Countach Legacy #2: Beyond Boundaries with Maurizio Cheli

The second episode of the “Countach Legacy” video series dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the iconic super sports car from Sant’Agata Bolognese brings you to outer space with astronaut and test pilot Maurizio Cheli: from the moment he looked up, Maurizio Cheli never looked down again. 

Moon landing in 1969 brought about an intense change that influenced everything that came after: from the perception of the world to the sense of possibility that it gave to many different sectors, automotive included. It was now the time to dare, and this is exactly what inspired the creation of the Lamborghini Countach, with its audacious lines that shaped the design of all subsequent Lamborghinis.

Maurizio Cheli joined the European Space Agency (ESA) in 1992 and was then sent to the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston where he would train as Mission Specialist, that is professional astronaut. In 1996 he attended the Space Shuttle Columbia STS-75 Tethered Satellite mission, first Italian to assume the role of Mission Specialist. During the expedition, while he was flying over our planet, he took a picture of Mount Everest and since then, he always desired to reach that peak, and so he did: after having seen the world from above, in 2018 he even reached the “top of the world.