If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, no theme park attraction has ever enjoyed more compliments than Space Mountain. Equal parts dark ride and roller coaster, this thrill ride has become so synonymous with the Disney theme park brand that its pop culture relevance surpasses virtually everything else at the Happiest Place on Earth. And most impressively, it gained its iconic status in the theme park industry despite having modest stats. It travels less than 30 miles per hour, which is barely more than the fastest humans can run. It includes none of the inversions and few of the g-forces that have become a standard part of all thrill ride discussions, yet its legacy has sustained momentum over more than 40 years of service.
In simple terms, Space Mountain is the living legend of the roller coaster realm. It is the Beatles, Elvis, and Prince all wrapped up in a single man-made construct. At Walt Disney World, its host building stands a whopping 180 feet tall and 300 feet wide. It cost more to construct than the entirety of Disneyland. The building and the ride revolutionized the industry so much that park planners conceived it more than a decade prior to its introduction. In fact, Walt Disney himself championed the attraction that wouldn’t open until almost a decade after his death. The debut of the original Space Mountain happened in 1975, but blueprints for it date back to 1964. And some place its initial design even earlier than that, 1959.
After more than 40 years in existence, Space Mountain still causes debates about what it was and when it began. In this article, we’ll settle a few of those, at least as much as we can. Let’s learn how the signature roller coaster at all of Disney’s theme parks came into existence. Hint: it involves a German rocket scientist, the co-founder of Intel, and a theme park that aspired to be more than Disneyland East.
A bobsled that led to space travel
Image: Disney
The Matterhorn Bobsleds at Disneyland broke the mold with regards to theme park attraction design. It was the first tubular steel continuous track roller coaster ever invented, and its instant popularity changed the course of amusement park history. Whereas park planners had once envisioned modest rides fit for the whole family, the advent of the Matterhorn Bobsleds opened their eyes to a new type of adventure. Parents spending a day at the park could enjoy something a bit splashier than the slow rides such as Autopia. Imagineers built those with the intent of mothers and fathers playing with their children. What they failed to grasp at the start was that parents sought their own forms of entertainment. Similarly, kids eventually grew and matured, effectively aging out of the themed attractions targeted toward the youngest park guests.
With the Matterhorn Bobsleds, adults seeking a bit more thrill could join their children in enjoying the Happiest Place on Earth. The attraction also became a badge of honor for kids. Once they were old enough to ride it, they would receive a self-esteem boost while also having a highlight they could later brag about with their friends. Parents know the look all too well today. It’s the one where your beloved babe stands on their tippy toes until they’re tall enough to qualify for the ride. Then, they battle their fears as they tighten their seat belts, eventually realizing that they had no reason to fear anything. It’s a proud moment for parent and child. It’s also possible due to the Matterhorn Bobsleds, the first wildly popular thrill ride.
The German scientist who paved the way
Image: Disney
The baby steps of introducing theme park tourists to a thrill ride actually came second in the story of Space Mountain. Before the conceptualization of the roller coaster, the employees of what we now know as The Walt Disney Company had to fall in love with the premise. While the popularity of the space race and mankind’s quest to walk on the moon is well established by now, the origins of it are less publicized. Perhaps the explanation for this is understandable as the man who stoked society’s passion for space travel was a German expatriates, Wernher von Braun, the Father of Rocket Science.
In 1945, whether due to political beliefs or an awareness of the impending victory of the Allied Powers, von Braun planned to defect from Germany to America, and brought along some of his co-workers and protégés, who all joined the United States Army.
Wernher von Braun served in the Army for 15 years. Understandably, his new bosses in the military expressed reticence in letting him work on his passion project, space travel. After a few uncomfortable years of service, von Braun transferred to Huntsville, Alabama, where he became an integral part of the team working on the Redstone rocket project. After its successful testing, von Braun secured his legacy as the world’s foremost expert in rocket technology.
Man in Space, a science feature from Tomorrowland
Image: NASA Remix Man, Flickr (license)
The historic achievement of the Redstone rocket elevated von Braun’s reputation within the government as well as to interested onlookers. He became a mythic figure in the space age community, publishing his vision for the outer space exploration in Collier’s Magazine. Strangely, this publication would cease to operate only a few years later in 1957. When von Braun contributed, however, it claimed more than four million readers. His thoughts about launching men into outer space captivated multiple generations of mankind, both adults dreaming of a better world for their children and kids who got starry-eyed of the thought of living on the Moon.
