Spaceship Earth
| Spaceship Earth | |
|---|---|
| Park | Epcot |
| Land / area | World Celebration |
| Type | Omnimover dark ride |
| Opened | October 1, 1982 |
| Designer | WED Enterprises |
| Height req. | None |
| Status | Operating |
Spaceship Earth is a dark ride inside the geodesic sphere of the same name at the entrance to Epcot in the Walt Disney World Resort, Florida. The sphere is the park's icon and central landmark, and the ride within it, which opened with the park on October 1, 1982, carries a continuously moving chain of vehicles on a journey through the history of human communication, from prehistoric cave painting to the computer age. The 180-foot-tall (55 m) structure is among the most recognisable buildings in any theme park.
Design and construction
The name Spaceship Earth was popularised by Buckminster Fuller, who also developed the geodesic dome from which its geometry derives. Epcot's version is not a dome but a complete sphere, raised on six legs so visitors walk beneath it to enter the park. WED Enterprises produced the design with structural engineering by Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, and science fiction writer Ray Bradbury assisted with the ride's original storyline.
Geometrically, the sphere is a Class 2 geodesic polyhedron subdivided to a frequency of eight, formed of thousands of triangular panels. The sphere is about 165 feet in diameter, clad in 11,324 triangular facets, and built as two structures — an inner sphere for the ride and an outer skin held away from it, so rain runs to internal gutters rather than dripping onto the plaza below. Construction took around 26 months.
History
The ride's sponsor history mirrors the corporate history of American telecommunications. The Bell System sponsored the pavilion from 1982 until its breakup in 1984, when AT&T took over until 2004. Siemens sponsored Spaceship Earth from 2005 to 2017; it has operated without a sponsor since.
The attraction has kept the same route and subject throughout, but has been revised four times in narration and detail. The original 1982 version was narrated by Lawrence Dobkin. A 1986 revision brought in Walter Cronkite and a new finale song. A major 1994 refurbishment, narrated by Jeremy Irons, replaced the contemporary-technology scenes, removed the space station in the planetarium at the ride's summit and installed a new projected Earth.
For the millennium celebration, a large arm and wand bearing the year 2000 was mounted over the sphere in 1999, later altered to read "Epcot". It became a lasting source of argument among visitors, and was removed in 2007 ahead of Epcot's 25th anniversary. The accompanying refurbishment introduced the present narration by Judi Dench, a new score by Bruce Broughton, refreshed scenes, and an interactive descent in which riders answer questions on touchscreens and are shown a cartoon vision of their own future. A more extensive overhaul announced in 2019 was postponed in 2020 and did not proceed in that form. The sphere did receive a permanent programmable LED lighting system for the Walt Disney World 50th anniversary in 2021.
Experience
Vehicles in a continuous Omnimover chain enter the sphere and spiral upwards through its interior. Early scenes form the ride's core: cave paintings, Egyptian scribes and papyrus, Phoenician traders and the alphabet they spread, Greek theatre, Roman road building, and scholars of the Islamic Golden Age preserving classical learning.
The second half accelerates through movable type and the printing press, Renaissance art, the telegraph, telephone, radio and television, and a 1960s mainframe computer room, before reaching a garage where a personal computer is being assembled.
At the summit the vehicles pass a projection of Earth seen from space, then rotate backwards for the descent and its touchscreen sequence. At about 16 minutes, it is one of the longest attractions at Walt Disney World.