diff --git a/launch/README b/launch/README
index 572daea128..fcdd46801f 100644
--- a/launch/README
+++ b/launch/README
@@ -16,9 +16,9 @@ Launching a node currently requires a different version of ansible
 than what is generally used on the puppetmaster.  Set up a
 virtualenv::
 
-  virtualenv -p python2 ~/launch-env/
+  python3 /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/virtualenv.py --python=python3 ~/launch-env
   . ~/launch-env/bin/activate
-  pip install ansible==2.1.1.0 shade
+  pip install ansible shade
 
 To launch a node in the OpenStack CI account (production servers)::
 
diff --git a/launch/launch-node.py b/launch/launch-node.py
index 394fdc58ba..5e9b6af1ba 100755
--- a/launch/launch-node.py
+++ b/launch/launch-node.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-#!/usr/bin/env python
+#!/usr/bin/env python3
 
 # Launch a new OpenStack project infrastructure node.