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When the intelligence community cleared out of Rosman in 1995, Owen and other current staffers say, it left behind a remarkable and mostly salvageable technical infrastructure. To begin with, the site's electrical and water systems are all redundant -- there are two of everything, from the generators to the pumps to the water lines, evidently to ensure that the facility would never suffer interruptions if one system broke down. The air-conditioning system is unusually powerful, a testament to the NSA's need to keep rooms full of supercomputers cool and dry. And several of the larger buildings have raised flooring; in the 18 inches of space below them run miles of premium communications cable, which has proven especially useful for several PARI projects.
This is the first documented case of a former NSA base being converted to civilian use, however, and along with the benefits of that advanced infrastructure have come some unprecedented problems, reports Technical Director Charles Osborne. For example, reconfiguring the site's two largest radio telescopes -- which each measure 85 feet in diameter and weigh 300 tons -- proved to be a major chore.
"Looking at satellites is much easier than trying to look out several billion light years," Osborne explains. "We were trying to use the antennae initially at about 1 to 2 percent of the speed that they were designed to work at, so it was very difficult. We needed to be able to make tiny corrections to accurately track stars, and so we had to go through a big retrofit to get that kind of control for fine-tuning the speed."
Despite all the modifications, though, the site's former mission has remained on many people's minds. Michael Castelez, PARI's director of astronomical studies and education, says the station's past is often an unavoidable topic when local schoolchildren visit. "The whole mystique of the site is passed on from parents to their kids," he says. "I had a group of third graders that came through, and we were walking around the facility on a beautiful day and looking at the antennae. I noticed that they were very quiet, so I stopped and said, "Please, ask questions.' And no sooner had I said that than one little kid blurts out, "Are you a spy?' I said, "No,' and then another one said, "Where are the spies?'"
PARSEC and beyond
With the spies long gone, what lies ahead for PARI? For one, the facility is primed to become one of the country's pre-eminent centers for astronomical studies. Students from more than 40 schools and colleges have been involved with PARI, and last October, the 16 member schools of the UNC system signed up to form the Pisgah Astronomical Research Science and Education Center (PARSEC). The UNC-Asheville-based initiative opens up PARI to the 200,000 students in the UNC system.
Though Cline is excited about PARSEC and his institution's other recent successes, he also makes it clear that the future of Rosman station is still not secure. So far, he says, he's invested more than $10 million in the site, and the $100,000-a-month operating costs are mounting faster than the donations and grants are coming in. To continue on a secure footing, Cline believes, his ambitious science project needs a sizable endowment -- say, $30 million or so.
That size sum may seem wildly out of reach. But so, at first glance, do the planets, stars and galaxies that PARI's scientists and students are bringing down to earth with their instruments. By now, they're used to thinking that the sky's no limit.
For more information about PARI, visit www.pari.edu.
Freelance writer Jon Elliston is based in Asheville.
