Epcot’s Spaceship Earth
“Like a grand and miraculous spaceship, our planet has sailed through the universe of time. But where are we going? And what kind of future will we discover there? Surprisingly, the answers lie in our past. Since the dawn of recorded history, we have been inventing the future one step at a time. So let’s travel back in time together. I’ll show you how our ancestors created the world we know today. And then it will be your turn to create the world of tomorrow. ” – Dame Judy Dench
These words are the opening lines you hear as you ride through Epcot’s Spaceship Earth. Located inside one of Walt Disney World’s most iconic and recognizable symbols, Spaceship Earth is a 16 minute ride teaching us about communication and how it has evolved from the beginning of time all the way through the 21st century. As you journey through Spaceship Earth you will find scenes showing prehistoric man fighting for survival; cavemen developing the first spoken languages. Then you 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 consists of a depiction of Earth from space, traveling through an infinite number of stars and into a realm of glowing triangles. You then become part of the attraction by using touch-screens in the 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.
Spaceship Earth is an amazing feat of engineering. It is a 180 feet tall geodesic sphere. The geodesic dome was created by visionary architect Buckminster Fuller who designed several domes but never created a complete sphere. Spaceship Earth is actually made up of 2 structural domes. Basically the structure is supported on 6 legs that go as deep as 120 feet. The upper three-fourths are supported by a “table” at the top of the six legs and the lower fourth is hanging from the bottom of that table. There are 11,324 outside tiles of Spaceship Earth Embedded into the tiles is a gutter system that gathers water when it rains and funnels it into the World Showcase Lagoon. So next time it rains at Epcot, you can stand safely under Spaceship Earth without getting wet.
Contact me to learn more about Epcot’s Spaceship Earth and for all my Disney vacation planning services!
Amy Ross-Manager
Authorized Disney Vacation Planner
MickeyTravels, LLC
amy@mickeytravels.com
staging.mickeytravels.com
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