Continuing Historical Research

I found another photo of NASA Rosman, paper linked

I am continuing to research the history of Rosman, because they haven't needed to know it terribly in-depth.

So far, I have learned some interesting tidbits that I can confirm, as well as a fair few I cannot.

• The 12.2 meter (40 foot) telescope does not appear in papers concerning Rosman from the NASA days. Which puts a dent in my hypothesis that, being smaller, it was installed first. I'm starting to wonder if that whole part of the site was put in during the Department of Defence days--you can kind of guess by the nicknames for the surrounding areas, or by the random tech they found laying around. The 40 foot was, until recently, covered by a dome so that spy satellites couldn't tell where it was pointing. It's been somewhat out of commission since the dome's removal and only came back online a few weeks ago. 
• There might have been a 35 foot dish. It might have been partially underground, which could partially explain the conspiracy theories about vast underground complexes. But the dish was during the DoD days, if it existed, and I haven't started trying to research those...if they've even been declassified. 
• Our 85 foot dishes were tested extensively, but the facility was only really brought online for NASA when both dishes were completed--references to the construction efforts and calibration efforts appear before 1963-1964 or so, but we are not used in a research paper with regards to satellite tracking until after construction was completed. 
• I have found a declassified, heavily censored document on what the DoD did here! Does it actually say anything? No. No, it doesn't. Thank you for declassifying this helpful information, DoD. Thanks. At least I can confirm you stopped whatever [REDACTED] on 31 March 1995. </sarcasm>
• The Department of Defence search engine (for their website) is Bing. They have declassified how many nuclear weapons they've had for the last fifty years, but not what happened here. Thanks, DoD. Thanks.
• I also located this document, which is a request for information and presumably all communication associated with that request, confirming that to say what happened at Rosman would directly and adversely impact national security. In other words, whatever the DoD did (apart from adding on to this building, which I appreciate), they still aren't telling. Or weren't, as of 9 years ago. Somehow, I doubt the situation has changed appreciably. 
• I probably won't be able to confirm anything from the Department of Defence days for the history I am compiling. Awesome. I stand by my earlier assumption, that Rosman continued doing what it was designed to do: It tracked satellites, just not ours, and required a higher security clearance. 

But the DoD did kindly provide a picture dated 1977. Which, I notice, was before they took over the site. So here's what the site looked like just after Apollo-Soyuz, in its NASA heyday. (Real smooth, fellas.) 

I guess you can tell it's us.

Additionally, everyone I've shown the mystery picture from a few days ago to agrees with my assessment: The picture definitely shows a STADAN station, but it isn't us. Which begs the question: who is it? There were only so many STADAN stations that had a 26 metre telescope and a smaller, maybe 12.2 metre telescope. If I go through pictures of the other stations that had those capabilities, that should narrow things down--there were only a handful.

Two 26-metre telescopes may dominate our skyline, but our skyline this ain't.

And I think...I think I may have figured it out. The Bendix company produced company handouts for its employees, telling them what facilities they would have when they went to work at one of the STADAN stations. The Rosman variation is less than helpful; the Honeysuckle Creek facility kindly digitised all of them, and while it includes a better scan of the DoD photograph, it mostly just has statistical or practical information about living in Rosman. But Goldstone, California's was more useful.

From the Goldstone Story 1974 Edition, photo possibly earlier.

Goldstone is even more unique than PARI in that it is still in operation for its original purpose. It's still a NASA facility and had a 26 meter telescope that was upgraded(Goldstone website linked) in 1976 to a 34 metre telescope--they added a 4 metre ring around the whole thing. You can see the pre-upgrade facility in the above photo. The mystery photo, mislabeled as Rosman, appears to depict a telescope in the midst of serious overhaul; a scaffolding is visible around a mount that, by necessity, had to have been made more robust. Furthermore, while they appear to have expanded some buildings at the same time, the one closest to the telescope that's shaped a bit like a tetris block appears to have the same tetris block edges positioned in the same relation to the telescope itself.

