I saw the third launch, Columbia, in March, 1982. Must have been spring break from High School. I was visiting my dad who was working in Orlando, he drove me out there at O-Dark-Thirty and went back to work in Winter Park, then came and picked me up that afternoon. Security was pretty lax, and a bunch of folks were waist deep in the water at the beginning of the causeway, it being a warm day and a midday launch. Quite the experience, and quite the sunburn!
I’ve seen a launch from Orlando. It was cool
We had invites to some lounge, a friend of my mother’s son was a shuttle pilot so we were going to get to watch the launch from some NASA building where guests of the astronauts watch the launch. But the launch was delayed and we couldn’t reschedule vacation.
Yeah, I started a thread a while back trying to get a handle on just how often shuttle launches are delayed and for how long, and tongue-in-cheek-ily wrote it up as “How much of a vacation should I plan?” Unfortunately most of the answers I got were about how to plan my trip, not about the frequency and duration of shuttle launch delays. That’ll teach me to try and be clever!