Spaceship Earth is a slow-moving 16-minute ride through time and space for Guests of all ages. Located inside Epcot theme park's spherical icon, the attraction's Audio-Animatronic scenes depict the stirring story of human connection from the dawn of recorded time to the 21st century's cyber age.
Bear witness to prehistoric man's first words, behold the hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptians, follow the advanced system of roads amidst Rome, and journey through the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Information.
Over a dramatic 63-piece orchestral and 24-vocal musical score composed by Emmy-award winner composer Bruce Broughton, famed actress Dame Judi Dench relays the story of how each generation of mankind has paved the way for the next.
Spaceship Earth omnimover vehicles-dubbed time machines-are equipped with interactive touch screens that ask you how you would like to live, work and play in the world of tomorrow. Using image capture and face recognition technology, you can then enjoy a glimpse of your potential future self at the end of the attraction.
One of the most recognizable structures at the Walt Disney World Resort, it is not only the centerpiece and main focal point of Epcot, but also the name of the attraction housed within the 18-story geodesic sphere that takes guests on a time machine themed experience using the Omnimover system. The 13-minute dark ride shows guests how advancements in human communication have helped to create the future one step at a time. The attraction involves a timeline from the origins of prehistoric man to the dawn of the 21st century, where guests can then create a future for themselves.
Ride Scenes
The ride begins with the Omnimover vehicles ascending into a dark tunnel with twinkling stars all around. Midway, the guests are asked to have their picture taken to be used later in the ride, and in the post-show. Guests then see prehistoric man fighting for survival, later on Cavemen are depicted, who developed the first spoken languages. Then guests see the Egyptians, who invented a system of hieroglyphs and made papyrus on which to record them; Phoenician merchants, who developed a written alphabet (the Phoenician alphabet); Ancient Greece, where the theater was a popular form of entertainment; and Ancient Rome, whose leaders built a vast system of roads all over Europe.
After the sacking of Rome by invaders, guests see scenes of the Middle Ages, when Jewish and Islamic scholars continued to progress in science, and when monks copied Bibles by hand. The attraction then moves on to the European Renaissance, the development of the movable-type printing press, and the 20th century communications revolution-newspapers, telegraphs, radio, telephones, movies, television, as well as the computer.
The remainder of the ride is involved in seeing a depiction of Earth from space, traveling through an infinite amount of stars and into a realm of glowing triangles. The guests can then use the touch-screens in their Omnimover vehicle to fill out a questionnaire to create a possible depiction of their future, which uses the pictures taken at the beginning of the ride.
Touring Tips
- To avoid long waits, don't make the Spaceship Earth attraction at Epcot theme park your first stop in the morning because it is the most popular in the morning. The wait will be shorter at any other part of the day.
- After the attraction, be sure to spend time at Project Tomorrow: Inventing the Wonders of the Future, an interactive play area for Guests of all ages filled with challenging games and informative displays that showcase the latest technologies in medicine, transportation and energy management.
Facts
- The shimmering geosphere that houses Spaceship Earth is visible from the road before you even get to the parking lot. It is the Icon of Epcot, towering 180 feet above the park.
- Science fiction author-and Disney fan-Ray Bradbury helped design the geodesic sphere and pen the original story of the attraction.
- The term 'Spaceship Earth' was coined by Buckminster Fuller, who also developed the structural mathematics of the geodesic dome.
- The structure is similar in texture to the United States pavilion from Expo 67 in Montreal, but unlike that structure, Spaceship Earth is a complete sphere, supported on three main legs.
- Geometrically, Spaceship Earth is a derivative of a pentakis dodecahedron. It is a Class 2 Frequency 16 Icosahedron, with each of the 60 isosceles triangle faces divided into 16 smaller equilateral triangles (with a bit of fudging to make it rounder). Each of those 960 flat panels is sub-divided into four triangles, each of which is divided into three isosceles triangles to form each point. In theory, there are 11,520 total isosceles triangles forming 3840 points. In reality, some of those triangles are partially or fully nonexistent due to supports and doors; there are actually only 11,324 silvered facets, with 954 partial or full flat triangular panels.
- The cladding was designed so that when it rains, no water pours off the sides onto the ground. (All water is "absorbed" through one inch gaps in the facets and is collected in a gutter system - and finally channeled into the World Showcase Lagoon.)
- Construction took 26 months and 40,800 labor hours to build.
- The sphere is raised 18 ft (5 m) off the ground by pylons sunk more than 120 ft (37 m) into the ground
- During Disney's Millennium celebration, there was a giant Sorcerer Mickey hand and the word "Epcot" added to the exterior. This has since been removed.
