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
I 60 BEGINNING OF THIRD TAPE Schirra - I could not pick up cloud structure because I was looking down and at this pointp you don't have time, and don 't think your cues are good enough to separate elevations . Nordberg ~ You don't recall seeing any clouds when there was no lightning? Schirra - No. I don 9 t recall this. I don't think I did reall y. I was really frantically trying to see this typ hoon, and we cal led it a typhoon where Pacific Command Ship was. It was down south of it, and I could not see it. It was still too dark, and I think the other reason for it was that the periscope - here we go - was annoying to me, that picked up the sunrise before I had my sunrise, because it was looking in that direction, and it ruined my adaptati on . That was when I threw the filter over it, and that was the end of the periscope forever. I forgot to remove that filter = not that I even intended to. On descent on the parachute, and in a way I would like to have had the prerogative of looking at the periscope and seeing the recovery forces deployed around there . It took me a long time to realize why I couldn't see the recovery forces . (Laughter) . And it finally came out that I threw this filter over it just prior to retrofire . And that was the end of the periscope (laughter) which also showed that didn 1 t need it, obviously . Nordberg - This question of frequency of lightning is a real importan t one . Would you say that you saw lightning through each night time orbit? I
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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.