A LAUNCH-pad tragedy has shattered the hopes of two British graduates of becoming the first European students to have an experiment in space.

A Russian soldier was killed last week when an unmanned Soyuz rocket crashed back to earth seconds after lift-off.

York graduates Neil Mel-ville and David Waterman, there to watch the launch, were knocked off their feet by the blast.

The two 22-year-olds were both slightly hurt when the 300-tonne rocket exploded in a huge ball of flame just half-a-mile from them.

The rocket had been carrying irreplaceable materials that would have made the former York undergraduates the first European students to have an experiment in space.

Neil, who now works for the European Space Agency (ESA), said he was still coming to terms with the accident at a launch site at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, 500 miles north of Moscow.

He said: "I am so glad to be alive. It is only now that I am starting to realise how lucky we are."

The pair travelled to northern Russia to watch the launch of a rocket carrying a protein crystallisation experiment they had been working on for 18 months as students.

But at the launch an onboard computer cut the rocket's engines when a first-stage rocket failed, causing it to veer off course.

Neil said: "The rocket had gone out of sight above the cloud cover when everything went silent. I now know this was a very bad thing as it meant the engines had stopped."

The rocket crashed less than 800 metres away, throwing spectators to the ground and smashing windows in nearby buildings.

"We saw the flash and then the shockwave hit us," said Neil, who like David suffered cuts and bruises.

"When it hit the ground all of the fuel exploded. It was a very violent explosion."