Does anybody remember a few years ago when the Columbia Space craft broke apart while re-entering the round earth in 2003?
Well I live in north Texas. I was able to watch see it as it burned over the sky that saturday morning. Space re-entry decentigrated and it's path went over the pacific ocean, over California, nearly over my head, and so on. If I wanted, I could have driven to one of the places where a piece of the space ship actually crashed. (They showed another piece on the news.)
That is one of the reasons I believe the when National Space programs say they've been to earth, I believe it. Because I've seen that ship burning in the air around the time news reported it.
Also... I wonder if scientists never left earth, where do the space shuttles go when they lift off? The there's a camera that usually follows them for as long as they can see it. So where do they go after they fly so high straight up that it can't be seen anymore?