I spent most of my life in Florida. During my three years of high school in Vero Beach I watched, live, the launches of several Apollo missions, including 8, 11 and 13. Other lesser launches sometimes surprised us, such as unpublicized military launches, sometimes at night.
Shuttle launches were very visible. Whole neighborhoods would stream out of their houses a minute or so after liftoff to watch the column of flame topped by the tiny white sliver. The 1986 Challenger explosion happened during the work day. We stepped outside the offices of Emerson Art Service to watch it go up, and watched it blow up.
From Orlando, where we lived from 1987 - 2005, launches were farther away, but still visible if the atmosphere was clear enough.
To top it off, my brother used to work for Bendix Corporation at Goddard Spaceflight Center in Maryland, and he programmed several functions of the robot arm in the cargo bay of the shuttles.
This last shuttle mission has awakened all these memories of the space program. I figured we'd have colonies on the moon and missions to Mars by now.
Oh well.
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