My base couldn’t be better at the Courtyard by Marriott Titusville (www.marriott.com). A life-size astronaut model welcomes me to the lobby, the signatures of astronauts adorn the walls and a board updates live launches at this seriously space-themed hotel. My room even peers out over the water to the multiple launch pads.

I head across the river to the famous Kennedy Space Centre, the spiritual home of Nasa, a place forged into my childhood memories when I grew up on the drama of space shuttle launches from here on Cape Canaveral. Before Columbia broke into space in 1981, I had thought space travel, space stations and space walks were the stuff of dreams. They were.

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“The Space Shuttle is just a hulking bus,” smiles astronaut Kathryn Thornton, still speaking with affection in the present tense. “She enables us to do more than we ever could before. I was lucky to travel on her four times and it was always a privilege.”

During our “Chat with an Astronaut” session, she recounts those trips, delves deep inside the space programme and declares her hope that space travel keeps growing, even if there are the “inevitable setbacks” involved in such a complex, pioneering endeavour.

Visiting kids blink into the Floridian heat, minds buzzing with their own dreams of getting into space. My own drifted away years ago, but the Kennedy Space Centre brilliantly rekindles them. I planned on half a day – I spend the whole day and come back to finish off the bits I missed on this vast site. Or sites – I spend my first hours out at the Apollo/Saturn V complex checking out the world’s largest rocket, which made the moon missions possible.

The centre’s highlights just keep coming in a senses-assaulting ride. I walk among icons at the Heroes and Legends Hall, and the adjacent Rock Garden, with its myriad rockets still pointed to the distant heavens.

An IMAX theatre tempts and there are even more up-to-date thrills at Gateway, with its games and simulators.

Topping it all is seeing the actual Atlantis and then experiencing face-tightening 3G strapped into the shuttle launch experience. I leave, head full of future missions to Mars and deeper space, having learned the Milky Way may have an ninth planet we don’t know and that there are possibly billions of planets as habitable as earth.

This corner of Florida has plenty of terrestrial delights too. Some of America’s finest beaches fringe the Atlantic, from the beach resort charms of Cocoa Beach, through to nature reserves with more turtles than people.

In Cocoa Beach, I pay homage to the statue of legendary local surfer Kelly Slater and visit the Florida Surf Museum to get into the spirit of my lesson with the School of Surf. In just an hour, I go from watching a tuition video to half managing to stand up and rollick beachward. I’m not quite at the stage of picking up gear at the Ron Jon Surf Shop – the world’s biggest – but it’s immense fun.

A more genteel option awaits a few blocks away with Cocoa Beach Dolphin Tours, eking around the “1000 Islands: In Search of Wildlife”. We encounter crocodiles, snakes, ospreys, manatees and a whole horde of leaping dolphins.

It’s on the water as sun sets on Merritt Island. Day Away Kayak Tours ekes me out on a clear plastic canoe that lets me enjoy the spirit-soaring joy of viewing bioluminescence on Mosquito Lake. Thousands of little lights accompany every paddle stroke and I’m even able to cup them in my hands.

Another joy is the Black Point Wildlife Drive, a seven-mile slow trail around a protected reserve. Making stops at a viewing tower and at wildlife hides, I spy alligators, a coyote, herons, leaping fish and an osprey. Seeing ospreys in Scotland is rare, here it’s like seeing buzzards at home – you end up disappointed it’s not an eagle. I do see those majestic creatures too.

I eat extremely well on the Space Coast, too. At Pier 220 – reputedly a favourite of Robert de Niro – I tuck into seared tuna and plump steamed mussels, washed down with a local craft beer and a view of the Indian River. Rusty’s brings more water views and seafood – superb local rock lobster with a chunky meat-filled tail and no claws. Surf-themed Long Doggers offers exotic alligator bites and local grouper tacos. I don’t have a bad meal on the Space Coast.

My trip ends back at the Marriott in its Space Bar. As the sun threatens to rise, there are dozens of us waiting with bated breath for the ULA launch. Right on time at 6:45am, we have all systems go. The rocket surges skywards and seconds later the sound wave bashes us as the railing vibrates. It’s just one of the myriad joys on a spectacular stretch of a slice of Florida that stacks up brilliantly for a holiday.

For more information, visit www.visitspacecoast.com and www.visitflorida.com. jetBlue (www.jetblue.com) flies to Orlando just an hour’s drive away, via New York, from Edinburgh.