Disney as an organization moved to join forces with von Braun. Uncle Walt loved the idea of sending a man to space, and he recognized the Father of Rocket Science as the most likely person to bring the dream to life. Starting in 1955, Disney aired what they described as “science factual” programs celebrating the space race. The first of them was entitled Man in Space, the second Man and the Moon, and the final one Mars and Beyond. The third of them reflected the ambition of mankind at the time. Once we’d conquered the Moon, everyone assumed that Mars would be next, something that still hasn’t happened almost 50 years after Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon.
Ward Kimball, one of the legendary Disney’s Nine Old Men, helmed these three projects, all of which aired under the Disneyland TV umbrella. You can actually watch the first episode on YouTube, and you’ll note that it starts with Walt Disney himself explaining why the subject matter is so interesting. In order to guarantee authenticity for these investigations about mankind’s future in outer space, they hired the foremost expert on the subject, von Braun. He served as technical advisor on all three projects, thereby building a relationship with WED Enterprises that would last decades. Space Mountain eventually became the ultimate outcome of this partnership.
The three episodes also played an unlikely but seminal role in the actual Moon landing. The widespread popularity of all things Disney during the 1950s guaranteed a massive viewing audience for the programs, one that dwarfed von Braun’s readership in Collier’s Magazine. No less than the President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, took note of the projects. He personally requested that Disney provide him a copy that he could exhibit for government officials of the mindset that space travel was a lot of hooey. Once he got their approval, the public found out years later that actual members of Mission Control during the Moon landing joined NASA because they’d loved Disneyland TV’s “science factual” programs as kids. Disney and von Braun worked together to create programming so impacting that it changed the course of history.
The plan starts to come together
Image: Disney
Emboldened by the popularity of the outer space films and the public’s embracing of the Matterhorn Bobsleds, the geniuses at WED Enterprises plotted to merge the two premises. They wanted to construct an attraction that would simulate outer space travel. They already had von Braun, the expert on the subject, at their disposal. What they had to do as a group was identify what would become the hallmarks of such a journey. It was harder than you might think.
In the days before computers could be held in one’s hand, the ability to calculate the appropriate trajectories for a launch sequence proved almost impossible to most. That’s one of the reasons why von Braun grew into an icon in the space age. He could perform incredible calculations, visualizing aspects of space travel that nobody else understood. Years later, when man actually went into outer space, many of his most arcane equations proved eerily accurate. He was effectively a wizard to others, and his input aided Imagineers in blocking out the basic schematics of their new attraction.
The German scientist also worked diligently to maintain his relationship with Disney execs. During the years leading up to the first Moon landing, von Braun hosted several Imagineers at the Huntsville, Alabama facility, the finest in the world at the time. Perhaps better than anyone else other than Walt Disney, who was in fading health by this point, von Braun appreciated that publicity was integral to space travel. He understood that many of his youngest employees worked at NASA due to their earlier exposure with the three Disney television programs more than a decade earlier. He wanted to keep that pipeline going, and he understood Disney provided the best option to do that. An outer space attraction at Disneyland, the only existing theme park at the time, would accomplish this goal. The mutual interest in the project was ultimately critical to its survival during a rough period.
The Space Mountain prequels
Image: Disney
While the numbers may run together for you as we discuss Disney history, they didn’t for the staff members. The time from the debut of Disneyland in 1955 until 1964 indicates a decade of park operation. Think about how much current Disney parks have changed in the last 10 years and then consider how much change occurred in the time from the invention of the theme park until it’s stayed open for ten years. Conditions on some rides were already problematic enough that Walt Disney felt frustration. As any software developer will tell you, the maintenance phase is when the true work occurs.
