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“Mission Space”:
Out of this World
One of Disney’s newest thrill-rides, “Mission: Space” takes you on an adventure that will leave you wondering if you really were catapulted into the next galaxy. Combining leading-edge aerospace technology with the ever-present magic Disney’s storytelling, Epcot’s Mission: Space attraction launches you into a breathless one-of-a-kind adventure. All Systems Go So, what is it like? There really is nothing to compare it to. Mission: Space, after some five years and 350,000 work hours “in the making,” is the first of its kind. A custom-designed ride system, based on actual NASA astronaut training techniques, engages guests in an experience that is so like that of a “real” space flight simulator that even the astronauts who took the thrilling ride into space, via Epcot, were amazed.
Had I known I was being placed inside a giant centrifuge, I may have heeded those last minute warnings that there was still time to back out. Even the people putting us on the ride were asking me again and again if I was “sure” that I wanted to continue. I should have taken this as a sign of things to come. After making my way through the space simulation lab, the training operations room, the team dispatch, the ready room, the pre-flight corridor, and after I am given my assignment – I am then strapped into the X-2 Trainer (all the while having had plenty of opportunities to turn back and take my place on the ground in the control room). The launch sequence is engaged and you can feel the capsule move as you face forward into the screen, careful not to move your eyes too quickly. Look straight ahead, they tell you. You are then on your back looking up at the screen and your senses are immediately engaged. I know at once that it is not going to be good. I can feel, from the spinning of the centrifuge that I am in, that something is wrong with my head. I can’t lift my arms and I see the ship on the screen and I know I am going to be catapulted into the atmosphere. Lift off! My heart pounds, my knees are shaking uncontrollably and I am experienced what is surely the same sensations that an astronaut feels as they exit our planet via the Space Shuttle. The sounds and images are so real; it is difficult to remember that you ARE still on earth and not speeding out of control towards Mars. The story that is being presented on the state-of-the art flat video screen in front of you. The technology that is used to create the realistic images that flash before you are created using a combination of LCD glass and electronic video cards that were specially designed to enable ultra-crisp full motion video. This allows everyone who rides Mission: Space, no matter how short or tall – to see the spectacular space-scape. The computer-generated images of Earth and Mars were created from data provided by satellites and spacecraft orbiting the planets. Mission: Space is the closest to Mars that I know I will ever get – especially if the “real” take-off is as intense as the simulated version, but I am so glad that I embarked on the journey. This new attraction is the most technologically advanced ever created by Disney. Walt Disney Imagineers have used the Disney tradition of storytelling and coupled it with the latest in technology to create a unique experience for guests – one that will take them out of this world.
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“It was a really good combination of reality and looking
ahead to what things might be like,” said Rhea Seddon, a former NASA astronaut who
flew three Shuttle missions. “I knew intellectually it was a centrifuge and that’s
how they were generating the feeling, but it doesn’t feel like a centrifuge.”
