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.
“Gray”5 pages
16 relatively dark blue band right at the surface of the earth. Of course, the orange and light yellow was changing at this point and I then came into seeing this dark blue bando In other words, I had lost the orange cloud effect just above the surface of the clouds. This was the same kind of red-orange we typically see through the atmosphere on the surface of the earth which is, of course, the atmosphere. I realize this cuts out most everything but reds and yellow~orange. But the light yellow wasn't at all unusual either; I had seen this in many sunsets. The sun had set. I wanted to describe this blue band. I realized I had gone through some 34 seconds. When I say describing the blue band, it is some 30 seconds later. Took me, say, 4 seconds to say that. Relatively dark blue banq right at the surface of the earth and a light blue band meaning a next band above it; another dark blue band, a large white band which is the airglow o This is the way I felt it should be. I have not made a careful study prior to the time of the various layers on the earth or above the eartho Then a deep black one and it sort of goes from a grayish blue · to a dense black, almost looks like the underneath surfac~ of a summer cumulo-nimbus effect, where you have a nice bright earth and then you go into this black cloud and then there is this roll cloud that precedes a thunder storm and it's a very, very choppy underneath surface. It looks very turbulent, to you. This surprised me. expected to see another sharp line and I did not. This is what I
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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.