Disneyland’s issues were particularly keen in one themed area. Tomorrowland was supposed to exemplify the world of the future, the one the grandkids of opening day park guests would enjoy. Unfortunately, it suffered from the same problem that we’ve witnessed with Epcot over the years. The future happens much faster than you might expect. To wit, the social media era is about the same age as Disneyland was in 1955. It’s hard to remember a time when you couldn’t quickly send a message to your friends about how your day is going, right? In the 1950s, technology wasn’t moving quite that quickly, but it was still problematic enough that Tomorrowland was starting to seem more like Neverland crossed with AlreadyHereLand.
To stave off this concern, Uncle Walt planned numerous park updates and upgrades to restore the luster of his prized enterprise. One of his most ambitious plans was the idea he’d plotted with von Braun and other NASA experts on space travel. Disney would build something worthy of the Space Age. The Imagineers quickly determined that the best way to accomplish this grand ambition was to circle back to a couple of established tactics. The new ride would reside in a meticulously themed area, and the area would comprise a mountain. Since its inception, Disneyland had consisted of several themed lands, and man-made constructs such as Sleeping Beauty Castle and the mountain surrounding the Matterhorn Bobsleds grabbed attention in jaw-dropping fashion.
You’ve likely already done the math here and realized that Space Mountain didn’t debut first at Disneyland. Let’s retrace the steps of how the plans originated and then discuss how the world’s first dark ride roller coaster wound up at Walt Disney World instead. It all begins with one of the longest tenured employees in the history of The Walt Disney Company.
The Squid Guy Heads to Space
Image: Disney
John Hench might not be a name you know among the cast of amazing Disney Imagineers over the years, and that’s tragic. Hench started with the company in 1939 and stayed with Disney until his retirement in 2004, only weeks before his death at the age of 95. If you’re doing the math, you’re not crazy. He worked at Disney for 65 years, more than two thirds of his life. I can’t say this for certain but at the time of his retirement, I strongly suspect that he had seniority over EVERYBODY in the company.
A story artist by trade, Hench worked his way up the corporate ladder in remarkable fashion. Only a few years into his tenure, he generated acclaim for Destino, a joint project with an artist you might know by the name of Salvador Dalí. If the project sounds familiar to you, there’s a good explanation for that, too. The two artists crafted Destino in 1945 and 1946, but Disney as a company was too broke due to World War II to release it. Destino’s actual release came almost 60 years later in 2003. Still, everyone in the company knew how good it was and lamented what transpired. Hench’s status grew.
By 1954, Uncle Walt trusted his artist enough that Hench received a plum assignment. He would work as the lead developer on an unusual project, even by the odd standards of Disney. Hench would build a giant hydraulic squid for 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, a critical movie release that had lingering impact on Disney theme parks as well. Hench performed so well that his company earned an Academy Award for Best Special Effects for the fake but terrifying squid. It was probably this achievement that anchored Hench’s candidacy as an official Disney Legend. From that point forward, he was always the Squid Guy. A different project better encapsulates his legacy, though.
Walt Disney chose Hench to head up a project that the Disneyland creator called Space Port. Three other Imagineers joined the Space Port team soon afterward. Clem Hall, George McGinnis, and Herb Ryman worked together to illustrate concept art for the new attraction. Once they had the specs ready, Disney asked them to team with Arrow Development Company, the same manufacturers who had built the revolutionary tracks for the Matterhorn Bobsleds.
Uncle Walt had grand ambitions for his new space travel simulator. He intended to double the number of coaster tracks from the two employed by the Matterhorn Bobsleds. Space Mountain would stretch out across four of them, providing thrill seekers with constant entertainment. More prudent from Disney’s perspective was that four operating ride carts would lead to tremendous ride throughput for Space Port. It could easily service Disneyland’s tiny part of the galaxy.
Exploring the final frontier
Image: Disney
Hench and his team truly swung for the fences with their Space Port plans, although they’d quickly taken to calling their new attraction Space Voyage instead. Their vision for space travel included plenty of twists and turns that would push the ride into the great unknown at breakneck speeds. Disney had some requirements for their blueprints, though.
Uncle Walt felt strongly that the best way to foster the sensation of space travel was via a dark ride. He preferred to place his coaster indoors in order to control the setting. Disneyland had excelled in repurposing the parlor tricks of filmmaking into enhanced attractions. The staging of a set proved remarkably similar to that of a theme park ride. Disney innately understood that if Space Mountain took place outdoors, the time of day and the weather could fundamentally alter the quality of the experience. He wasn’t about to risk his beloved space exploration simulation in such uncertain conditions.
