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
;-, pcientj f ie Debriefing -31- 1~ l .pr. Voe.s : The day sides get a lot lighter, at night they are about the same ,, i fia.rknes s as the inside of the spacecra.f't. Cooper: The night sky and the day sky is about the same as the difference between I . ~ jet black and a dark gray . . (It is about the same difference b_etween the night \ , . . ' sky and the day sky.) It is a sorter kind of dark during the day. Not nearly as dark as the night sky. Dr. Voe.a : Is it a smooth overall gray on the window? Do you see any chance at a.l.l that the grayness you noted could be minute amounts of scattered light from fog on- the window? Cooper: I don't believe . so, Bob, because immediately when ·you got a faint amount of obli que llght on the window it immediately looked like it was iced- over. All you had to do was get just a faint amount on it and it appeared to be just like aI canopy frozen over. O'Keefe : Was this scattered light 1n the window or not? I hoped you could see,, some ki nd of a pattern. Cooper: That• s what I •m saying. When you have any kind of scattered light on the window, when the window was in any kind of an attitude (demonstrated) say this is • the window and out here is . the sun, any time the window was moved around where. . • there was any kind' of light shining on the window - just a faint amount of it . would completely obliterate the vision through the window. I just went completely IFR. There was just no looking through the window. Of course, the earth gives off an awful lot of light, and you can't see anything as long as the earth i s shining in the window. Any time the sun was back here fmd I was faced away from the earth, regardless of attitude, the sky appeared to be a smooth gray. O'Keef e : You could see the griton\ the window? • Cooper : You could see the light actually impinging on 'the Wind.ow. You could see • the scum all over the inside of"the outside ~e. 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.