NROL-61 may have been my first launch, but OSIRIS-REx was really where I got bit by the launch bug. We were going to Cocoa Beach over the Labor Day week, and I was really hoping to see the SpaceX launch that was supposed to go the night we arrived. It kinda... well, it blew up on the pad lmao. So that didn't happen.
I had considered this launch a bonus at the time, and I knew nothing about it until I went to the KSC Visitors' Center and they were having all sorts of outreach events to share how cool it was. Bill Nye was there on behalf of the Planetary Society, and he gave a whole speech! I remember very little about it.
But family sprung for the tickets so I could watch from the LC-39 Observation Gantry at the visitors center, which is JUST over 2¼ miles from this particular launchpad. Close enough that sometimes they cancel viewing opportunities from here depending on the wind.
It was an experience I still can't put into words very well, even after writing an article about it for a friend's launch viewing guide (now mine, after their passing). Good lord, looking back at it that article seems so... full of itself? I dunno. Self important? ah well. We're all still growing as people.
It was where this interest really took root, and without this experience I likely wouldn't be here today.
