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.
“Tibet”2 pages
13 you just can't purge particles in the interior in that these are angles and trap volume~, but I would suspect that we had a very low order of nitrogen gas within the vehicle that could come out. Now it can come out if the vehicle's leak rate - in the vehicle is excessive - and in this one it was somewhat less than 600 cc. I think it was about 500 - Dunkelman - 588. Roman - I think your suggestion, Larry, was that it would be on the outside of the vehicle. Schirra - That I hadn't had a feeling for and I suspect this is the only way you could get it in contrast to getting it from within. So I won't argue this point. I am well aw~re of the fact that it could be adsorbed and then passed off in this environment. Roman - John, (to Dr. O'Keefe) is it obvious that sunlight coming through , in the upper atmosphere would be red if you are above the dust layer? QJ Keefe - Well, when you look at the sun in th~ photographs which were taken, it looks red. Roman - · I see. Schirra - The sunset is red. Same old sun that we see here. O'Keefe - Yes, but what you 1 d see on either side of it - flanking it - is Maxfield Parish cloud, at least in the color photographs. I think this is what Maxfield Parish went in for particularly. He went in for very powerful colors - subtraction colors. Turquo i s e - rather than the pastels, rather than colors of the spectrum.
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 216 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.