Astronaut Scientific Debriefings, 1962-1963

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- Was this bothered or being bothered by moonlight on the windows or was the sky actually bright?

No. The sky was not bright. I didn't notice the sky being bright at all nor was it moonlight bothering on the window of the capsule. It was moonlight on the surface of the earth back from the clouds when I looked down that direction I could use as a YAR reference.

Yes, but I heard you say that the moonlight very definitely did bother your ability to see faint areas. I'm trying to find out in what way.

Well I don't--perhaps that was a misstatement. I don't think it really hurt on seeing fainters I don't believe. I was thinking of the more complete night adaptation we would have without any moonlight at all. This is so slight you couldn't--I doubt if you could pinpoint differences.

What about daytime stars?

Daytime stars I couldn't--if I was going along and looking down at the horizon, the area behind the capsule and would look up, I couldn't see any at all. But when we had the small end of the capsule up above the horizon and over to the right where it was shaded from the sun, then if I stayed in that position for, oh, anything over a minute, I guess, then I could see the brighter stars start coming out. I never remained in that position long enough to become night adapted where I could identify constellations or pick out specific stars but I wanted to see whether we could pick up stars on the daylight side and you could after about I guess a minute adaptation.

Perhaps we had better move on then to the question of stars very near the moon.