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
112 MAURICE DUBIN Since the velocity distribution of meteors is over the range from 10 to 70 km/sec, for the purpose of computation an average velocity of 40 km/sec was used. Pmax and nm.a.--.. were determined accordingly. From equation (1) and WATSON'S (1941) estimate for the number and size distribution of meteors entering the earth's atmosphere Table I was computed. The computation has been made for three altitudes, 85 km, 100 km, and 115 km, using the following rocket pressures: Altitude (km) I Pressure (mm.of Hg) Number density of air molecules (cm- •) 85 4 X l0- 3 1014 100 4 X l0- • 10l3 115 4 X 10- 5 1012 Thus equation (1) becomes 7 X 1023 9 ( 1 p )2 n = 4 X 4 X 10- 2pr a} 1 3 4 X 10- 2r 00 2 = 1.6 x l021 2 ( 1 - l ) •n115 r 00 3 X 103 00r The number of electrons per cm of path becomes, from HERLOFSO (1948) , n X 10- 2 n X 10- s n. cm-1 = --- -v 4 From Table I it is evident that the number of electrons for a shell of 1 cm thickness over the surface of the earth, resulting from meteors, is 1020 electrons per day at 85 km produced mainly from meteors of visual magnitudes 1 to 4, about 1020 electrons per day at 100 km with the major contribution for visual magnitudes 6 to 15, and again about 1020 electrons per day at 115 km from mag. 7 to 20. The number of electrons produced per cm of path per cm2 per sec at these t hree altitudes is thus 1020/ ( 4 . 4 x 1023 ) = 2 x 10- 4 electrons per cm 3 per second. Now according to HERLOFSON, the kinetic energy of a typical meteor is divided in the ratio 104 : 102 : 1 for the production of heat, light, and ionization, respec tively. These values were used in the computation of Table I. However, from
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 216 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.