Space Mountain

Space Mountain is an attraction located in Tomorrowland

Attraction History

The idea for Space Mountain came from Walt Disney himself. After the successes of the Matterhorn attraction in Disneyland, Walt was convinced that "thrill-rides" had a place in his park. With this in mind, in 1964 Walt approached designer John Hench with an idea for a new Tomorrowland attraction. Walt called the idea the "Space Port", a roller coaster in the dark that would feature lighting and other special effects.

Concept art for the attraction was created by Hench, Clem Hall, George Mcginnis and Herb Ryman. The attraction's name was changed to "Space Voyage", and ideas for it continued to be refined. To help make the attraction a reality, WED partnered with the Arrow Development Company, who had helped design the Matterhorn. In June of 1966 WED employees voted, and decided to change the name to Space Mountain.

Plans for Space Mountain were put on hold indefinably in 1966. After Walt Disney's death, a new company wide focus was put on completing Walt Disney World. This, combined with the spacial and technological limitations of Disneyland made the construction of Space Mountain unfeasible.

Although the Space Mountain idea was dead in Disneyland, it sound found life in the newly constructed Walt Disney World. The popularity of the new park surpassed even Disney's expectations, and the new park proved to be extremely popular with teenagers and young adults. Almost as soon as the park opened plans were made for a new thrill ride.

Although Disney's first choice was a version of the Matterhorn, Walt Disney World's Fantasyland was not big enough to house the attraction. It was decided however, that Disney World's Tomorrowland would be big enough to house the tabled Space Mountain idea. With this in mind, Imagineers back to work on the development of the coaster. It was decided that instead of using the Arrow Development Company and their track ideas, Disney Imagineers would design the track themselves. The idea they came up with was to make the coaster a "pure gravity" ride. This meant that Space Mountain features no boosters or retarders.

One of the major contributing factors to the creation of Space Mountain was sponsorship. Disney gave RCA the opportunity to sponsor the attraction, which the chose to do. RCA payed 10 million dollars to help built Space Mountain. Because of this sponsorship the queue and post show were designed to feature RCA products.

The final design of the Space Mountain changed many times before the attraction was eventually built. The Designs the interior structure, queue and post show all changed various times before Space Mountain was built, The shape of Space Mountain was also a topic of debate amongst Disney Engineers. Some of the engineers wanted Space Mountain to look like a dome, while others wanted to use a "cone" shape. The cone shape idea eventually won out, and on January 15, 1975 Space Mountain officially opened.