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.
43 surface of the earth; physically, I just couldn't see ito Roman - That ' s what I meant when I said at best you - d see those · just before sunrise -- if at all at this time of year. Schirra - Right. It was just impossible for _me to see it at thi~ point way back here, so it was occluded by the surface of the earth, frankly, I just couldn ' t - physically I couldn't see it. What really would be fun, by gosh, would be to go back up and have Tony Jenzano (Director, Morehead Planetarium) lay this out in the planetar i ·, filJl = Yes, yes, you ought to be able to solve that. Schirra = I would be able to tell exactly what I saw. I'll do it - That 0 s the way to solve this because then I can get the whole star field, the complete celestial heaven at this time and space ·. And then we can make some points. I think one of you should .go there with me so we can have this pinned down. I think we should lay this out . He (Jenzano) can lay out the whole ~light plan. Gill = To get it pinned down . Roman - I would say here that Arcturus or Antares could have been con fused for Aldebaran here. Gill - Absolutely . Those would be good candidates. 0 °Keefe - Let ' s not let this point go. Who should go? Shoemaker - I think we should plan to do this. Schirra - I think this is the way to answer this rather than trying to beat it to death . I'll bet I'll be able to give you a whole bunch of information in there (at the planetarium)o 0 °Keefe - Should it be you, or Jocelyn? Gill - It depends on when it comes off - what time it comes off.
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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.