I have a particularly vivid memory of the last time we were in Orlando. We'd been through our usual routine at the airport: collecting bags, getting through immigration, and picking up our hire car, and we were driving along towards I-4, passing familiar landmarks along the way, and I clearly remember suddenly thinking, "Wow, we're back. I love this place so much!", and being truly happy. Just a few days, and I'll get that all over again.
Anyway, growing up, there was one other thing that made the US a place of wonder, and that was the whole astronauts, rockets, and space race thing. I'm (far!) too young to remember the moon landings in '69, which, according to Kennedy's speech at the start of the decade, the US chose to do not because it was easy, but because it was hard, and "because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills".
However, what I have grown up with is the Space Shuttle, which flew its first mission when I was eight years old, and which flew its final mission when I was thirty-eight.
As a child, the notion that something could be sent into space, come back and land like an aeroplane, refuel, and go round again was just totally mind-bending.
We all know that the Shuttle programme went through its tough and tragic times. Thinking again about my own growing up, the Challenger disaster was my own "Kennedy" moment, in that I can clearly remember the news coming through of this terrible event.
However, showing the world that they weren't to be beaten, Nasa picked themselves up and dusted themselves off, and carried on with the Shuttle missions, amazing the world with space walks and space stations.
Disaster struck again in 2003 when Columbia broke up on re-entry, and whilst after a pause, the missions continued, clearly the Shuttle was living on borrowed time, and the 135th and final mission has recently returned to earth.
One of the reasons given for ending the missions seems to be budgetary. Whilst the whole world goes through a rocky patch financially, this could be seen as understandable, and as is often the case, it's all too easy to measure the savings in terms of welfare packages, schools or hospitals. Thankfully, I don't have the task of trying to balance the books of the world's largest economy (keeping an eye on the household budget is quite enough for me), but having America tell the rest of the world that they won't be flying Shuttles because they can't afford to is really sad, and to an outsider, does take just a tiny bit of the shine off of the admiration felt for the nation.
Hitching a ride with the Russians for the next few years in order to get to the ISS is just not cool. Is this another indicator of the beginning of the end for America, as China et al come rushing up to meet and overtake it in economic terms?
What the US need to do, and soon, is confirm exactly what is happening with regard to the Shuttle replacement, and when we can expect to see it entering service.
When Atlantis touched down at the Kennedy Space Center last week, despite all the plaudits and congratulations for another successful mission, the US took a backward step, and we all want to see a Giant Leap to new heights soon.