Reply #41: Depends ...

[RoyGBiv]

It was live in some places like Florida, near Houston, and in Alabama near where all the space science people work. If you were there, you may have. The feed was there, live, but most local affiliates didn't bother with it, in part because it cut into the daytime programming, and during previous launches local stations had received numerous complaints about interrupting those shows.

The replays began almost immediately after it happened and without the networks really acknowledging that they hadn't bothered to cover it, which is what causes the confusion in people's minds. It *seemed* live to a lot of the people who saw it, but it wasn't.

I, for example, know I didn't see it live, but what I did see was a broadcast without any indication that this had been recorded, narration by a news commentator who was genuinely shocked when it all happened because he had been recorded as it happened. If I had just flipped on the television without already knowing what had taken place, I'd probably have thought I saw it live as well.

Anyway, it is possible, but unlikely.