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.
“Hill”1 page
40 Cameron - I was wondering if you recognized this pattern here that you saw below it? Schirra - What really flipped · me -- this is where I got in trouble-- I said somethin$ about the Pleiades and I know I could not see · those. Cameron - You see according to this the Moon was up at the top (of the window) and Venus was off to the left. Did you see them? Schirra - I did not see them during this period, no. O°Keefe Where is Delphinus? Delphinus is somewhere. Roman - I was just thinking about that . . .. Cameron - Well, he's in Ophiuchus and Hercules and (General discussion which is inaudible) Schirra - Delphinus does look something like the Pleiades in a sense , yes . Roman - It's a little larger, but I'm sure that ... Schirra - At one time I tried to trace this down and see what · I really was looking at and I frankly have not done it. This is typical of everything we do, we always rushed into something else. O°Keefe = (to Cameron) Can you find Delphinus? It's right next to the (Northern) Cross. Cameron - I don't see it . I don't think it's on here .... Schirra - D~d I identify - when I said Aldebaran, I may well have been talking about . . . Cameron - There's a Norton (Star Atlas) in my bag - maybe I'm - if you ' d hand it to me - maybe I've got the wrong page--I don't know - I don ' t know why - he ' s got it there very clearly. O' Keefe - You have Ophiuchus, Hercules?
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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.