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.
“Tibet”2 pages
Scientific Debriefing -24- Soules: You ma.de the remark that you were coming over A:t'rica. aey more information? There was none in the tra.ns9ript. ~ Cooper: What base was this oni\ / I Bill: Wasn't one of them over the coastline? Cooper: Yes, I did one right on the .coast of A:t'rica. I got one coming ~ight over the coastline. Another ·one I got almost over ·the other coast; :toward Johannesburg; it was· ·an inland picture, almost the northern areao . ,' Soules: The last four are a ~stery. • Bill Armstrong: It, looks like you had about a quarter inch motion .on I'm sure. I didn't. · 1I ' was ·holding the camera just Soules1 : We might , check the camera. , -Soules: What was the do~t color of the ·earth over Baja California? I Cooper: I :found that the green showed up very little. The only really • djstinct green that 'I saw which showed up much was in the high Tibetan area. It. was a \right emerald green, by ·some o:f those lakes. It looked like a ,copper sulphate mining area. The browns ·of the. .Arabian Desert Sand show,ed : up quite distinct. • Th~. Sahara was :not quite so brown although i~ .did' have I
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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.