Like a grand and miraculous spaceship, our planet has sailed through the universe of time; and for a brief moment we have been among it’s passengers. 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’ve been inventing the future one step at a time.
-Spaceship Earth Script
When I was a child, Spaceship Earth was one of my favorite rides at Disney World. No joke! There truly wasn’t anything like it anywhere else, and there still isn’t.
The ride let my imagination dance and skip as it traveled through time, space and the human experience. If you have experienced Spaceship Earth, who can forget traveling through ancient Egypt or the smell of the burning of the library in Alexandria? Thanking the Phoenicians as we pass them by on their way to trade with foreign lands, and watching Neil Armstrong take his first steps on the moon. The attraction twists and turns as it mazes through the geodesic sphere, all the way to the planetarium at the top of the attraction.
Spaceship Earth isn’t just an attraction, it is the park icon — the Cinderella Castle, if you will — of EPCOT.
At this point, each civilization has its own form of writing, which none of the others can understand. But the Phoenicians, who trade with all of them, have a solution. They create a simple, common alphabet, adaptable to most languages. Remember how easy it was to learn your ABC’s? Thank the Phoenicians—they invented them.
-Spaceship Earth Script
Before we get started, here are some quick statistics behind EPCOT’s beloved Icon:
Opened with EPCOT Center grand opening on October 1, 1982
Geodesic Sphere encompassing 2.2 million cubic feet (The Living Seas is 5.7 million cubic feet), a 164 ft diameter and a height of 180 ft.
Covered in 11,520 total isosceles triangles forming 3840 points.
Houses a 15 minute ride which takes the guests through a journey of human discovery and communication.
Key Show Scenes include: Ice Ages, Cave Dwellers, Ancient Egypt, Greece and Roman, Jewish Arab Scholars, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Post Civil War Printing Press, Turn of the Century Communication, Man on the Moon, A Garage in California and the main Planetarium.
The Summer of 1986…
The year was 1986 and I remember entering Epcot through the main turnstiles, and instantly stopping dead in my tracks so I could marvel at how impressive the 180 foot tall structure truly was…is. The structure is a gleaming silver geodesic sphere, comprised of (in theory) 11,520 total isosceles triangles forming 3840 points. The sphere is raised off the ground by three legs, allowing guests to walk underneath the structure to access the rest of the park…it looked like something from outer space.
I tilted my chin all the way up, extending my neck so I could see the sky peeking above the top of the sphere. My wide eyes took in the soft wisps of cloud which framed the skyline behind the sphere like a halo. A smile spread across my face, and I reflexively felt my lips form the word, wow.
I remember thinking, this is how explorers must have felt when they first laid eyes on the pyramids in Egypt or having the same feeling when I later saw a sky scraper for the first time.
I was clearly impressed by the structure, but admittedly I didn’t understand it. I was very young, and I had never seen anything like it before. It looked both futuristic and alien.
I remember my dad joke about how Spaceship Earth looked like a giant golf ball, and how the ‘giant ball’ was in fact a marvel of modern design and architectural ingenuity.
But wait, how did Ray Bradbury get Involved?
…and who is Richard Buckmiester?
The design for Spaceship Earth was both adventurous and ambitious, and offered the opportunity to house a sponsored attraction inside the Icon.
Ray Bradbury was invited early on in the concept development of EPCOT Center, and he went on to write a story treatment for a Spaceship Earth attraction. Bradbury’s story treatment became the framework for the overarching story of the attraction, and is still relevant today. His original treatment was 14 pages long, and took us on a journey from cave walls in France to the exploration of outer space. His outlined asked the questions, “where did we come from?” And, “where are we going?”
“Passengers are taken through scenes depicting important breakthroughs in communication throughout history—from the development of early language through cave paintings, to the use of hieroglyphs, to the invention of the alphabet, to the creation of the printing press, to today's modern communication advancements, including telecommunication and mass communication.
Since its 1982 opening, the ride has been updated three times—in 1986, 1994, and 2008.
While the aesthetic of Spaceship Earth is simple, it is very intricate and precise in it’s design. Imagineers were keen and familiar with Buckminster Fuller’s designs for geodesic domes, and decided to build the park icon as a geodesic sphere raised off the ground as a symbol of planet Earth. Imagineers were also familiar with the term “Spaceship Earth” which was popularized by Fuller.
Epcot Future Technology Conferences
The year was 1974, and Disney leadership was hard at work hammering out the concept for Disney’s first non-Magic Kingdom style theme park, and looking for corporate sponsors to help subsidize the high cost of building the park from scratch. Every aspect of the park was to be brand new, and meant to compliment, not complete, the Magic Kingdom.
The crown jewel of the new theme park would be the park’s new icon. Both Disneyland and Magic Kingdom feature castles as the park icons, but what type of icon would best represent Disney’s first non-Magic Kingdom Style theme park?
At this time, the Magic Kingdom had been open for three years, and the next great challenge on hand was to extend the amount of time guests were staying at Walt Disney World on the horizon, and the clear solution was to build another theme park.
