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
(_ . so became a liability, because we had then to bring on light again (I brought on the finger tip lights to do this). Gordon knows how strongly I feel about the star chart device. This is a valuable tool. But it required two tools and a slider. Actually, two tools, with sliders on each to use them. I had to take one tool which gave me a reference in the time that had elapsed to come back to the star char t which had a reference for one time - I think it was an hour's worth. So I had to come over here and compute. For example, say I had S hou r J and 20 minutes, so I'd run down 5 hours and 20 minutes and look across and this is equivalent to say 53 minutes. So then I would say, Ah, 53 . minutes; so then I would race over here and set the little window thing on the index of 53 minutes and this thing is floating around and I would stamp it off and get it out of the way. This is quite a chore. It really is. So now we have included this on the flight plan itself, what index of the star chart to use. So we have simplified this task quite a bit. Cameron - As far as the star charts are concerned, fluorescence Roman - Suppose you had an ultra violet lamp · in the capsule - Schirra - If you kept it up? Roman - That's what I was going to suggest - - (fluorescent paint on charts) Not depending on storing it up and letting it go down afterwards. Gill - You mean keep it on? Roman - _Well, depending on which looks more desirable. But you could set that at a level where it would not blind you and
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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.