Astronaut Scientific Debriefings, 1962-1963

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76
was that really Mercury?
Well, I knew it was Mercury just by having
had the opportunity to have Mercury projected on approximate launch
day, so I knew it had to trail the sun, and everytime we ran the
~lanetarium, we had Mercury projected tracking the sun, on the
s an. e path , of co u rs e .
Gill - So it is a great help to kn ow what things are there and where
they are before you take off.
Schirra - Yes .
You've got to have most of this stuff in your mind
rather than have to refer to something to remind you of it again.
This is why you can get confused as I was, when I was drifting, as
what star or constellations I was looking at.
Shoemaker -
We have one more question.
I think this is rather a
trivial one.
I don't think we need to dwell on it.
Did the moon
interfere with your view at anytime, or did you make use of it in
anyway?
Schirra - I used it liberally, of course, for attitude reference.
One
best example, on the third orbit, I was drifting and then restore d my
attitude during the night rather than during the daytime.
We were
trying to determine whether we could get the attitude back both
daylight and night.
Out of the unknown attitude, I first picked up
the horizon which was on the night side, very easily, which then
gave me roll and pitch and then I had no idea which way to go for
yaw.
We had no compass ... whether it would work or not is something
else.
I started looking around at this starfield which was not on my
flight path, by far, and finally, Cassiopeia became quite obvious