Re: Could a shooting star be created by sending a rocket up filled with sand

No.
The idea might have some merit if the rocket could, say, be sent around 
the sun and come back to earth at high velocity. But just launching a 
rocket to drop sand would mean that the relative velocity difference 
would not likely be high enough to generate the frictional forces 
required for the sand to become a "shooting star". Remember that the 
earth is traveling through local space at terrific velocities. Just its 
orbit around the sun has it going some 100,000 km/hr (66,000 mph) which 
means that when a small chunk of stuff - such as a grain of sand - hits 
the upper atmosphere, it is really moving. In addition, the grain of sand 
would also have its own velocity resulting in a very high relative 
velocity. It is the frictional forces as the grain of sand interacts with 
the gas in the atmosphere and loses velocity that causes it to light up. 
Anything launched from the earth will already be moving with it and will 
not be going fast enough.
That said, the rocket itself could certainly create a fireball (witness 
the tragedy of the Columbia as it broke up on re-entry) but the type of 
shooting star in this instance would not be typical of a meteorite.
Hope this answers your question.