Deep in the heart of Pisgah National Forest, there's a historic space research station with ties to NASA — and it's one of only three International Dark Sky-certified Parks in North Carolina. We're talking about the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute (PARI) — an isolated 200+ acre area that first opened in 1963 as NASA's Rosman Tracking Station.

In 1967, its 26-meter radio telescope received one of the world's first color photos of the full Earth from space, as well as a TV transmission. For decades, the station played a vital role in the space program, communicating with satellites and manned space flights such as Project Gemini and Project Apollo as they passed over the East Coast.

A photo of the Rosman NASA Tracking Station under construction back in the 1960s. | Photo courtesy of the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room

During the Cold War, the station came under the control of The Department of Defense and was used mainly to intercept Russian satellite communications — and as a cheeky joke, one of the telescopes had a smiley face painted on it to keep things "friendly."

When the Department of Defense closed the facility in 1995, the Rosman Station appeared to be at the end of its rope, with the federal government proposing to dismantle it. But just in the nick of time (1998, to be exact) NC residents Don and Jo Cline stepped in and purchased the site, thus creating the PARI we know today.

The “smiley” face on PARI’s radio telescope was painted as a joke during the height of the Cold War. | Photo courtesy of PARI

Since then, a staff of professional astronomers, engineers, and other scientists have tended to this nonprofit, adding features like the optical telescope, solar power, and two high-precision photographic plate scanners named "GAMMA-I and GAMMA-II" along the way.

Interested in exploring this curious site? Check out the visitor page and learn more about its educational programs.

This is just the beginning of the institute's alluring history. For a deeper dive into declassified government documents and the humans that operated the institute upon opening 60 years ago, check out Craig Gralley's "Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute: An Untold History of Spacemen & Spies."