For a number of years I have desired to witness a reentry event of the shuttle. That opportunity came on July 27, 1999 while my family was on vacation in central Texas. We were located approximately 25 miles southwest of College Station at the home of a friend. I did not have a portable PC to compute the pass but I was aware that the reentry track would occur from the decending node (northwest to southeast) before the landing at KSC in Florida. The local news media covered the expectation of seeing the reentry event rather well and gave a reasonably accurate time of 10:02 CDT (0302 UTC) for spotting the shuttle.
At the appointed time the shuttle fireball appeared in the west. It was a most beautiful sight with a full moon in the eastern sky. At zenith, the shuttle shape could not be seen, but a white incandescent point of light was visible that accurately represented the location of the shuttle body during the reentry. A beautiful golden cloud of hot plasma gas trailed behind the shuttle much like a water vapor contrail, though it is not made up of moisture, but incandescent air. In a few moments the high altitude winds bent and warped the plasma trail much like they would a typical vapor contrail. The shuttle continued toward the eastern horizon were we lost sight of it about 4 minutes later.
The plasma cloud overhead slowly disappeared after about 5 minutes due to adjacent heat transfer with the surrounding air. I estimate that during zenith the shuttle was about 60 miles in altitude and traveling approximately 12000 mph during the pass. We listened for a sonic boom and heard a soft singular thud about 6 minutes after the pass. The whole sequence was an awesome sight. Other than meteors, it was the most intense high speed pass of any object that I have ever witnessed to date.
The sheer magnitude of the event is staggering. In retrospect here is a timeline of events:
James E. Byrd - August 9, 1999