The Poker Flat Research Range (PFRR) is a launch facility and rocket range for sounding rockets in the U.S. state of Alaska, owned and operated by the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) Geophysical Institute since 1968. The world's largest land-based rocket range, it is situated on a 5,132-acre (20.77 km2) site located approximately 30 miles (50 km) northeast of Fairbanks and is operated under contract to the NASA Wallops Flight Facility. Since its inception PFRR has been closely aligned and funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and its predecessor, the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA). Other range users include the United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), the Air Force Geophysics Lab (AFGL) and a number of Universities and research laboratories. More than 1,700 launches have been conducted at the range to study the Earth's atmosphere and the interaction between the atmosphere and the space environment . Areas studied at PFRR include the aurora, plasma physics, the ozone layer, solar proton events, Earth's magnetic field, and ultraviolet radiation.
Read more about Poker Flat Research Range: History, Facilities, Sounding Rockets
Famous quotes containing the words poker, flat, research and/or range:
“The poker player learns that sometimes both science and common sense are wrong; that the bumblebee can fly; that, perhaps, one should never trust an expert; that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of by those with an academic bent.”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)
“On a flat road runs the well-trained runner,
He is lean and sinewy with muscular legs,
He is thinly clothed, he leans forward as he runs,
With lightly closed fists and arms partially raised.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“I did my research and decided I just had to live it.”
—Karina O’Malley, U.S. sociologist and educator. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A5 (September 16, 1992)
“They didn’t know
how
my heart woke
to a range and measure
of song
I hadn’t known.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)