Astronaut Scientific Debriefings, 1962-1963

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52
Dunke i man - The Navy has done this very carefully.
Schirra - It can be destroyed very rapidly.
It turns out quite
frequently when you are in a cockpit and you're time - critical,
more so than when you are on a carrier deck fo r a night launch
than when you are on the pad .
Things are in a f r antic tempo .
You make a very rapid checkout of the cockpit and you real l y don' t
care about light adaptation .
You just want to be sure that eve rything
is in its proper position.
So all of a sudden- - boom- -you are shot off
into the black and surprisingly you are very well adapted .
I feel-­
I know Scott has made a test on this -- ! think you come down to a very
rapid adaptation in seconds and then you progress getting be tter
dark - adapted over many, many minutes.
I know this has been documented.
It is not worth trying to adapt to this exponential curve that you are
trying to get hold of.
Gill - Five minutes certainly helps a great deal.
Schirra - I have said this in the past, for example, if it were
night outside right now, we could ~tep outside that door.
With t hi s
lighting you have in here, you can see outside this door (assuming
you are looking at the celestial night).
You can see more th an I
could see out of the window of the capsule with· perfect adaptation.
I have done this.
I have been in a lighted room since the fligh t
and have stepped outside.
Now we have done this frequently at the
various control stations around the net.
I did this at Guaymas
which you well know is a tremendous place to look at stars.
I wa lked
out of a room just as lighted as this and got outside and boom, I saw
more than I could see in the capsule.