Astronaut Scientific Debriefings, 1962-1963

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capsule?
Schirra - We have answered that with the fingertips.
Shoe.maker - Did the light of the "time-correlation clock" shine in
your eyes throughout flight?
Schirra - The answer is no.
They put in a switch to turn that off and
I turned it once and it was never turned on again.
This was a very
great annoyance.
This was my prediction that I would turn i t of f
and never turn it on again.
Gill - You were responsible for having the switch put in, weren't
youT
Schirra - Yes, I went through some very careful studies on the dar kness
of this interior.
I ran a special test at the Cape and it is amazing
how much light comes in there.
John and Scott were surprised when
I told them this.
Scott came back from his flight furious about this
time - correlation clock light .
So I put in a switch-in-series and
just clicked it off as soon as I got to the switch.
Gill - Good for you .
Schirra - It was the first time it was dark outside, frankly, and
that was the end of that light .
(Laughter)
The cabin lights are
tube lights.
They leak like mad.
Just terribly.
So I turned
those off as well when I wanted darkness .
Then I had pure darknes s .
The only light I could create then were the fingertip lights.
When I
blacked out that capsule, it was black dark other than when I needed
to see something with the fingertip lights.
This is · where our
crutches - as I described the map, the time and the star charts