1 August 2024 – Club Meeting Presentation
— Thursday night, 7:00 – 8:30 p.m.
This free speaker presentation will be offered in-person at the UNC-Asheville Reuter Center and virtually online. Registration is not required; use this Zoom link to watch the presentation remotely.
An Astronomy Guest Speaker Series Event – a collaboration of the Astronomy Club of Asheville and UNC-Asheville
PARI: An Untold History of Spacemen and Spies
– presented by
Craig Gralley,
Author and former CIA senior executive
After six decades, the communities of Rosman and Balsam Grove are finally learning the truth about the large, mysterious satellite dishes that operate in their neighborhood behind rows of barbed wire and a chain-link fence. Craig Gralley’s new book, “PARI: An Untold History of Spacemen and Spies,” reveals the secret past of PARI—a facility buried deep in the mountains of western North Carolina, whose very existence was denied for decades by the U.S. government. Gralley charts the Rosman site’s proud history and through personal stories and declassified government documents tells how its employees helped to win the space race, the Cold War, and are now embarked on a critically important new mission: science education. All author profits are being donated to further PARI’s science education programs.