| Watch the on-ride POV |
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| Statistics | ||||||||||||||
| Manufacturer | Arrow Dynamics | |||||||||||||
| Type | Steel - Twin - Enclosed | |||||||||||||
| Height | 90 feet | 90 feet | ||||||||||||
| Drop | 26 feet | 26 feet | ||||||||||||
| Speed | 27 mph | 27 mph | ||||||||||||
| Length | 3196 feet | 3186 feet | ||||||||||||
| Inversions | 0 | |||||||||||||
| Duration | 2:35 | |||||||||||||
| Rolling stock | ||||||||||||||
| Manufacturer | Arrow Dynamics (1975-1988) Built in-house (1989-present) | |||||||||||||
Space Mountain is a steel enclosed roller coaster located at the Magic Kingdom in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, USA. Opening on January 15, 1975, the ride achieved many feats, including being one of the first roller coasters in the world to use computers for its operating systems, being one of the first Indoor roller coasters ever built, and being Magic Kingdom's very first roller-coaster. The ride would become one of the most famous roller coasters of all time, being cloned at 4 other parks in the chain.
History
Beginnings
After the success of Disneyland's Matterhorn Bobsleds, Walt Disney was now convinced that roller coasters and thrill rides did have a place in his park. After this success, Walt Disney, WED Enterprises and his team went to the drawing board to come up with a new concept.
Walt and his crew came up with a "Space Voyage" attraction, that would be at the Tomorrowland section of the park and would consist of 4 tracks. Arrow Development were on board to help develop the ride, but technology at the time was simply too limited for the attraction to exist.[1] The ride would be shelved once Walt would pass in 1966.
Revival
During the late 1960s, the concept of Space Mountain would begin to get revived. The technology at the time allowed for such a coaster to exist, now the ride being downgraded to just 2 tracks, and the attraction now being proposed to be placed outside of the Magic Kingdom Park, rather than within its borders.
Eventually, Magic Kingdom would open its doors on October 1, 1971, with a very incomplete Tomorrowland without a functioning PeopleMover and with no main attraction to speak of. However, behind the scenes, quietly, on December 15, 1972, work on Space Mountain would quietly work backstage.[2] Construction would continue through 1973 and 1974, as pillars and roofs as high as 150 feet were erected to form the shape of the futuristic dome structure.
The ride was originally intended to open in June 1974, but with the ride being less than halfway complete by March, it slipped to be December 1974.[3] By Fall 1974, the ride was almost ready for opening day.
Opening Day Completion, and original run
The ride - alongside Carousel of Progress and the WEDWay PeopleMover - would open to guests on January 15, 1975, with a special celebrating the opening being recorded live on that day, on the NBC anthology series The Wonderful World of Disney series, where it became the first Walt Disney World Network show to be aired, rather than syndicated.[4] The ride had RCA fund and sponsor the ride, from 1975 until 1988. Briefly, during the 1976 season, parts of the ride would be retracked to smoothen out parts that were rough and janky.
Other than these changes, the ride would not see much change, that would be until the early 1990s, where changes would begin to happen to attractions resort wide.
1994 Refresh
On October 10, 1994, Space Mountain and the area around it closed to prepare for the new Tomorrowland refresh.[5] FedEx would become the new sponsor and a new exit shop was added near the original 1975 entry building - which blocked the original view of the mountain itself.
The ride would later reopen on February 10, 1995, with a completely new entrance sign, queue, post a on pre-show, and music score. The queue had news stairs added, and a new TV monitor system had SMTV videos playing throughout the load and queue sections. The track however, remained unchanged. In February 1998, the trains received new T bar restraints. Years after this refurbishment, the ride would continue to go unchanged and unnoticed, with the FedEx sponsorship ending in early 2004.
2009 planned retrack, refurbishment, and present day
After the sponsorship ended, bigger plans were underway to completely change the ride. During the mid 2000s, at an unknown date, yellow and blue markers were spotted in areas where track and supports were to be cut up. An identical, smoother copy of the current tracks were to be added, along with on-board audio and a silent Chain lift. However, these plans were put on-hold, and rather a cosmetic refurbishment commenced.
Space Mountain shut its doors for its second refurbishment on April 13, 2009. The disused Skyway station was destroyed, and new paths and landscaping were added along the exterior route. Inside, the ride received a new control panel, alongside a queue-line upgrade which saw the roof of the station be enclosed for the first time ever. The following year, on August 31, 2010, an off-ride audio system was turned on throughout the ride.
In 2016, new color-changing lights were added to Space Mountain, that flickered purple-orange and many other colors, which was switched to mainly stay blue after Tron Lightcycle Run opened its doors at Magic Kingdom in 2023.
Design
Similar to Disneyland's Matterhorn Bobsleds, Space Mountain consists of two separate tracks: Alpha and Omega. Unlike Matterhorn Bobsleds, though, the tracks are identical with zero differences aside from the fact that they are mirrored clones of each other, and Alpha being 10 feet shorter than Omega.
The lift hill of the ride, while being 90ft, is in reality only 65 feet above the ground, due to the ride's lowest points being below the building's surface level with the queue-line.
Space Mountain's station has separate areas for loading and unloading. The ride's Transfer Tracks are located behind the unload station wall; Trains are lifted via a small Chain lift to the transfer track where the trains are to be stored until further use.
Trains
30 trains with 2 cars per train. In each car, riders are arranged inline in 3 rows, for a total of 6 riders per train.
Images
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Space Mountain in 2001 -
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The queue line corridor -
_2001_01.jpg)
_2023_01.jpg)
_2010_01.jpg)
_2011_01.jpg)
References
- ↑ MartinsVidsDotNet (2020-01-04), Space Mountain WDW - Martins 1975-2020 Ultimate Tribute, retrieved 2024-07-13
- ↑ MartinsVidsDotNet (2020-01-04), Space Mountain WDW - Martins 1975-2020 Ultimate Tribute, retrieved 2024-07-13
- ↑ MartinsVidsDotNet (2020-01-04), Space Mountain WDW - Martins 1975-2020 Ultimate Tribute, retrieved 2024-07-13
- ↑ "Disney Parks Blog". Disney Parks Blog. Retrieved 2024-07-13.
- ↑ MartinsVidsDotNet (2020-01-04), Space Mountain WDW - Martins 1975-2020 Ultimate Tribute, retrieved 2024-07-13
External links
- Space Mountain on the Roller Coaster DataBase.