Statistics
- Total height: 180 ft (55 m)
- Track height: 163 ft (50 m)
- Site area: 109,375 sq ft (10,161.3 m2)
- Diameter: 165 ft (50 m)
- Circumference: 518.1 ft (158 m)
- Volume: 2,350,000 ft3 (716,280 m3)
- Weight: 15,520,000 lbs (7,040,000 kg)
- Number of tiles: 11,324
- Average angle of descent: 20 degrees
- Steepest angle of descent: 39 degrees
History
Spaceship Earth was sponsored by the Bell System originally, from 1982 until 1984. Bell was broken up into smaller companies in 1984, and its parent company, AT&T became its own independent company. AT&T would sponsor Spaceship Earth from 1984 until 2004. From 2005 onwards, German company Siemens has been the new sponsor of Spaceship Earth.
In October 1982, the attraction experience began as the ride vehicles moved up into the structure through a lighted tunnel enhanced by a fog machine, and then ascended on a spiraling track up through dark spaces featuring a series of lighted historic vignettes. The attraction featured actor Vic Perrin as the narrator along with a very simple and quiet orchestral composition throughout the attraction.
The theme of communication through the ages was developed in chronological order in theatrical settings peopled with Audio-Animatronics figures. Actors were seen (and heard quietly) declaiming in a Greek theater. Charioteers carried messages from a Roman court, and Jewish and Islamic scholars discussed texts. With typical Disney whimsy, a monk was seen fallen asleep on a manuscript he was inscribing. Michelangelo, overhead, painted the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, and Gutenberg manned his printing press.
Suggesting the rush of 20th-century technology, subsequent scenes melded together, overlapping each other as the circumference of the ride track narrowed. A newsboy hawked papers, a movie marquee and film clips represented the motion pictures, radio and television were represented. As the vehicles reached the large space at the apex of the ride system, guests saw, on the planetarium ceiling of the sphere, projections of stars, planets, the Milky Way, and, closest and largest, "spaceship earth." The Omnimover vehicles then revolved 180 degrees, so that the passengers were lying backward facing the "sky" as they began their descent, on a relatively straight track. The attraction ended with guests hearing scientific audio from around the world, and seeing on a series of screens, projected scenes of computer graphics, scientific data, a space shuttle launch, among others. The ride stops intermittently as wheelchairs are loaded or unloaded.
In May 1986, the attraction was given a slight remodel. This second version of the attraction started off with the lightened tunnel enhanced by twinkling lights, meant to depict stars, with the fog machine removed. Famous news journalist Walter Cronkite was the new narrator, reading from an updated script. A theme song called Tomorrow's Child was composed for the ending of the attraction, which was redesigned with projected images of children on screens to help fit with the theme of "Tomorrow's Child".
In August 1994, the attraction was given a major remodel. This third version of the attraction kept the lightened tunnel as it was in 1986, and maintained the majority of the scenes depicted in the beginning and middle of the attraction. Three scenes toward the end of the attraction that showed a computer in a boy's bedroom of the 1980s, a woman's office of the 1980s, and a network operations center of the 1990s, were all removed and replaced with one scene depicting a boy and girl using the internet from America to Asia via instant communication. Actor Jeremy Irons was the new narrator, reading from an updated script. A new orchestral composition was composed for the beginning, middle, and end of the attraction. The ending itself was completely redone, with the removal of the Space Station scene located in the attraction's planetarium (the astronauts from the scene subsequently turned up in Space Mountain's post-show, where they were used until 2009), replacement of an old projected image of Earth in the planetarium with a new image, and replacement of the 1982 and 1986 ending scenes of the ride them with miniature architectural settings connected by color-changing fiber optic cables and arrays of blinking lights representing electronic Communication pathways. The attraction re-opened in its third version on November 23, 1994.
On July 9, 2007, the attraction was again closed for another remodel that included a number of updates to the attraction. The attraction opened again with its fourth version in February 2008, with a new score composed by Bruce Broughton and new narration provided by actress Judi Dench. The attraction's exterior was also modified for the 2007 renovations.
With the new Siemens AG sponsorship, changes have been made to the ride and post show area. The ride's updates include new scenes, modifications to existing scenes; some new costumes, lighting, and props; a new musical score by Bruce Broughton, new narration by Judi Dench; and a new interactive ending featuring a touch screen. New scenes show a Greek classroom, mainframe computers and the creation of the personal computer.
The "time machine" vehicles now have an interactive screen where riders can choose their vision of the future. This resembles a similar idea on the now-defunct attraction Horizons. At the beginning of the ride, a camera takes riders' pictures (using facial recognition technology) which are used at the end of the ride to conduct an interactive experience about the future of technology, featuring the riders' faces on animated characters and narration by Cam Clarke. Visitors are now also asked where in our Spaceship Earth they live; this is used in the post-show area where a map of the world is displayed with the riders' faces on where they live.