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.
“Los Angeles Times”3 pages
19 clear to you that the internal lighting was off inside the vehicle. I don't know why I didn't bring that point out. This reminds me that it was dark and it was 0605 52. I had to see what time it wasa We had this counter clock as you know, and to see the numerals I had to bring my fingertip lights up to see them. It was quite dark within the vehicle and this is quite an advantage to this observation. Then I say that Mercury is on the horizon and this meant that it was just coming down through what I described going up, if you can follow my directions here. This is where Mercury was as the pointer or index as it passed through these layers. Now· again, we proceeded through time so that light patterns will change and that's why these descriptions do conflict as we progress on in time. I think this might explain why. As I come back through with Mercury now setting these same light bands are not the identical ones that I described previously and I used the word "airglow" and even the way it came out in the tape I said see the Mercury going through the - and I was searching for a term and so I just said "airglow" just so I wouldn't have to get into a big discussion about what I was going to report on. Actually, I could have said through the -- I was searching for a term -- but this "airglow" I was using simply as a term to describe what I was looking at. I could have said through the lighted horizon. O'Keefe - Twilight layer is probably a better way to say it.
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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.