All launches, spy satellites (“intel sats”) and even the missile defense tests out there, are announced publicly.”

Quite publicly. Here, for example:

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html

Even back in 1995, when the film Apollo 13 was released, I came across many younger people who knew nothing about the story. Many who watched the film actually didn’t know whether or not the astronauts made it home.

Wow, I guess that would have added to the suspense!

I had seen a documentary about Apollo 13 in perhaps ’93 or ’94, but prior to that I did not know much about it, other than the fact that 13 never made a moon landing.

Then the pilot said that the shuttle was taking off in 12 minutes so we were taking off in 9. He said to get on the right side of the plane.

It was spectacular – really got a sense of the speed at launch.

Only time I have seen a launch BTW.

“Now, history class is, alas, the main place kids these days will learn of Glenn & the others.”

I hate to say it, but at least in my country ( UK ), they don’t learn anything about Glenn and the others, full stop. In my experience, most young people today have absolutely zero knowledge of the early space programme, including Apollo.
I have a younger friend – a pretty intelligent guy in his 30′s – who, when I mentioned them, had honestly never heard of Buzz Aldrin or Yuri Gagarin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ( He had heard of Neil Armstrong, but that was the sum total of his knowledge of the subject. )
Even back in 1995, when the film Apollo 13 was released, I came across many younger people who knew nothing about the story. Many who watched the film actually didn’t know whether or not the astronauts made it home.

Me too.

Sadly, the closest I’ve come to a shuttle launch is my TV or monitor screen. If only they’d launch them from Woomera instead!

Thinking of the upcoming shuttle launch :

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/rss_feed_above_snip_collection_archive_1.html

Notes the next scheduled Discovery launch attempt is the 24th of February 2011 for the STS-133 mission with Discovery’s rollout to Launch Pad 39A planned for Monday, 31st January 2011.

With this :

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

being the main Shuttle page on NASA’s site & this :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-133

Giving y’all the wiki-basics on it.

PS. I had thought it was the one with Gifford’s husband, Commander Mark Kelly, flying but its not – seems that’s STS-134 instead.

Guess I’m fortunate I got to see a couple of them at Elllington as they hopped back across the country.

Actually, I know that many folks here are older than me incl. the BA, it just doesn’t feel that way sometimes.

Glenn’s first flight. Man, that would’ve been something to witness even just via the box. The last Saturn V was launched and the final command module returned home the year before I was born.

@17. Rich :

Apollo 15? Kids these days! *I cut History 101 to watch John Glen launch! About half the class did too and boy was the Prof steamed!

Now, history class is, alas, the main place kids these days will learn of Glenn & the others.

Shame your Prof was steamed – I would’ve thought your Prof would have appreciated the occasion and had the whole class – him or herself included – watch it together. After all Glenn’s flight was making history right in front of y’all!

Here’s Isaac Asimov’s account of watching the launch of Apollo 17 (The final Lunar mission so far – Cernan, Evans & Schmitt) from the cruise liner SS Statendam :

“But zero was reached and a cloud of vapour enveloped the rocket. I held my breath and waited for it to rise in sick suspense. It did rise at last and the vast red flower at its tail bloomed. What was surely the most concentrated man-made [sic] light on an enormous scale that the world had ever seen, illuminated the night-bound shores of Florida.

As I have said briefly in my introduction to chapter 2, the night vanished from horizon to horizon. We, and the ship, and all the world we could see, were suddenly under a dim copper dome of a sky from which the stars had washed out while below us the black sea turned an orange-grey.

In the deepest silence, the artificial sun that had so changed our immediate world rose higher and higher, and then – forty seconds after ignition – the violent shaking of the air all about the rocket engines made its way across the seven miles of sea that separated us and the shore, and reached us. With the rocket high in the air, we were shaken with a rumbling thunder so that our private and temporary day was accompanied by a private and temporary earthquake.

Sound and light ebbed majestically as the rocket continued to rise until it was a ruddy blotch in the high sky. The night was falling once more; the stars were coming out, and the sea darkened. In the sky there was a flash as the second stage came loose, and then the rocket was a star among stars; moving, and moving and moving and growing dimmer …

And in all this, it was useless to try to speak, for there was nothing to say. The words and phrases had not been invented that would serve as an accompaniment to that magnificent leap to the Moon, and I did not try to invent any. Had I the time and the folly and had I not been utterly crushed under sights and sounds so much greater than anything I had ever experienced, I might have tried to apostrophise the world about me and say : Oh, wonder of wonders! Oh, soaring spirit of man that conquers space and reaches indomitably towards the stars …

But I couldn’t and didn’t, and it was some young man behind me who contributed the spoken accompaniment to the rise of the spaceship.

With all the magnificent resources of the English language at his command, he chose the phrase that perhaps most intimately expressed his inner workings.

“Oh, s***”, he said, as his head tilted slowly upward. And then, with his tenor voice rising over all the silent heads on board, he added, “Oh, s**-*-*-*-*-*t!” [ rude word removed -ed.]

Well, to each his own. I said nothing.”

- Page 210-211, ‘The Tragedy of the Moon’, Isaac Asimov, Mercury Press, 1972.

Just thought I’d share that with y’all. If only we could see its like again these many decades on. At the tiome who would’ve guessed we’d still not have gone back and explored and done more?

pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markhambly/sets/72157618610485579/

All launches, spy satellites (“intel sats”) and even the missile defense tests out there, are announced publicly.

It was carrying a satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office — that is, a spy sat.

That can neither be confirmed or denied. Now, Dr. Plait, please step into this side room, and don’t mind the gentlemen with the latex gloves. They enjoy this less than you will.

Heh, my first attempt to catch the STS, we got down to T-15 and they called it—-AGH! There was a huge puff of smoke and then NOTHING! So disappointing, but another visit yielded results. Landings are pretty cool too.

In 1992, I went to Edwards and saw Endeavor come down. It is stunning how fast they fall out of the sky and come to a stop. Good fun.

Apollo 15? Kids these days! *I cut History 101 to watch John Glen launch! About half the class did too and boy was the Prof steamed!