Documents / Official release
This NASA file of astronaut scientific debriefing papers from 1962 collects internal Office of Space Sciences material on the science observations made on early Mercury flights. A February 1962 memo from Maurice Dubin asks for more detail on John Glenn's report of luminous particles and the atmospheric horizon layer. A draft memo concludes that the particles were tied to the spacecraft and were not extraterrestrial. The file also holds a Los Alamos letter that attributes the high haze layer to nitrogen peroxide, and notes on Carpenter's airglow observations.
From the source:Release of 2026-06-12 This file contains memoranda, correspondence, reports, and other materials relating to contemporary scientific interest in investigating the nature of luminous phenomena reported by astronauts John Glenn and Walter Schirra during spaceflight. This collection includes transcripts from NASA interviews and debriefings with both astronauts regarding those observations. It also contains details relating to scientific observations of atmospheric phenomena, including brief descriptions of luminous particles, experiences while aboard spacecraft, and circa 1955 theoretical analysis of meteoric particles entering the atmosphere. Pages 34-35, 55-56, 57-63, 64-113, and 122-127 feature content relevant to the PURSUE initiative.
“Headquarters”6 pages
p 1 & 2 Dro Eugene M. Shoemaker, Chairman~ · Manned· Space Science Working Group served as Chairman, substituting for Dr. John Clark, Chief Scientisto The following people were present: Mro Carl Abraham, NASA Headquarters Mr~ Richard Daniels, NASA Headquarters Oro Winifred Cameron, Goddard . Space Flight Center Mr. Maurice Dubin, NASA Headquarters Mr. Larry Dunkelman, Goddard Space Flight Center Dr. Jocelyn Ro Gill, NASA Headquarters Oro Dale Jenkins, NASA Headquarters· Dr. Urner Liddel, NASA H~adquarters Mr. Oran Nicks, NASA Headquarters Oro John Nordberg, Goddard Space Flight Center Oro John O'Keefe, Goddard Space Flight Center Cmdr. Walter Schirra, Manned Spacecraft Center Mr. George Tennyson, Goddard Space Flight Center Oro Eugene M, Shoemaker, NASA Headquarters Dr. Shoemaker - I have a series of written questions to start things off. These have been submitted by some of the _people here today and we may then ask for some supplementary questions from the rest of the people this morning. We might start off with the question on airglowo Will you give us · an account of Mercury's passage through the airglow layers? How did you identify the planet Mercury? Did it seem to have color? Were there any stars nearby? Cmdr. Schirra - I think Larry Dunkelman and I discussed this at
Not linked to a story yet.
Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 216 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.