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
66 don't have the 70 mm. yet, but as soon as they become available, they'd send them to us, but actually we haven't really received anything from them since and the only time that I have seen some of these photographs that you are talking about .•. Schirra - Well, Kleinknecht doesn't have control of this, MSC doesn't have control of these pictures I took, obviously, . or actually I would have been able to se e them. Gill - Who does? Tennyson - The person involved with this (at least in th e past) is Stanley Soules. Schirra - Yes, when you think of the s mall number of pictures I did take, and the expense that was involved in taking these pictures, it is just ama zin g that first class reproductions haven't been disseminated widely. Shoemaker - I think, Jocelyn, this is something that you and I an d John O'Keefe should take up with our joint committee. Gill - rv 11 look into it. Schirra - They should be all over the place ... is really what I am really getting at . Shoemaker - This is something we can do something about. Schirra - Sure . I know Kleinknecht can't help you with this because he has no control over this. Shoemaker - I think we can straighten this out. Cameron - Did you ever think you could see highways? Schirra - I saw roads in areas such as Mexico where they disturb the terrain by being in a straight line. I never did have the
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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.