Mission: Space
Mission Space is a pavilion located in Epcot
Pavilion History
It took Imagineers almost five years to complete their concept for Mission: Space. Designs for the attraction began in 1995, and in total over 650 Imagineers worked on the attraction. The original plans for Mission: Space would have featured a motion simulator themed to look like a futuristic space shuttle (similar to Star Tours). The space shuttle would "fly" guests to a space station located on an asteroid. As opposed to the classic motion simulator technology, this version of Mission: Space would have utilized the new technology created for the attraction. The asteroid where the space station was located, would actually be the rest of the pavilion, which guests could walk around and explore.
Originally Imagineers wanted to reuse the building that housed Horizons. Due to the extensive costs of restructuring the building, to suit Mission Space, this idea was eventually scrapped. Instead a new pavilion was constructed on the former site of Horizons which was closed and demolished in 1999. Construction began on Mission Space in September of 2000. Initially the attraction was sponsored by Compaq, who helped design and develop the attraction in May 2000. When Compaq merged with Hewitt-Packard in 2002, HP assumed sponsorship of the pavilion. The simulator hardware used in the attraction was designed and built by Environmental Tectonics Corporation of Pennsylvania. Environmental Tectonics won the contract with a 30 million dollar contract in February of 2002.
Mission: Space celebrated it's grand opening on October 9, 2003 (the ride had been open for "soft openings" since June of that year). On hand for the celebration was Michael Eisner, HP CEO Carly Fiorina and NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe. Various astronauts also attended the event including: astronauts from the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, the space shuttle program, and international space station crew members. Also in 2003, the Environmental Tectonic Company sued Disney for 15 million dollars, alleging that Disney had failed to pay the full amount of the contract and that they shared proprietary design details with competitors. Disney counter-sued, alleging that the company had company failed to deliver according to the contract, and that this failure had cost Disney an extra 20 million dollars. The companies settled out of court in January of 2009.
Due to guests complaints of dizziness or headache after riding Mission: Space, On May 19, 2006, Disney began offering a less intense version of the ride called, the Green Team. Guests now have the option of riding the original ride (now known as the Orange Team) or riding the Green Team, during which centrifuge does not spin (creating a tamer ride).
