On 10/7/2013 8:16 PM, qbert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
My question of the dangers of what ever was vented came up when I looked through many other launch reports and found no info of venting in these situations. The fact that it's not mentioned either means other flights never vented and or it was a no issue item. In any case this is the first such incident reported by persons on the ground that I know of which leads one to believe that is not that common of an event, at least in the past.
Such events HAVE been reported and photographed in the past, and, as HenryS stated, it IS a common event (in fact, it is uncommon not to do it, and is a sign of a failure of the launcher or a failure to follow agreed-upon space debris mitigation techniques). Although venting is very common, seeing it depends on the observer being in darkness while the venting stage is in sunlight, so that situation is less common, but not unheard of (more correctly, not unseen).
