Blast Off Live - ground control to Major Tim

The caption on Victoria Derbyshire’s morning programme said it all: "Tim Peake Blast Off". Tuesday morning is usually a quiet backwater of daytime TV, but today it hosted the most frenzied focus on space travel in the UK since Helen Sharman flew to the Mir space station in 1991. Nearly a quarter of a century on, British interest has peaked once again as Major Tim Peake became the first Briton to blast off for the international space station.

In the Science Museum, Professor Brian Cox and the host of Mock the Week walked through the final 45-minute countdown in a hyperactive atmosphere supplied by 2,500 schoolchildren. Mario, Sharice and Abdullah were asked to test some space food - Mario was singularly unimpressed with a pumpkin and celery puree ("not very good"). An astronaut with a highly American moustache called Chris explained the functionality of the high-tech space suit and, worn under it, the low-tech nappy. Dara O Briain, too full of figure to blast off himself, was full of figures about speed, altitude and micro-gravity.

Next to his two co-pilots he looks like Vic Reeves in a jumpsuit

Before lift-off the nation’s great and good wished Peake well: the PM, Doctor Who, Gary Lineker and the presenters of The One Show among sundry other total VIPs. “I know the view is going to be amazing,” advised Sting. A Penzance choir knocked out “Rocket Man”. It’s not clear that Peake received any of these stirring exhortations. As he hung around waiting for lift-off, live shots of him wedged into his body-formed seat showed him listening not to Elton but other inspirational space-themed music supplied by U2 (“Beautiful Day”), Queen (“Don’t Stop Me Now”) and Coldplay (“A Sky Full of Stars”). No Major Tom for Major Tim.

On Sunday Peake introduced himself and his mission to the nation in a Horizon Special video diary. He came across as a man of unflappable good cheer, although next to his two co-pilots he looks like Vic Reeves in a jumpsuit. Seasoned cosmonaut Yuri Malechenko seems to view excessive use of facial muscles as a pointless extravagance. As for astronaut Tim Kopra, tasked with rifling through the thesaurus to come up with a description of space walking, he paused. “It gives you pause,” he said. In an hour of need these are the types you’d want to open the batting.

At the Baikonur Cosmodrome this morning Tim was still all smiles as he made the short walk from his hotel to catch the bus to the cosmodrome. The BBC, in the shape of a presenter with rocket-propelled hair called Dallas, was path-side to ask him how he was feeling. “Fantastic,” he said reassuringly. Then there was another short walk from the cosmodrome to catch the bus to the launchpad. “Go, Tim!” shouted Dallas like a space cheerleader.

And go Tim did, a bright light in the sky climbing away from the zoom lens until he - and Yuri and the other Tim - disappeared into the ether. As they entered what Professor Cox pronounced the legal definition of space, Chris with the moustache told us that from now on the occupants would be entirely focused on what was happening inside the capsule. “He’s got six months to look out the window,” chortled O Briain. But ground control must have told Major Peake that he was on screen, because he stopped prodding at instruments, turned to the camera, smiled and raise a thumb in salutation to all of us watching in wonder down here. A star is born.