s workshop containing a complex structure with a maze of high-quality welding and metal components carefully woven into its framework. Huge solid rocket fuel boosters towered above the Robin Reliant. Hammond and May were clearly stunned by the progress (Clarkson was absent, having declared this the most stupid idea ever and so he refused to get involved). For all the hilarity, this was not an actual gag – if successful, the Robin would become the largest non-commercial rocket ever to be launched in Europe.
    Next up, they went to a high-tech wind tunnel where at first they just stood in it with the Top Gear dog (complete with goggles), but soon the boffins joined them to put a scale model of the Robin Reliant through its paces in order to check aerodynamic prowess. Needless to say, it was pretty useless and the bespectacled boffin-type offered no glimmer of optimism for its chances in space.
    Pushing the boundaries still further, a scale model of the Robin was made and attached to a very expensive remote control plane, the idea being that once the rocket had flown in space, it would need guiding back to earth for its landing (even theusually daring Richard Hammond was not about to climb into this machine). So by now they had involved rocket engineers, remote control champion racers and tech-mad wind-tunnel geniuses.
    The launch site was on a military base in Newcastle and once more the costs kept racking up: so we saw cranes, haulage trucks and endless personnel putting the Robin Reliant rocket in place. Despite the comic overview, the stunt was in fact highly dangerous, not least due to the presence of the volatile solid fuel mix of nitrous oxide and rubber – essentially laughing gas and old tyres. Worse still, the launch site was a military base renowned for having scores of unexploded bombs hidden underground.
    Finally, the big moment came and Hammond and May were visibly exhilarated when the rocket launched into the sky. It was truly glorious and when the solid rocket fuel boosters detached on command, the engineers and presenters quite literally danced for joy. Their joy turned to despair as the second-phase rockets failed to detach and the overly heavy car-shuttle plummeted to earth, hitting the ground and exploding into a massive fireball. In the meteoric collision, nothing was left. The car was completely destroyed, but one badly burnt wing with a Union Jack sticker intact was recovered and now sits in the Top Gear office.
    So, being critical, they didn’t succeed in the challenge of making a re-useable space shuttle