Walt’s vision of Epcot seemed like the next logical choice for the concept of the new park. The original EPCOT (Walt’s Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) which was meant to be a Utopian style community, featuring the latest in technology and innovation. Walt’s dream was tabled after Walt’s untimely death in December of 1966, and now seemed like the perfect opportunity to revisits the concept.
In May of 1976, the first of several forums called the Epcot Future Technology Conferences were held at Walt Disney World. The first conference brought together forty individuals who were leaders in industry, technology, academia and local government to have moderated conversations about the overall concept of EPCOT and define what the theme park could look like.
Along with Don Tatum and Card Walker, author of Fahrenheit 451 and futurist Ray Bradbury was present at the conference and participated on a panel to allow for critical conversations around the concept of EPCOT Center.
Initially called the ‘Epcot Idea’ The EPCOT Center concept needed a lot of editing. Eventually it was decided the new EPCOT Center would be centralized around the concept of the World’s Fair and other global expos.
The Future Technology Conferences were Ray Bradbury’s entrance into the ‘Epcot conversation’ with Disney Leadership and WED, and began his involvement with the development of the Spaceship Earth Attraction and EPCOT’s park icon.
Please Stand Clear of the doors….
It was quickly decided there were going to be some marked differences between EPCOT Center and the previous Magic Kingdom style theme park design. These changes began with the park Icon and what the Icon should look like and represent.
When you enter the Magic Kingdom, you enter the park by going under the train station and arriving on Main Street USA. Brimming with turn of the 20th century nostalgia, you are instantly immersed by the sound of the steam train pulling into the station, and the smell of freshly made popcorn fills the air. You are instantly transported into a fantasy, where the outside world is shut out.
The crown jewel of the Magic Kingdom is Cinderella’s Castle, which is located directly in the center of the park. Cinderella’s Castle is also very tall (189 ft) and very intricate.
Epcot is the polar opposite. Guests have a clear view of the parking lot from the main entrance turnstiles, and the monorail travels through and around the inside of the park, inviting the outside world into the park. Originally the park wouldn’t feature any characters from previous Disney projects, and the new park would be rooted in reality.
EPCOT Center would eventually feature a number of castles representing different countries around the World Showcase, but it would be the first Disney Park not to feature a castle as the park icon.
Here is the genius behind the design of EPCOT’s icon, Spaceship Earth.
“(When developing) Spaceship Earth (it) began as another descriptive written idea: let guests entering EPCOT walk under an icon suggesting our planet itself”. -Marty Skylar
As a park icon, Spaceship Earth is a triple threat
The idea of the Icon being called Spaceship Earth was very poetic. The term was popularized by American architect and futurist Buckmiester Fuller, and Buckmiester’s designs would inspired the architecture of Spaceship Earth. The structure of Spaceship Earth is a geodesic sphere inspired by the designs and patents of Buckmiester Fuller. It is meant to look celestial and represent planet Earth. Lastly, Ray Bradbury developed the story treatment for the Spaceship Earth attraction which has stood the test of time, and three story line updates over the last 40 years. Bradbury’s thesis is terrific, and stayed relevant.
A Quick Word on Buckmiester Fuller
Richard Buckmiester Fuller was an American architect, writer, inventor, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckmiester Fuller in his writings, publishing more than 30 books and coining or popularizing such terms as Spaceship Earth. He also popularized and perfected the concept of the geodesic dome, and holds the US patent. He designed a Geodesic Dome for the US Pavilion at the 1967 Montreal Expo.
Later in life, Buckmiester Fuller was awarded 28 United States patents and many honorary doctorates. He also received numerous other awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, presented to him on February 23, 1983, by President Ronald Reagan.
A Quick Word on President Ronald Reagan
Two weeks after President Ronald Reagan presented R. Buckmiester Fuller with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Ronald Reagan made an official visit to Epcot Center to meet some of the cast members who would be working at the World Showcase pavilions.
President Ronald Reagan made two visits to Epcot during his presidency. The first took place March 8, 1983, where he appeared at the park to address international students who would work at World Showcase. The President returned in 1985 to hold his second-term inaugural celebration at Epcot, which included a parade around World Showcase.
This feels like a full circle moment for the creation, and grand opening of EPCOT Center.
The Rainbow Connection
(Disneyland) will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world. -Walt Disney
Improvements are continuously being made to Disney Parks, and Spaceship Earth received a beautiful upgrade in 2022 when Disney installed hundreds of LED lights which light up the park icon at night.
The four year old Harper couldn’t envision the joys and the hardships the next few decades had in store, and seeing the Rainbow Connection as an adult performed on Spaceship Earth for the first time took me back to my childhood and a simpler time of optimism and a hopeful future.
When I take a look at Spaceship Earth now, knowing the people and the stories behind the attraction, I can now say with confidence, ‘Wow, I get it.” The world is a beautiful place, the future is bright, and we are fortunate to be amongst her passengers.
Thank you for take the time to read this article, and take a trip with me down memory lane. We are in the process of expanding our community and we appreciate your readership.
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Stay optimistic, and see you real soon!
Sincerely,
Harper