Astronaut Scientific Debriefings, 1962-1963

Text

This text came with the file. It may have mistakes. When the text and the image disagree, the image is right.

J
'• '
•
srientific Debriefing
-48­
1
1
··Pf. Voao: • You seemed to have the general impression that you w~re stationary
.~
8:fld everything else is moving.
~
Cpoper: That's right. You sort of become the center of everytijing, and you think
t
hpw you can move the earth around, 'When you want it, rather than move yourself.
Dr.
I
Voao:
Now, as you sat there with this moving picture in front of you, did you
\
have the general feeling you were sitting upright or flying on your back?
Cooper:
I did very distinctly feel I was sitting upright. A couple of times
on account of the way you fee_l in the straps like hanging upside down.
Every
ti.me I dropped something, I grabbed at it below.
I never had trouble handling
pencil. I never had any trouble putting it where I wanted or getting it. One
ti.me I made a wild grab for the · camera as I thought it was going to fall, but of
course it didn't.
Dr. Voas:
On periods af'ter you awakened, did you__ have· ·reeling you had gone to
sleep sitting upright?
Cooper:
Yes.
Definitely.
Dr. Voao:
You mentioned sometimes you had the feeling of being upside down.
Was
this correlated with the spacecraf't being inverted? Visually, I mean.
I
Cooper:
No.
I think this was purely a feeling of the straps. You're floating
in the straps rather than being firm; like inverted flight in an aircraf't.
Voas:
Did you have ~,general feeling of being stationary? This general feeling
of being stationary was not changed by any control action?
Cooper:
I tried to give them some pretty good rates, but bad no feel for rates at all.
Cooper: Vision-wise, you would see things changing ou then pretty fast, but it
wasn't bothersome at all.
Dr. Voas:
When you say "pretty good rates," this is 2 to 3 degrees per second?
Cooper:
Three, four or five degrees.
' '
. . ·.
... ........