It has taken nine Saturn VB launches so far to put the Ares complex into orbit. Today’s will be the tenth. So nesting isn’t so good anymore.

T minus four minutes and counting. As a preparation for main engine ignition, the fuel valve heaters have been turned on. T minus three minutes fifty-four seconds and counting. The final fuel purge on the main engines has been started. That’s the vapor you can see there, billowing across the launchpad, away from the Saturn booster.

The liquid oxygen replenish system has been turned off, so we can pressurize the tanks for the launch.

The wind is below ten knots, and we have a thin cloud layer. That’s pretty nearly perfect launch weather, well within mission parameters.

It is typically hot, humid Florida weather here, on this historic day, Thursday, March 21, 1985.

T minus three minutes forty seconds and counting.

I am told that there are an estimated one million here with us today, the largest turnout for a launch since Apollo 11. Welcome to all of you. You might like to know that among the celebrities watching the launch today in the VIP enclosure are Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Joe Muldoon, and Michael Collins, cosmonaut Vladimir Viktorenko, along with Liza Minnelli, Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, William Shatner, sci-fi authors Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, and Isaac Asimov, and singer John Denver. We’re sure you aren’t going to be disappointed.

T minus three minutes twenty seconds and counting. Ares is now on internal power.

Coming up on T minus three minutes.

T minus three minutes and counting.

The engine gimbal check is under way, to ensure that the engines are moving freely, ready for flight control.