24h Le Mans
This upcoming weekend in July 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the first man on the moon, and in honour of the occasion, we will be sharing a series of articles devoted to unique parallels between the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans and various space missions. In 2008, the start at the 76th running of the race was given simultaneously by astronauts and cosmonauts from the International Space Station (ISS) and at the circuit.
2008 marked the 100th anniversary of the first plane flight in Europe by the Wright brothers, at the site of what is today the Mulsanne Straight. To commemorate the event, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest set up a unique start procedure for the 76th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
A copy of the 1908 Flyer plane first rolled along the pit straight, pulled by a local Léon-Bollée car, with on board French astronaut Jean-Loup Chrétien, American astronaut Mark Brown and Russian cosmonaut Vladimir Titov. Then two astronauts from the International Space Station orbiting approximately 400 km above the circuit, Sergey Volkov and Oleg Kononenko, waved the French flag in perfect sync with Chrétien-Brown-Titov giving the start at the circuit.
Before unleashing the competitors for 24 hours of racing, the symphonic poem "Also Sprach Zarathustra" composed Richard Strauss played over the speakers at the Le Mans circuit. The music was also used for Stanley Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey."
Enjoy learning about the links between the 24 Hours of Le Mans and various space missions through this series of articles in honour of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
