Apparently there are a lot of Americans who are more frightened about the Discovery coming back through the atmosphere than they are excited. This is understandable with what happened to the Challenger in 1986, and the Columbia in 2003.
I watched the Columbia's re-entry...and then watched while they started to track remains of the shuttle through multiple states. I was only 3 years old when the Challenger suffered the same fate, so I do not remember that at all.
I know if given the opportunity I would still love to go see a shuttle take off from Cape Canaveral, but until that happens, I'll still watch them on television, as I will be tomorrow when the Discovery returns.
It is known that there is
a little damage to the Discovery which occured during lift-off, however, they have decided it would be more risky to try repairing in orbit than it would be to ignore it. Hopefully they made the right decision.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/07/sc...rssnyt&emc=rss