My Week: Richard Noble

The wheels start to turn for the man behind an awesome project: a car that can travel at 1,000mph

Monday

Into work at 5am and flog through the overnight emails and bring the accounts up to date. At 10am in Portcullis House Westminster for a briefing meeting with Gerald Howarth, shadow Defence minister. This is the first he has heard of Bloodhound, which had been hatched by Lord Drayson in 2007. Bloodhound driver Andy Green arrives just in time and the meeting is a great success. Out of Portcullis by 11.30 and then to Mission21, our agency in Holborn for filming for the launch.

Tuesday

I have to be at Gatwick before 7am. This is a very long-standing engagement to give a lecture to the Toulouse branch of the Royal Aeronautical Society. On arrival at Toulouse I manage to get a hotel room for three hours' kip and then it's round the A380 production line which is just incredible – and then off for the presentation. There are truly excellent questions, most of which hinge around the need for the next generation of engineers and the perceived failure of the UK education system to deliver.

Wednesday

Wednesday is crisis day – this is when it could all go wrong. There are 300 guests coming to the press launch on Thursday and the whole Bloodhound launch simply has to be a success. The rest of the world is going backwards and we are going forward with good news. I am ready for every conceivable crisis, but they don't happen. The new team has it running really smoothly. Lord Drayson's speech arrives – it is absolutely outstanding. I have to be at the Clorox sponsor dinner at the Bluebird by 8pm. I do my speaking bit, gulp the first course and then head off for the dinner with the Swansea University team in Kensington. Almost all the team are there and we are able to watch the Bloodhound feature on the BBC News.

Thursday

My PA Tricia arrives at 4.00am and we are at the Science Museum by 5.30am ready for the Breakfast News items and the launch. Andy does his impeccable bit and by now we know it's a success – the YouTube figures from the BBC footage are climbing fast. Eventually the Science minister Lord Drayson arrives and does a cracking job with his speech. Soon we introduce the education section which I am worried may turn 300 people off. But I shouldn't have worried: engineer and BBC presenter Kate Bellingham introduces Sara the teacher with 10 well-behaved schoolchildren who have been trialling the engineering for schools. This is a huge success – we have been going 60 minutes and the audience is still with us.

Friday

I'm back in the office by 12 and find a barrage of emails from interested parties. I can't really keep up with it all. Another early night. I need to get as much sleep as I can to prepare for the enormous job ahead of us.