Astronaut Scientific Debriefings, 1962-1963

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as I could start to begin to see some faint light down below and I glanced back up at the window and my first impression was, to say well we've gotten way out of attitude and probably come to the __ because here it was just like looking out on a complete star field, there was no other reference at all and looking backward toward this dark area what had happened, instead of the even horizon back here that I had had with the stars up above and the darker area down below. Now in this dark area down below too were all these other lights pinpointed in. They just looked, at first glance, like a continuation of the whole star field down into that area. I thought we had drifted up and here I am looking at nothing but a starfield and how did I ever get into this crazy attitude. I checked instruments again and checked the periscope again and I hadn't drifted. I was still in the same attitude I was in except this big darker area here that had been the earth back behind it that I had been looking at was now filled up with all these dots as the first light of the sun surfaced.

How long after the sunrise did you observe some of these in the shadow of the spacecraft? Was it almost immediately or towards the end of this __ period?

Oh, I don't think there any difference on that as far as when they would drift up into that. This could well have been occurring just as well when I first came into them as they could at the end of the time. I didn't have any impression that there was more drift by the capsule at one time than another or more flow around the capsule that pulled them in past the window at one time or another.