Astronaut Scientific Debriefings, 1962-1963

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.

30
O' Keefe - _Yes, he gave me a note. I was supposed to pass that
note down to the Manned Spacecraft Center; I don't think I did.
I think it's my fault. (Ed. copies were forwarded to MSC~)
Roman - What is this you are referring to?
O'Keefe - There is a very strong magnetic anomaly in this region,
and this is where ...
Dunkelman - I think the fact that Schirra had not heard of this makes
the observation even better scientifically.
Schirra - Hmm.
O'Keefe Quite exciting about this thing, but exactly ·what region
is Cdr . Schirra talking about? ... He's talking about the South · Atl anti c
- and the South Atlantic was in sunlight. This is probably as clos e
to it as we could get to be in darkness.
Schirra - I think what happened is I looked out as I was drifting
and this happened to be in the right attitude to see this, which
probably meant that I was looking toward the North although I can ' t
confirm this .
Cameron - You said something about you would judge that the width
was about a fourth of your window.
Schirra - Yes.
Cameron - Can you say how far - anything about how high it was
from the horizon?
Schirra - I was surprised when I saw what I thought were city lights
and they turned out to be stars below this thing. As a result, I
was confused in the sense that I wasn't then looking for yardsticks.