Spaceship Earth

**Spaceship Earth** is a dark-ride in Walt Disney World's EPCOT which also serves as the park's icon.

## Description

Spaceship Earth is an attraction housed within a giant geodescent sphere which was designed by horror/sci-fi author Ray Bradbury. It is themed around the philosophy of, "Spaceship Earth", the worldview of society finding ways to come together to form a better future for humanity.

## Ride summary

In Spaceship Earth, guests board vehicles which allows the Spaceship Earth structure to transport them throughout time and space, apparently as invisible observers. The ride is narrated by a celebrity host, currently Dame Judy Dench and starts with them going through a black starry abyss.

Guests find themselves in the ice-age where they witness a prehistoric human engaging in combat with a wooly mammoth. After this they pass by a cave where many cro-magnon people are being told a story by their shaman as artists paint images of animals on the wall.

After this, the vehicles travel to Ancient Egypt where a pharaoh is having a scribe write a message on papyrus in a temple decorated with hieroglyphics. The vehicles then pass through Ancient Greece where Phoenecian merchants are making sales with hellenic greeks through the use of their alphabet. A Greek mathematician is then passed by, lecturing students on the usage of complex mathematical theory.

The ride vehicles then travel to Ancient Rome where a Caesar gives orders to one of his soldiers in a carriage. The next scene shows the burning of Rome and destruction of the great library of Alexandria where guests are lead to believe all its knowledge is lost, only for it to be revealed that jewish and islamic scholars made copies of many texts. This is further shown in medieval Christian monasteries where priests meticulously make transcriptions of books in different languages.

Spaceship Earth then takes guests to 1456 with Gutenberg's creation of the printing press and the beginning of the Renaissance era. Many artists create a grand number of classic art pieces and the vehicles even pass by Michelangelo painting of the Sistine Chapel. This this guests are transported to 1865 where a newspaper boy is selling papers speaking on the end of the American Civil War. Guests are after this taken to the 1950s where they see early telephones and telephone connecting women.

The vehicles then go to 1969 in a living room where a girl watches the Apollo 11 moon-landing and then a 1970s mainframe computer room filled with scientists. Guests then pass by a garage where Steve Wozniak is developing personal computers from scratch. Spaceship Earth proceeds to send guests through a tunnel of darkness and stars where guests make their descents and use screens to make short-films based on their ideal futures.

## Connections

### Great Movie Ride

The mummified pharaoh within the Great Movie Ride was dressed nearly identical to the pharaoh from Spaceship Earth in a scene reminiscent of 1930s monster movies while potentially being set in the Well of Souls from Raiders of the Lost Ark. It is possible that this was intended to be the same pharaoh from Spaceship Earth albeit posthumously.

### Liberty Square Ticket Office

In this building is an illustration of the Dreamfinder and Figment riding the Dreammobile overhead the Tree of Life, Cinderella Castle, Spaceship Earth and the Hollywood Tower Hotel. The function of this poster is to advertise annual passes to Walt Disney World Resort. Another advert in the Ticket Office has an illustration of Spaceship Earth along with descriptors to advertise EPCOT as a whole.

### In other media

#### Disney Kingdoms

In Disney Kingdoms, Spaceship Earth is a mysterious floating orb which materialized in Florida overtop of the pavilion for the *Academy Scientifica-Lucida* which attempts to study it as a power-source. When Dreamfinder arrives to the pavilion he tries to further study it only for it to teleport away to the academy's dismay.

In the unproduced outline for Figment 3, Dreamfinder and Figment would have discovered that Spaceship Earth was a mystical archive of human knowledge and history and possessed some historical connection to the Society of Explorers and Adventurers.

## Trivia

* Many of the figures from the Magic Kingdom attraction *The Hall of Presidents* are recycled in Spaceship Earth.
	+ James Buchanan is used to represent Johannes Gutenberg.
	+ Andrew Jackson is a printing-press worker.
	+ William Howard Taft is an Ancient Egyptian priest.
	+ Teddy Roosevelt is a Roman senator.
	+ Zachary Taylor is a Roman centurion.
	+ John Adams is a medieval monk.
	+ John Tyler is a Turkish man.
	+ Franklin Pierce is a scholar.
	+ Dwight D. Eisenhower is a minstrel.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.themeparktourist.com/features/20170814/33066/lost-legends-great-movie-ride?page=2
2. ↑ https://www.flickr.com/photos/theverynk/31353284637/in/photostream/
3. ↑ https://www.flickr.com/photos/theverynk/46292100891/in/photostream/
4. ↑ https://twitter.com/JimZub/status/1359504607630745603
5. ↑ https://twitter.com/JimZub/status/1364004700174041088
6. ↑ https://www.themeparktourist.com/features/20140412/17512/10-dead-american-presidents-who-got-bizarre-new-jobs-walt-disney-world