Pretty cool huh?Īs a quick side note: The actual ride space begins at approximately 52ft. If you looked close enough into the dark space in front of the ride vehicle, you could make out the actual planetarium camera (way off in the distance) which was used in about every planetarium on the planet (at least at that time).

What most folks however didn’t realize was, this projection was literally taken from the skies right above Epcot (talk about park immersion at its best). You would see on the ‘planetarium’ of the ceiling, projections of the night sky. There was also a re-enactment of the Apollo moon landing (courtesy of animatronics) going on as well. Upon reaching the apex of the ride, I passed by what appeared to be the moon’s surface with some sort of construction work going on. On my very first ride (circa 1983), you passed through what I vaguely remember as a “moon base” before reaching the top. For some reason this didn’t exactly go over well with most of the guests at the time. The initial ascent was actually done inside a dimly-lit tunnel which was flooded by smoke from a nearby fog machine. And with that, we begin… In The Beginning….Īs most of us Disney diehard fans know, Spaceship Earth (or SSE for short) opened to the public in October of 1982 and was sponsored by Bell Telephone. For more details about vintage Future World and what it used to offer, check out this article. Because in my highly unbiased opinion, Disney is really denying today’s generation out of what was truly one of the best attractions Future World had to offer. For this reason, many people have called Bucky Fuller a 'visionary' who inspired others to think globally.Putting aside for a moment the plethora of articles, vlogs and what not that are currently available around the very subject of “Just what IS at the top of Spaceship Earth?”, as someone who is both old and fortunate enough to have experienced every iteration of this attraction first hand, I wanted to take a moment or two and share those very memories. Through his speeches and lecture, Bucky tried to convince people to take the initiative to develop comprehensive design science thinking to begin to address global problems such as poverty, inadequate housing, and unequal distribution of resources.

In his 1983 book, Grunch of Giants, Bucky wrote, 'I do know that technologically humanity now has the opportunity, for the first time in its history, to operate our planet in such a manner as to support and accommodate all humanity at a substantially more advanced standard of living than any humans have ever experienced.' Bucky hoped that some day the resources of the planet would be equitably divided, and people all around the world would achieve a high standard of living with access to technologically-advanced housing and transportation. He circled the globe many times, speaking to people at universities and public institutions around the world and trying to convince them that technology could help to better the lives of many people on planet Earth. Bucky concerned himself with humanity at large, and took a big-picture view of the world and its problems. He felt that all human beings were passengers on Spaceship Earth, and, like the crew of a large ship, people had to work together in order to keep the planet functioning properly. He coined the phrase 'Spaceship Earth' to describe our planet. Bucky was fond of making up phrases when he felt that ordinary words did not express what he meant to say.

Spaceship earth