I think I'll try answering three at once. David L Bennett wrote:
From what I gather, from both the info in the NASA article and Patrick's contact, there isn't much of a consensus as to what we might see.
You noticed that too, eh? I emailed the author of the release (a NASA PR person) last week asking for clarification but he has not replied. I also emailed my contact at the Genesis mission (not a PR person) and she's the one that said it would not be visible. I replied to her that, that being the case, the release could make for a lot of disappointed people that will be headed out to see something that can not be seen. Kim Hyatt wrote:
If the predicted visual magnitude is -9, why would it not be visible from anywhere along the flight path?
To be fair to my Genesis contact, I only asked about the portion of the trajectory near Wendover. So when she said it would not be visible along the track she may have meant only the portion I asked about. I would *think* that when it's further up the track and blazing at -9 to -12 it would be visible (after all, many of us have seen Iridium flares in daylight and I don't think they get brighter than -8). This supposition seems to be borne out by this chart on spaceweather.com: http://spaceweather.com/swpod2004/07sep04/genesis_reentry_brightness2.gif Alas, comparing that chart to a Nevada state road map, there are no roads at the point indicated as the brightest part of the track and by the time it crosses I-80 it indicates "Rapid fading". Still I must admit to starting to rethink my original plan of staying home. diveboss@xmission.com wrote:
I just now watched a recast of the NASA TV briefing of the planned Genesis snag tomorrow, and they are depicting the path of Genesis as traveling from Bend Oregon, through Idaho and then into Utah. Unfortunately their animation did not include Nevada.
I've replayed that segment of the news conference several times and I'm pretty sure it did not take perspective into account and that it was only intended to show altitudes and events, not ground track. Patrick