Receiving the edict that Space Voyage must have an indoor setting, Hench and the other three Imagineers asked for an explanation as to why. They couldn’t accurately recreate the vision of their boss if they didn’t fully understand it. Disney explained to them that he wanted to project attraction elements on the walls in order to persuade park guests that they had truly left Earth behind for an outer space adventure.
That’s where the movie tricks Disney and his artists had learned over the years would come into play. He also appreciated that as scientists learned more about the internal mechanics of space travel, he could alter the wall projections to update Space Voyage. It was another way he was trying to employ the knowledge he’d gained from running Disneyland for the body of a decade. He could now anticipate the problems that cropped up during the maintenance phase. The facts that the attraction would be weatherproof and not impacted by the time of day were happy bonuses.
The other sublime aspect of an indoor ride was that the Imagineers would control the lighting. That meant they would determine what their park guests could see as well as when. The plans for Space Voyage would give them complete control of all phases of the ride experience. Their blueprints reflected this rare power for a ride designer. Everything about Space Voyage was going swimmingly.
But then…
Image: Disney
Moore’s Law dictates that the number of transistors in a circuit doubles every two years. Trust me, there’s relevance here. Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore deduced this behavior in 1965, roughly around the time when Disney employees were optimizing the plans for Space Voyage. Moore’s initial assumption was that the doubling would occur every year, but he pushed the expectation back to two years in 1975, a point when he correctly anticipated that the rate of growth would slow but largely continue unabated for decades. Mr. Moore is a true genius with a net worth of $7 billion. That didn’t happen by accident.
What his sage evaluation of technological growth forecasted was that if someone lacked the processing power to do something at a given moment, they’d eventually get there. That’s because the technology would continue to improve at a measurably progressive rate. During the mid-1960s, this news proved extremely important to Disney employees.
By 1966, everyone was referring to their new ride project as Space Mountain. The specs they wanted to build for this man-made mountain with a dark ride inside were so ambitious that they needed massive computational powers. That was the only way they could accurately project the hairpin turns required for their space travel simulation.
What everyone involved quickly realized was the computers of the mid-1960s didn’t have Intel inside. Moore wouldn’t found the world leader in computer chips until 1968. Imagineers vented their frustrations about a pothole nobody could have anticipated. Mankind could put a man on the Moon more quickly than it could build a processor fast enough to calculate the trajectory of the specs for Space Mountain. Let’s all take a moment to appreciate just how big Disney Imagineers thought when they built the attractions that have stood the test of time until today.
Everyone grimly accepted that Space Mountain would miss its intended launch window of 1967. What nobody at Disneyland could have realized at the time was that they’d miss it by a decade. That’s because something tragic happened in 1966. Walt Disney died, leaving his company in turmoil as everyone weighed in on the best ways to protect and enhance his legacy. His beloved Space Port would have to take a backseat to other projects, primarily the one in Florida.
Everything old is new again
Image: Disney
Project X eventually succeeded beyond anyone’s wild dreams. It wasn’t without challenges, though. The most frustrating one to park planners was that their wishes for Walt Disney World directly clashed with the desires of the theme park tourists keeping them in business. Walt Disney reviled the idea of his Florida Project becoming little more than a glorified version of Disneyland East. Walt Disney’s Imagineers revered their company founder and passionately attempted to honor his vision for the swampland he’d acquired in anticipation of building a utopian society.
The customers at Walt Disney World had different ideas. Travel during the early 1970s wasn’t what it is today. Airplane flights were primarily for the wealthy, which meant that residents of the East Coast couldn’t visit Disneyland unless they drove for days. They did get Disney television programing, though. They knew about all the attractions at the Happiest Place on Earth that had created such a buzz over the years. Disneyland was open for 16 years before Walt Disney World debuted. That was an eternity for potential theme park tourists to dream about riding the most popular attractions there. That’s why park planners in Orlando, Florida, eventually gave in and built a redux of Pirates of the Caribbean.
