Did anyone else just watch the final US Space Shuttle Atlantis launch?

I just watched it on NASA TV. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/

Sad to watch this knowing it is the final ever launch of the Space Shuttle. I still remember watching the very first ever Shuttle take off in the 70's and the subsequent take-offs over the years. Interest definitely fell away in the last years. It was always a huge event every time a launch took place in the 70's and 80's. I remember the whole family and friends all crowded around the TV watching them. But from the 90's I don't really remember the same enthusiasm and it just got a small mention on the evening news each time it took of or landed.

I definitely think the whole US space program has been a big missed opportunity though. With the progress made in the 70's and 80's for space travel we all thought that by they year 2000 we would be so much further ahead than we are now. Instead we are seeing the end of the same vehicle that has stayed in service for the last 30 years! And it's being decommissioned without any direct replacement being ready or even having left the drawing board yet. Mad.

Just think what the world could have achieved by now had every country worked together on space travel and missions into space? instead we still have countries trying to work on something independently, and third world emerging economies like India and China only recent launching their first rockets into space to try and prove their countries has evolved and is developing. Why replicate what was already achieved over 50 years ago? Instead they should all be working together in a world space program developing future space travel as a whole. We might actually see some progress into space then. Otherwise I can't see we will ever evolve further with space exploration and the goal of many decades to get a man to Mars.