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.
“Pacific Ocean”1 page
58 nimbus that stands out like a ruler in relation to tpe vertical plane. I think it might be here (in the record). Nordberg - I have seen some of the films. I don't know if they were your flight or previous ones. I am just curious whether the eye sees something better than what shows up on the color film . Schirra - Yes, they do . You use every cue availabl1. • ·o•Keefe = He doesn't have the stereoscopic effect i p the ordinary I sense, but you remember that he is in motion when He sees that th e peak of the clous moves at a differen t rate so he gets a sort of pseudo - stereoscopic effect like you get when you are dr i ving a lon g in a car -- by the fact that they are moving relative to t he caps ule . Schirra - Take page nine here, and put a sheet of paper on the top of it to cut off the curvature of the earth and you've seen this from an airplane. Haven't you? _Nordberg - Yes . Schirra - That is why I've used it in this example that I am trying to get across . You can see cloud structures in this yellow band here that are just terrific. Nordberg - Well, how about at night? Have you been able to see any clouds in real darkness at all? Schirra - Yes, I did and they were lighted by lightning. In fa ct I gave Woomera a report on the first orbit saying I would not possibly see their flare because I was seeing lightning and they hadn ' t stepped outside their room . I said that you are about t o have some real brutal thunder storms and the second orbit they agreed with me~ because they were there then . This was during the night side.
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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.