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.
“Nevers”23 pages
21 like a star. O'Kcefe - I think when Nicks asked if the sun changed in size, he really - the sun qoesn't change in size as it setso He meant change in brightnesso Schirra ~ Apparent size - not the size, but the illusion at least . I've got to break off a second here. I don't recall seeing many moon sets on earth~ Have any of you ever seen a good moon set? Roman - Yes. Sch i rra - You have to be on the West Coast to do it; but, of course, I saw a moon set on this flight and that is why I brought it up. To me, it was the first real good moon set I had seen q (Laughter) O' Keefe - There is a good solid reason for that. That is t hat a full moon will set at sunrise. Not many people are up at that time. Schirra - I hope you have had a· chance to see the photographs I took of this moon set. Gill - . No . Schirra - There are two black and white sets of these. The original prints were very good. I understand there is a lot of halat i on around this . I definitely think you all should get these out and examine them. Now the subsequent prints were not very good. They were too fuzzy . Gill - Who would have them?
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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.