BY MIKE SCHNEIDER
The Associated Press
TITUSVILLE, Fla. -- The day John Glenn returned to space wasn't a holiday along Florida's Space Coast, but it felt like one -- whoops and cheers, barbecues and flagwaving, tears and wild applause.
NASA spokesman Bruce Buckingham estimated there "may well be a million people watching." The Space Coast Office of Tourism estimated 200,000 to 250,000 launch-watchers.
Melanie Redler, 46, arrived Wednesday night from St. Louis. She wiped tears and embraced her 7-year-old son, Sam Prince -- "my future astronaut."
"It was the coolest thing I ever saw," Sam said, as the shuttle rose in a cloudless sky.
From a perch on her mother's shoulders, 8-year-old Hannah DuLac waved an American flag and shouted out "5! 4! 3! 2! 1!" in sync with the NASA launch commentator, whose voice was broadcast over speakers. Tears welled up in the eyes of her mother, Colleen DuLac, 31, of Carmel, Ind. "I knew I was going to cry," she said.
As expected, cars were bottlenecked on roads leading away from the Kennedy Space Center after the launch. The crowds were well-behaved, and there were no calls for police, said a spokeswoman for the Brevard County sheriff's office.
Many businesses in Titusville, except restaurants and hotels, were closed for the impromptu holiday. Cars lined up for miles along the shoulders of roads. Students at Brevard County schools were given the option of staying at home because of traffic concerns. At Titusville High School, Laura Dixon and another physical education teacher were charging $20 for parking spots, money they would use to buy an air-conditioning unit for the gym.
Only 58 of Titusville High School's 2,000 students showed up Thursday. "We can't understand why the 58 showed up," Ms. Dixon said.
A Goodyear blimp hovered over Veteran Memorial Park, where several thousand people paid $20 to watch the launch along the Indian River. Above, a plane inscribed the sky with smoke for the world's oldest astronaut: "GODSPEED JOHN GLENN AND CREW."
Miss Florida Citrus, Candy Griffin, plugged the state's oranges and grapefruit to the thousands of spectators sitting on lawn chairs and under colorful umbrellas along the river.
"There's excitement in the air and history in the making," said Miss Griffin, 23, who wore a pageant sash and a smile.
Michelle Bucurel got into the spirit by donning a bodylength space shuttle costume made of posterboard and tape.
"Every space shuttle launch should be this big, not just because they're sending Glenn up," said Ms. Bucurel, 27, of Titusville. "Living here, we take all the launches for granted. We wish the hype would always be this big."
Holland visitor Pascal Kwakman, 22, an intern at the Bond Hotel in St. Petersburg, said his boss told him to "go, this is the chance of a lifetime."
To watch the launch was one of his wishes. "Like every little boy, I wanted to be an astronaut," he said.
And although he said "sending an old man up there" was an American publicity stunt, "It was one of the nicest publicity stunts I've ever seen."
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