When the carriers of Uncle Walt’s legacy mimicked the original park, they rarely enjoyed it. Everyone understood that they were blatantly going against their founder’s wishes, even as he’d acknowledged that the Environmental Prototype Community of Tomorrow should include a Disneyland-esque amusement park. He simply wanted it to stand on its own rather than ape everything accomplished in Anaheim, California.
Money was tight during the early days of Walt Disney World, which is a recurring theme any time The Walt Disney Company has opened a new park over the years. Park planners had to pay close attention to the wishes of their customers. Otherwise, they’d suffer financial shortfalls that would imperil the entire enterprise. Something that surprised the bean counters at Walt Disney World was that this park enjoyed a high volume of traffic from teenagers, which wasn’t true of Disneyland.
What Disney strategists correctly identified was that teenagers wanted thrill rides, and the new Florida park was sorely lacking in those. Some internal discussion led to an evaluation about whether the Matterhorn Bobsleds would convert well at Magic Kingdom. Those ideas quickly fell by the wayside as impractical. Also, such an attraction would stand as yet another retread of Disneyland. Walt Disney World needed something fresh. And that’s why the first Disneyland indoor roller coaster of 1967 wound up as the first Walt Disney World indoor roller coaster of 1975.
Here’s to the future!
Image: Disney
Thanks to the magic of Moore’s Law, computers had caught up to the hefty demands of Hench and his team. Better yet, Magic Kingdom offered a ton more available land than Disneyland. Had Space Mountain debuted on the West Coast, it would have suffered from several limitations (perhaps ironically) involving lack of space. Imagineers had already cut the planned number of tracks from four to two for this reason.
The placement of Space Mountain at Magic Kingdom solved several issues simultaneously. A thrill ride appealed to the teenagers who kept the park in business. Since it was an original ride rather than recreation of an existing one at Disneyland, Walt Disney World differentiated itself a bit from the initial Disney theme park. And since the specs were finalized and carried Uncle Walt’s stamp of approval, most of the logistics were already in place. It was the perfect project for Magic Kingdom. All that Disney needed to do was finance it.
Oddly, that part proved the trickiest. Since the company was short on cash, choosing to construct any new attraction came with the opportunity cost of stopping another one from getting off the ground. Fortunately, Space Mountain had the blessing of everyone involved, which meant that it could start as soon as Disney had the financing. The eventual price tag for the attraction was $18 million, a million more than the cost of the entirety of Disneyland in 1955. Of course, that’s a bit misleading due to 20 years of inflation, but it’s a funny trivia note. One of the ways they could cut costs was by eliminating Arrow Development Company, instead manufacturing the entire mountain and accompanying track in-house.
Still, Disney’s theme parks didn’t have $18 million to spend in 1975. Rather than foot the entire bill themselves, Disney execs did what they do best. They found a sponsor for the project. They quickly locked in on RCA, a leading electronics company of the day. Disney sought a $10 million investment from them, but the courtship was shaky at best. People involved with the meetings later indicated that the head of RCA, Peter Sarnoff, had no idea who the Disney employees were or why they were pitching him. The general rule in business is that when a stranger asks you for $10 million, you say no.
After the first meeting was a total bust, Disney’s then-president, Card Walker, interceded. He was friends with Sarnoff, a man with one of the greatest nicknames in corporate history, the General. Walker persuaded the General to splurge on the $10 million in exchange for numerous tie-ins throughout the attraction. If you remember the oldest version of Space Mountain with its numerous, awkward RCA tie-ins, that’s the explanation. If so, memories of this song may still haunt your dreams. You can watch some video of the sponsor nonsense here. Warning: the song plays through this clip as well.
A star trek AND a voyage home
Image: Disney
With more than half of the $18 million outlay financed by RCA, Space Mountain was ready to deploy. Even in its earliest iteration, it featured a dazzling display of noises and sounds that fostered confusion. The explanation as you well know is that when you ride along the coast tracks, you’re oftentimes in the dark. It’s impossible to tell how fast you’re going or where you’re at in the ride unless you’ve been on Space Mountain numerous times before. That’s the joy of it, and the brilliance of the design is why the experience feels so hectic and kinetic. The shock is that Space Mountain “speeds” along at only 28 miles per hour, only a couple of miles an hour faster than the Barnstormer, a children’s ride at Magic Kingdom. Its G-force high point is 2.5, a trifle compared to many modern thrill rides. Simply by slotting Space Mountain in the dark, it seems so much faster and more explosive than it actually is.
