Worth doing, even from a distance.

While in ORL on business in April 2002, my boss and I heard that the shuttle would be launching late one afternoon -- even watching from a parking lot roughly 10-15 miles south of KSC was a trip. The furious outlay of energy required to exit the atmosphere is stunning, even at that range.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-110

(See more progress on "Watch a space shuttle launch"...)