BRUCE BUCKINGHAM: And here come the astronauts. We have, being led by Commander Mark Polansky,
Pilot William Oefelein, Mission Specialists Nicholas Patrick, Robert Curbeam, Christer Fuglesang,
Joan Higginbotham and Suni Williams.
And they're getting into the astronaut van. Garrett, who else is going to be riding
with them in this ride out to the launch pad?
GARRETT REISMAN: Well, let's see, boarding right behind the astronauts is the chief of the astronaut office,
and that's Steve Lindsey. First entering before Steve,
though, is Ellen Ochoa. She's head of the flight crew operations directorate.
She's Steve's boss. And lastly, getting onboard, the last blue suit you saw get onboard there
is Jerry Ross, who's in charge of the Vehicle Integration Test Team.
They're the team that takes care of the orbiter when it's not being flown by astronauts.
BUCKINGHAM: OK. So they're getting a security escort out to the launch pad.
Of course, this is a standard operation for all of our astronaut, astronaut crews,
shuttle crews who go out to the launch pad. They, they get traffic stopped for them
as they take this about 20-minute journey out to the pad. You can see the headlights of the,
a lot of our cars, employees that, some of which are heading home for work,
but I don't think there's going to be too many people going to be leaving tonight.
I think with this being the first nighttime launch in over four years,
there's going to be a lot of our employees hanging around to make sure that they get an eyewitness of this historic mission.
REISMAN: That's right. At this point, both Ellen Ochoa and also Jerry Ross,
the leader of the Vehicle Integration Test Team, will exit the Astrovan and the crew will continue on to the pad.
BUCKINGHAM: And you can see it's pretty dark out there, Garrett.
There aren't too many streetlights out there.
REISMAN: Nope. There's not typically a lot of traffic on this road.
BUCKINGHAM: No. Certainly not. The astronauts are opening the door and we can see the silhouette of
them climbing out, and it looks like they're not going directly to the elevator.
They're going to take a step back and look at the vehicle in all its glory.
And we see, of course, lights come on to give a little illumination.
But they're climbing into the, to the elevator at the ground floor that will take them up to the,
like I say, the 195-foot level where they will then begin the process to get into the orbiter Discovery.