The noise and the sight of liftoff were nothing short of awe-inspiring, said London's Alan Davenport just after watching his former colleague at UWO launched into space Thursday morning.

The space shuttle Discovery had a perfect launch at 10:41 a.m. Thursday, with Canadian Bjarni Tryggvason and five other astronauts aboard for an 11-day mission.

Watching from a nearby vantage point were Davenport, head of the Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel where Tryggvason was once research associate, and wind tunnel research director David Surry.

The rainclouds that threatened early in the morning gave way to haze as the launch took place. "You could see a good deal of the orbit and then watch it literally disappearing into thin air," Davenport said from Florida.

"I really wasn't prepared for how awe-inspiring it was."

Davenport was the closest any visitor could view the sight, a distance of about five kilometres. "If it had been any closer, it would have been deafening. Even though we were some distance away, it was just spectacular and awe-inspiring."

Viewing the launch from much farther away, in London, were colleagues at the wind tunnel, who viewed events via the Internet.

Tryggvason carried with him a UWO crest and a disc bearing the wind tunnel logo.

MESSAGE:

He also sent an "eloquent" message through his daughter to colleagues, family and friends during a send-off party in Florida Wednesday night. In that crowd were also Sarnia-born astronaut Chris Hadfield (who was a big hit with the children, Davenport said), Tryggvason's brother Svarar and Iceland President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson.

Tryggvason was born in Iceland and left with his family for Canada when he was a child.

During his stint in space, Tryggvason will be testing a technology he helped develop. It's called a microgravity vibration isolation mount (MIM) and it reduces vibration and enables more precise experiments to take place on the spacecraft.