:00:00. > :00:12.Good morning, Ricky here with Newsround on this
:00:13. > :00:24.Five. Four. Three. Two. One! Blastoff!
:00:25. > :00:31.Good morning, Ricky here with Newsround on this
:00:32. > :00:36.You can see the crowds that waved off British Astronaut Tim Peake
:00:37. > :00:40.and the other two astronauts as they left their hotel in
:00:41. > :00:47.In less than three hours, Tim will make history and will be
:00:48. > :00:50.on his way to the International Space Station.
:00:51. > :00:53.He's about to board a bus to the 50-metre rocket,
:00:54. > :00:58.its engines will roar into action at 11am,
:00:59. > :01:00.the boosters will flare and the three man crew
:01:01. > :01:06.Ayshah's at Tim Peake's old primary school in Sutton in Greater London
:01:07. > :01:12.with some of the pupils who're watching the launch later.
:01:13. > :01:20.It's launch day. We are so ridiculously excited. Nowhere more
:01:21. > :01:28.so than Tim Peak's old primary school. He's walked the very halls.
:01:29. > :01:32.Exciting stuff. Big celebrations. They've been here since 6 o'clock
:01:33. > :01:35.this morning. I've some kids with me right now, pupils at this school.
:01:36. > :01:40.How excited are you that Tim's from this school? Really excited, it's
:01:41. > :01:44.really inspiring because he walked in our classrooms and he sat there
:01:45. > :01:48.and he went in the hall, and now he's the first British man to go in
:01:49. > :01:51.the International Space Station which is really cool. It's very
:01:52. > :01:58.cool. How are you feeling about it? Really excited. The fact that he's
:01:59. > :02:03.going into space is amazing. Has it inspired you to be an astronaut. No,
:02:04. > :02:08.but it's inspired me to aim high and to go for goals.
:02:09. > :02:12.Great stuff. What do you think is the most thing that you are most
:02:13. > :02:24.excited ability? The opening of the gates. What are you most excited
:02:25. > :02:26.about? The launch. I'll be here watching at about 11 o'clock with
:02:27. > :02:30.this lot. See you then. The BBC's Sarah Rainsford
:02:31. > :02:47.is at the launch site and just He's already arrived at the dream.
:02:48. > :02:52.He sent tweets saying he's good to go for the mission. In the next half
:02:53. > :02:57.hour, he'll be putting on his space suit and saying his farewells to his
:02:58. > :03:02.family. Heading here for the launch pad behind me where the Soyuz rocket
:03:03. > :03:07.is already in place. Once up there, he says he'll carry out more than
:03:08. > :03:08.265 experiments, hoping to inspire a generation of scientists for the
:03:09. > :03:27.future. Tim has been underwater for hours to
:03:28. > :03:30.prepare for space walks. Tim hopes his mission can inspire kids to
:03:31. > :03:34.become astronauts and space scientists in the future, but where
:03:35. > :03:41.did the fascination for space exploration start? This is the first
:03:42. > :03:49.rocket to reach the boundary of space. The German spaceship
:03:50. > :03:56.travelled into the atmosphere. No-one knew how the human body would
:03:57. > :04:01.react in space, so in 1947, tests were carried out. Two years later, a
:04:02. > :04:07.monkey called Albert flew into space. Further animals followed
:04:08. > :04:17.until 1957 when Russia launched the first satellite to orbit around the
:04:18. > :04:21.earth. It was called a Sputnik I. There was a battle to get the first
:04:22. > :04:26.spacecraft on the moon between the Americans and the Russians. The
:04:27. > :04:31.Russians put the first man into space, Uri goo Guarin. Russia were
:04:32. > :04:36.winning the race so the US President, JFK made a promise. I
:04:37. > :04:40.believe this makes should achieve the goal before the decade is out,
:04:41. > :04:45.of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.
:04:46. > :04:50.-- Gagarin. A robot spaceship landed on the moon in 1966 and sent amazing
:04:51. > :04:55.photos back. These pictures helped scientists work out how men could
:04:56. > :05:02.land safely there. Finally they made it. In 1969, America's Apollo 11
:05:03. > :05:11.blasted off, flying 250,000 miles to the moon.
:05:12. > :05:15.One small step for man... Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made
:05:16. > :05:19.history. Lots of missions followed, the Americans landed a special car
:05:20. > :05:22.to explore the surface. Since then, the fascination with space has grown
:05:23. > :05:27.and technology's getting better every day.
:05:28. > :05:31.There have been robots on Mars, a probe's been landed on a comet to
:05:32. > :05:37.take photos of distant moons and planets in the far-reaches. We've
:05:38. > :05:42.developed shuttles that have travelled at 17,000mph and built the
:05:43. > :05:47.International Space Station that's orbited our planet for 15 years.
:05:48. > :05:51.That's where Major Tim Peak will carry out experts, to try to inspire
:05:52. > :05:55.children to become astronauts and scientists in the future when it's
:05:56. > :06:01.hoped people will one day be able to visit other planets like Mars.
:06:02. > :06:04.Head over to the Newsround website, to find out minute by minute
:06:05. > :06:08.what he's doing today and more on what he'll be doing once