"Good morning! And as we say good morning, it is morning just dawning here at the cape. The sun has finally burned through a big bank of clouds that rests over the horizon on the Atlantic. It was a rosy-fingered dawn, as the poet would have had it a few moments ago. Out at launchpad B, which we can barely see now because ground fog has miasmically sort of enveloped it for the time being at least. Up atop the rocket there that stands on its own little launchstand are the three men of the moment, the-the astronauts that have been up since two o'clock this morning, Alan Bean, Owen Garriott, and Jack Lousma, who are waiting for their big moment. The clock now says five minutes, 56 seconds to go. It's counting clicking down. The launch time is 10 minutes, 50 seconds after the hour coming up in just a few moments of course. Let's, uh, check out now with Chuck Hollingshead, the voice of, uh, the Kennedy Space Center as he brings us up to date."

"The Air Force Eastern Test Range who perform tracking during the powered phase of flight, and of course, the launch team here in the firing room, all reporting in at this time. Houston flight just reported in that they are go for starting the automatic sequencer. The program director, William Snyder, also reports we're go for launch."

"That's the situation now, we're go for launch, as all has gone according to plan, as it has so many times here from the cape. Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton, the sort of mother hens of the astronauts, uh, were with the crewmen this morning for steak and eggs shortly after 2AM. They suited up, their doctor, Dr. Pat Buchanan, pronounced the men fit and eager to roll. It was then, after suiting a seven mile ride out here to pad B, which then was in darkness, they went up to the top, 224 feet of one B rocket standing on 127 feet of pedestal to make up the deficit between that smaller rocket and the big Saturn V that normally is launched from here. This one's powerful enough though, about 1.64 million pounds of thrust to be generated during takeoff. The spacecraft weight limit is sort of interesting this morning, it should be no more than 13,500 pounds. Mission Control and the engineers estimated now weighs 13,405 pounds, that gives us just a, a 95 pound margin. Included in this are eight pounds of catsup, some garlic, some peppers, some celery salt, and various other spices to relieve what the first Skylab crew discovered was rather bland tasting food. If you ask Dr. Royce Hawkins, the, uh, the main doctor for this particular mission, about the eight pounds of catsup, he explains rather succinctly that Alan Bean likes catsup. Well, Alan Bean is the Navy Captain who's the Mission Commander, and if he likes catsup, they're going to take eight full pounds for him. Three experiments, by the way, had to be left off because of the weight requirements. The catsup, of course, had nothing to do with that."

"But since we're hearing from and about these men for the next 59 days, a, a word of deeper biography probably is in order. Owen Garriott is 42 years old. He's a PhD whose field is really electrical engineering. He wears a mustache, he has a professorial bearing about him. Garriott was born in Enid, Oklahoma, he's married, he and his wife, Helen, have four children. Arriving at Florida just a couple of days ago for the launch, Garriott had a few words."

"We're all very anxious, very pleased to be back at the cape. And we're anxious to start off on this trip for which we've all been working, at least the three of us, for something like, oh, two or three years as a team and five or six years total. And uh, we're really anxious to get started with it. And I hope to be seeing you folks, er, back here on the ground in a little over two months."

"Owen Garriott, the PhD from Stanford. But John Glenn was this country's first man in orbit. Most people remember too that he was a Marine. Today's Skylab pilot, Jack Lousma, is a Marine major, and he thus becomes the second spaceman from the Corps. Lousma, 37, was born out in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Lousmas have three children. He's a big strong man whose NASA doctors say has the constitution of a horse."

"--As we have been for a long time, and we see a lot of familiar faces out there. Those of you who have all--many of you have helped to get this mission underway and, uh, we're proud to be representing you as, as well as, uh, going on this flight. We're looking forward to it as I said, and we'll be back here in a couple of months to, uh, will say hello again."

"Jack Lousma, the man who's over in the right hand couch. Well, the Mission Commander on the left is the only fellow who's been in space from this crew before. Navy Captain Alan Bean went up with Pete Conrad to the moon on Apollo 12. And I bet you remember their good natured chuckling as they hopped about on the surface there. You probably recall too they destroyed their television camera when they pointed it at the sun soon after they got out of their landed LEM. Bean is a Texan, married to a Texan, and they have two children. Captain Bean's 41, he has a distinctive voice, one that seems to cut right through static."

"Anxious to have the opportunity to do the things that we've been training to do. We know that Pete, Joe, and Paul left the spacecraft in good shape, and we're gonna go up there and live rent free for two months. And then, uh, we'll leave it for Gerry Carr, Bill Pogue, and, uh, Ed Gibson. Thank you for coming out again."

"There he is, Captain Alan Bean, as we listen to them greeting a small contingent of people out on the ramp at Patrick Air Force Base when they arrived here at the cape. Still very difficult to see too much out there. We're at the one minute mark and the countdown, down to 59, 57 seconds, we're on down into the automatic sequencer now. The computer deciding when we're ready to go and when they're ready to go. Let's join again the voice of Chuck Collins:"

"The second man crew to, well, man the orbiting sky laboratory, t-42 seconds. Spacecraft Commander now has made the final guidance alignment, that's the final action to be taken by the crew onboard the spacecraft until after the launch. T-30 seconds, T-30 seconds and counting. The eight first stage engines will ignite at 3.1 seconds in our countdown. They will be held down while thrust is built up, uh, until the zero mark, at which time we'll get liftoff. We'll be looking for liftoff right at the T-0 mark."

"We're down to 13 seconds. We're down to 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3. We should see fire and we do, we have ignition. Sequence start--and we have liftoff! We have first motion. They've cleared the tower. Let's hear it. Let's see if we get any communication now we know they're clear."

"Over this program, Houston."

"Roger roll and pitch, Skylab. And, uh, thrust looks good on all engines."

"that's thick truly rewarding back. Twenty seconds into the flight. Heading on, it's very clear up there now. Very bright flame as friable as the sun."

"Seven-tenths of a mile. Velocity 1,432 feet per second. 36 seconds."

"Streaking up before that high--"

"Got a pretty noise to it right now."

"Roger that, you're lookin' real good."

"Vic truly rogers that, he's the, uh, captain out in Houston, Texas. White flames sweeps through the cloud."