The ride itself tells a clever story, even if you’ve never realized it. The story is also a bit different than originally intended. The prototype concept for Space Mountain was that you were an interstellar traveler seeking a return trip to Earth. Yes, it was a voyage home. Over time, that premise evolved since it wasn’t as exciting. Folks had never experienced space travel before. They wanted to explore the outer limits, not go back home.
What’s remained the same is that the line queue leads to a Space Port, a place where all riders prepare for their journeys, independent of their destinations. The modified premise is that you’re a traveler to parts unknown, presumably in the deepest realms of outer space. Either way, what matters is that you board a “rocket sled” at Space Port.
Then, you reach a seminal tunnel brimming with strobe lights. It’s the unforgettable moment of your journey. The sounds pulsate, signifying that your intergalactic vehicle is building up steam for its journey into the great unknown. Suddenly, you explode into blackness, simulating the chasm of outer space. The flashing lights and twists and turns of the ride identify that you’re not at Space Port any longer. Instead, you’re on your journey to the next destination, which of course happens to be another Space Port, but at least it’s a different one thousands of light years away.
Astronauts cruise Space Ports around the world
Image: Disney
After von Braun developed the relationship between NASA and Disney, the company has continued to include other space travelers in the development of their attractions. In the particular case of Space Mountain, former astronaut Gordon Cooper served as Vice President for Research and Development at the company. His tenure led to the attendance of six of the original members of the Mercury team during the debut of Space Mountain. The other one, Gus Grissom, had died in a fire in 1967. His wife still attended, though. Like von Braun, Cooper took tremendous pride in the accuracy of Space Mountain. He once bragged to People Magazine, “Space Mountain is about as close as you can safely get to actually being in space.”
The public quickly agreed. Space Mountain was instantly popular, a shock given its novelty. It was a stunningly unique ride as the first roller coaster taking place entirely in the dark, the first computer-controlled roller coaster, and the first indoor roller coaster. That was a lot for people to process. Hench once relayed an anecdote about his fear of the attraction’s reception. He worried when he witnessed a few early riders kissing the ground once they exited their rocket sled. He presumed they’d hated the ride and couldn’t wait to get out of there. To his surprise, they quickly alleviated his concerns when they started laughing uproariously. Like millions of riders after them, these early guinea pigs had fallen instantly in love with Space Mountain.
Once the numbers started proving that Space Mountain was a winner for Walt Disney World, it finally earned the greenlight to become a Disneyland attraction as well. The limited space available at Disney’s first theme park forced some concessions, though. Whereas the ride at Magic Kingdom resides in a faux-mountain 180 feet tall and 300 feet wide, the Disneyland structure is much smaller. Its specs are 118 feet by 200 feet. Its maximum speed is a bit higher at 32 miles per hour, though. This version of the attraction debuted barely two years after the original, which made it something of a novelty. Space Mountain was one of the first rides to debut at Magic Kingdom, making the Disneyland version more of a Walt Disney World West.
Over time, Disney would introduce other versions at Tokyo Disneyland, Hong Kong Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris. The only park that is an exception is Shanghai Disneyland. The park planners there chose to introduce TRON Lightcycle Power Run in lieu of a traditional Space Mountain attraction. Whether their version of Tomorrowland ever receives a version of Space Mountain remains to be seen.
Space Mountain is the end-all, be-all of indoor roller coasters. In the more than four decades since its introduction, a slew of imitators have popped up. All of them share the commonalities of indoor roller coasters that are also dark rides. The crucial difference is that all of them are pale copies of the spectacular original.
Simply stated, Space Mountain claims a status that no other theme park attraction in the world can match. Its record-setting achievements in ride design, its timeless popularity across generations, and its pop culture legacy all assure its prestige. All it needed to reach that level were an ex-patriate with a shaky war background, a visionary theme park icon, a few legendary Imagineers, and over a decade of Moore’s Law.
