Honest, it's just a coincidence that I happened to hear just now a lengthy report on the radio about the X37-B that included a several-minute interview with Jonathan McDowell. The reporter also asked Prof. McDowell about the recently observed spirals caused by venting of fuel from rotating launch vehicles. Here's a link to the story that includes a transcript of the interview: http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1723&category=Science It might be possible to obtain a recording via a podcast or something like that. Now, regarding what Steve Bolton saw, it was the Raduga 33 rocket (Rk2) in August 1996. Here's a link. There are several messages about it by different authors: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Aug-1996/index.html Seeing an uncontrolled re-entry is kind of a Holy Grail of satellite observing. There were two very similar ones within reach of here about a decade ago, both Glonass launches with the re-entries over west Texas, New Mexico, west Oklahoma, etc. They are approximately a year apart, both were evening re-entries. Missed them by that much.... Ed Cannon - Austin, Texas, USA _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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