Astronaut Scientific Debriefings, 1962-1963

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stars. But a general impression of looking out at these areas was that the numbers of stars I could see was not greatly increased.

You mention the transmission through the glass be comparable ... to the atmosphere. That's something you people can check.

That's right.

McDonald, through their studies of the window had felt that we probably would not see too many more stars because the transmission of light through the window is cut down by 27 per cent or something like that. The figure that they came up with was almost identical to what people have computed the atmospheric attenuation of light is. So they felt that when we got above the atmosphere it would probably be about the same looking through the window as it is looking through the atmosphere here, and I think they were just about right. It looked to be about the same to me.

I think it might be wise for you to read the next 3 or 4 paragraphs. I think a lot of these are going to be real quick answers, so why don't I you get to it.

Did you see Magellanic Clouds? No. Andromeda Nebula? No. How much did the moonlight affect your ability to see faint surface areas?

I Tremendously. We had moon out--almost full moon. You can look at this 2 ways, (1) it was a tremendously disadvantage or it was a tremendous advantage. I prefer to think it was an advantage because it did provide a visual capability on the clouds--on the dark side which was sufficient that I could use it for a YAR reference where it might have been questionable whether I could do that otherwise.