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BRUCE BUCKINGHAM:  And here come the astronauts. We have, being led by Commander Mark Polansky,

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Pilot William Oefelein, Mission Specialists Nicholas Patrick, Robert Curbeam, Christer Fuglesang,

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Joan Higginbotham and Suni Williams.

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And they're getting into the astronaut van. Garrett, who else is going to be riding

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with them in this ride out to the launch pad?

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GARRETT REISMAN: Well, let's see, boarding right behind the astronauts is the chief of the astronaut office,

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and that's Steve Lindsey. First entering before Steve,

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though, is Ellen Ochoa. She's head of the flight crew operations directorate.

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She's Steve's boss. And lastly, getting onboard, the last blue suit you saw get onboard there

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is Jerry Ross, who's in charge of the Vehicle Integration Test Team.

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They're the team that takes care of the orbiter when it's not being flown by astronauts.

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BUCKINGHAM: OK. So they're getting a security escort out to the launch pad.

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Of course, this is a standard operation for all of our astronaut, astronaut crews,

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shuttle crews who go out to the launch pad. They, they get traffic stopped for them

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as they take this about 20-minute journey out to the pad. You can see the headlights of the,

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a lot of our cars, employees that, some of which are heading home for work,

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but I don't think there's going to be too many people going to be leaving tonight.

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I think with this being the first nighttime launch in over four years,

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there's going to be a lot of our employees hanging around to make sure that they get an eyewitness of this historic mission.

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REISMAN: That's right. At this point, both Ellen Ochoa and also Jerry Ross,

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the leader of the Vehicle Integration Test Team, will exit the Astrovan and the crew will continue on to the pad.

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BUCKINGHAM: And you can see it's pretty dark out there, Garrett.

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There aren't too many streetlights out there.

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REISMAN: Nope. There's not typically a lot of traffic on this road.

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BUCKINGHAM: No. Certainly not. The astronauts are opening the door and we can see the silhouette of

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them climbing out, and it looks like they're not going directly to the elevator.

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They're going to take a step back and look at the vehicle in all its glory.

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And we see, of course, lights come on to give a little illumination.

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But they're climbing into the, to the elevator at the ground floor that will take them up to the,

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like I say, the 195-foot level where they will then begin the process to get into the orbiter Discovery.

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