We’d considered driving up, but I read at the Flame Trench that it was the biggest crowd since return to flight (probably because it was a beautiful day, and a Saturday), and we didn’t want to fight the throngs and sit in the car all day. I’ve never been able to see a launch from here in Boca–maybe it’s too low on the horizon with all the obstructions (the fact that they launch northerly probably doesn’t help), so we watched on television. Looked flawless to me, other than a couple specks flying back along the tank.
I think that if they don’t have any more problems for a while, there will be a lot of pressure to close the “gap” by extending the program, now that it looks like NASA has wrung the bugs out of it. Particularly given what a mess Ares/Orion seems to be.
We used to watch daytime shuttle launches all the time from south of you in Plantation. I even saw a night launch of a much smaller Delta V in the 60’s from the same area.
I’m sure we could see it if we had an unobstructed view. We should have driven over to a highway bridge to get a little altitude (not without packing oxygen, of course, it might be as much as thirty feet above sea level, which is pretty heady for a south Floridian). But the view from television was much better, and louder (with an ability to control the volume).