Count Down to the New Year with These NASA Launch Recordings

​ Tired of New Year's Eve never living up to your expectations but still want the satisfaction of a final countdown in 2014? Just skip the party and queue up one of these space launch countdowns instead.

NASA has a vast array of launch and mission media available online, from Neil Armstrong's first steps on the ​moon to Apollo 13's "Houston, ​we've had a problem." They also have a number of space launch countdowns that are more gratifying than Ryan Seacrest and an 11,000-lb​ geodesic sphere could ever be. Here are a few of our favorites:

Space Shuttle Atlantis's ​final launch

America's return to space with Discovery's first launch after ​the Challenger disaster

Launch of Apollo 11, which put the first man on the moon

Launch for flight test of Orion, the ship that NASA hopes will take​ humans to Mars

Launch of New Horizons, the first mission to Pluto, which will ​arrive at the dwarf planet this summer