So problem solved, back to mining for more information on Rosman that is, presumably, more useful than what television stations were available in 1972. Or the phone numbers for local drive-in restaurants.

I also learned over lunch--when in doubt, ask people over lunch, especially when they're curious what the heck you're doing here--that Rosman was the site in communication with Apollo-Soyuz when it announced successful docking.

This thing. (From a Microfilm scan)

And the man I spoke with said that he has a film on the site from 1974 or so that might be useful. 

Might be useful? YES, thank you!!! It's 15 minutes of footage that are about The Satellite we have on display, an ATS-6 backup. It shows PARI in use as a NASA data center and it talks about what the heck The Satellite actually did. Because it was used. It was a joint project with the ESA. HOORAY!! I might want to pull specific clips from the video, since it is 15 minutes long, and I might want to put different audio, but still! WOO! 

This is what comes up if you search "Astronaut Party", alongside the cute space kitties.

I swear, 45% of this job is researching museums, 10% is figuring out how to rearrange the museum into coherent exhibits, 45% is researching PARI itself...but that's OK. I like researching space history. It makes my inner space camper very happy indeed. And the video makes me even happier.

A very detailed art of my inner space camper

Thurburn--I think I'm spelling that right--also says he can try and get me the files of Rosman's transcripts, including some from Project Gemini, next week. I had a hunch we were part of that, since we were active at the right time, but I haven't been able to prove it yet. As you may or may not be aware, if you know me, I did a project on Project Gemini in 8th grade. This has been a very productive lunch, if I do say so myself. (Leftover lemon curry chicken and basmati rice, if you're curious. Good recipe, very easy, I made a ton so it's been my lunch basically all week.)

Update on My Quest to Bother Successful Museums Until They Tell Me All Their Secrets: I'll be pestering the guy from the Museum of Life and Science in Durham next Thursday afternoon, if you're keeping score of these things. I haven't scheduled anyone else yet, mostly on the grounds that I'd like to see how this goes and if there's anything I should keep in mind for Whoever I Pester Next. I'm going to push hard for the Schiele museum, that museum in Oak Ridge, and Discovery Place is inevitable. I'm going to try to avoid the Triad area after this, because it's really pretty far and I would somewhat prefer to keep my wanderings closer to home... or, PARI, anyways, because this will take at least two days. Three, if I use Charlotte as a halfway point and spend a couple of nights at home...which might be nice, since 13 high school girls arrive in our building this weekend as part of Duke TIP! Marvellous. Either way, I should re-download my audiobook of A Song of Ice and Fire or The Fellowship of the Ring. The BBC comedy programs I currently have just aren't long enough, and they're far too silly.

I suppose I should also consider that if Steve thinks driving to Durham is a reasonable stop on The Quest, Huntsville is certainly an option. I mean, it's definitely not significantly farther, I think there's a twenty minute difference from PARI. I don't have any contacts at the USSRC, but museum people are educators by trade. Somebody would probably be willing to give me a little time to ask about exhibit design and things to consider when explaining NASA operations to the public...especially since I wouldn't be averse to going into museology as a trade. I'll certainly have a decent start to a resume after this...

Something else worth considering

I wonder if a computer set up to run Radio Galaxy Zoo in the Command Center would be nice? Guests like Real Science, that's why they're here. If we gave them a computer in a room that obviously does Real Science and put something next to it explaining how Radio Galaxy Zoo uses crowd sourcing to analyse data like the stuff taken by the 12.2 meter or the 26 meters, that might be a nice interactive--especially since it's not just an interactive exhibit, it's a way for guests to actively contribute to the scientific community.

I mean...the Command Center is very much a part of the museum, after all! We work in here, but the computers set up outside the Intern Pit are exhibits just as much as they provide constant lightning, cloud cover, and seismological data. (Well, the seismology doesn't come up much. If you see anything on the seismograph, it's most likely because somebody is out driving around in that part of campus.)

It's worth considering.