Gemini 4 Experiment Debriefing, 1967

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to use it, but he, uh, did, uh, have a chance to observe the air glow with the naked eye and he saw it edge on and he called it, uh . . . . name for it at the moment and . . . . . and really the first time you see a thing like that you don't know whether it haze or luminous sort; it does look hazy. Unfortunately, the press and other people kept that term in existence a long time, so long that a number of astronomers in Europe . . . . papers on this. Much of this haze layer was really a hazy layer and consist, consisting of dust particles and so on. Really, what Glenn saw was air glow edge on a luminous layer. There may be a little dust there, *Murray* may have something to say about that, but the predominate feature is it is a self luminous layer. Now, Carpenter has more time to observe it. He took the interference filters back up with him, and uh, he was able to time a star passing through the air glow as the star was setting and he noted it and turned it very carefully . . . . through the air glow the upper the lower and when it disappeared. From that careful timing information one was able to pin down the exact time of the air glow. Roughly 90 kilometers. And this is what took many many years to do from the ground by triangulation (?) which is very very difficult cause you never know how to take care of that . . . . . . transmission was later done by rocket passing through the air glow returning when the . . . was . . . . . . But (Carpenter) was able to do this in a matter of seconds. Well that started . . . . . . observation. Uh, we had hoped that later on perhaps the . . . . . . light which is very difficult to see near the sun, on earth you can see it only when the sun is, oh, some

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