Spaceship Earth
Spaceship Earth is a pavilion located in Epcot
Contents
Pavilion History
Construction
Spaceship Earth was designed as the icon of all of EPCOT Center. The building was the first geodesic dome ever construct. Buckminster Fuller, who developed the mathematical structure of the pavilion named it Spaceship Earth. Although the pavilion looks like a seamless sphere, Space Earth is in fact made up of two parts. The top half of the dome sits on a steel, square ring which sits atop the "legs" of the pavilion. The second half of the dome is attached below the ring, giving the allusion that Spaceship Earth is a monolithic structure. The legs which support Spaceship Earth were driven 160 feet into the ground. Disney Imagineers also decided to make Spaceship Earth from two separate spheres, and outer and an inner sphere. The inside sphere is made of steel, pyramid shaped pipes. The outside was then covered with Alucobond pyramids, a polyester plastic, covered in two sheets of aluminum. This was done, so that the inner sphere (which holds the attraction) would be protect from the environmental, and also to solve the problem of runoff water. Disney Imagineers did not want water pouring off the sides of the 25 story building. To solve this problem gaps were left between the Alucobond triangles, so that water could run through them and into a gutter system. This system eventually deposited the water into the World Showcase Lagoon.
It took Construction took 26 months and almost 40,800 labor hours to build Spaceship Earth. When it was built, the pavilion was seen as a structural marvel. Disney did worry however, that a wind tunnel would form beneath the pavilion, knocking over guests. Since their was almost no data on geodesic domes, Disney brought in researchers from MIT who determined that the pavilion would not create a wind tunnel.
Attraction History
The attraction built inside Spaceship Earth was designed to be guests "welcome to Future World". On the dark ride attraction, guests travel back in time and witness human advancements in communication. The attraction was themed as a time machine, taking guests back to the dawn of civilization all the way to the near future. In it's history, the attraction has been changed three times. First in 1986, then in 1994, and finally in 2007. Although the scenes stayed the same after each refurbishment, a new narrator was added each time.
Original Version: Vic Perrin (1982-1986)
After entering the pavilion, guests would walk up a short ramp. On the walls aside the ramp, guests could see two posters and a large mural. The posters both showed Spaceship Earth at night, with stars shining behind it. They also read, "Ride the Time Machine from the Dawn of Civilization to the Beginning of Our Tomorrow. SPACESHIP EARTH.". This gave guests an idea of what the ride inside, would be like. The mural located in the queue, showed astronaut working on a satellite, with Earth in the background. The mural was framed with small pictures depicting cavemen, Romans, Egyptians, the printing press and finally modern humans. After passing through the queue, guests would board small blue ride vehicles. The vehicles operated on an Omnimover ride system, which never stopped.
After guests boarded the vehicles, they would enter a dark tunnel. Inside the vehichles would begin to ascend as guests could see a purple cloud with stars all around it. A flash of lightning would periodically strike from the cloud. Vic Perrin then began his narration saying:
