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.
73 Schirra - As an example, I was hoping that I could look up at Japan after retrofire, and I couldn't see it at all. It was clouded in too. Tennyson - Japan, this time of year, looks like it would be cloudy. Nordberg - Particularly at this time of year - this was October, so that was already in the Northern Hemisphere and should be out of the tropical convergence zone. Tennyson - But still Japan by nature is .... (cloudy) Schirra - There was quite a bit of weather in the Pacific at that t i~~. O'Keefe Still, if he goes 28 degrees N to 28 degrees S, he was in the tropical convergence zone most of the ti me. So thin gs aren't qu i te as bad as they would appear from this flight. Shoemaker - The point is that this also is in the area which is mostly extensive deserts; these are the precise areas where you would see the geology best. Schirra - Yes . O'Keefe This is 30 North and 30 South -- the deserts are 35 degrees. Shoemaker - Well, actually the extensive deserts nearly all lie in (interrup ted) ... Schirra - Something I ' m curious about is, I would like to have some body - well there are two ways of doing this - I bet I probably had water underneath me about 90% of the time. Cameron - About how much cloud coverage would you estim a te ? Wo uld you estimate the amount of the earth that was covered by clouds? Schirra - I guess I could check this more carefu lly. I would
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.