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.
“Gray”5 pages
63 Nordberg - There are some thoughts that by polarization and so, one can distinguish it over a uniform surface; of course, the eye doesn't have this, but I'm just looking for a clue that the eye might have which we hadn't thought of in an instrument such as depth, because it's interesting when you say you can see all this depth in the clouds themselves. Schirra - Yes. Nordbe.!.,& - ... whether one could see because of depth difference an d shadows, or something, this distinction between clouds and snow. On the first TI ROS (satellite), TI ROS I , . ~ Schirra - This thing is stalled out (referring to tape recorder). 1 Is that o.k. Is it finished? - No, no that's going.) Nordberg - The first TIROS was just sort of an observation when we still were at this "Ge Whiz" stage on satellites. Boy, we see something Schirra - Sure, now you want more? (Laughter) - So do I. Nordberg - People said look at those beautiful orgraphic clouds over northern India, and there is this huge band, until somebody saw valleys in these clouds and all there was - was snow~covered areas and with the valleys being clear. Schi rra - Very good. . .. Tennyson - John O'Keefe has come up with a statement that I, at least , would like to think about some more and that is the relative motion involved here. TIROS and Nimbus, etc. are still picture - type items. think his (Schirra's) statement there that watching the tops and bases and of the earth moving at different relative speeds may be, at least, as important to height determination as anything we can I
Not linked to a story yet.
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.