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.
Scientific Debriefing -15- Bill: The spread of light isn't too great. J ', Coope~: It is pretty hard to Judge the; light Mercer: Did .you see the ·stars during this• ~'l , I Cooper: Not this particular ··orbit. No I didn't. I I (Second Experiment • Balloon J?.ra,g) Dey: Mr. Carmines will you give. us a quick run-down on ·.the -balloon ·expe failure? Carmines: I tal.ked with Instrumentation people and everyone agreed that we really don't know what happened. We had one relay actuateo There are · several possibil.ities • . To me the most l.ikely place of trouble is the final • plug. The pins are on the pigtail and in putting this together you can bend ' \ I ' these pins and get a misalignment. W~ checked the plug :and.in this case the :pin is near ·the case ~d if it ~ent it could ground.. I . • Bill: The squibs were in parallel and a number ·of ·tests showed' eithe:x: •one '.- ·• .. I ' of the squib would fire the latch. The most probable cause , is in ·the circ,uitry.,I '- I ' (Discussionoon ·G~ound Light _Observation) , Bill Armstrong: How hard wa.s it to pick up the light when .you .first Did you have -trouble picking ·up this ground light at all? , I , , • - ' ,' '·. . . .. -. , . ---: -, :, • , • • • . . ' I , -· l ,
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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.