New Disney Space Ride - A Blast or a Fizzle?

Is Epcot's Mission: Space Worth $100 Million? And Why Is Disney Building Florida's Tallest Mountain?

Mission: Space, the latest addition to the Disney World empire, is a $100 million-dollar, state-of-the-art rocket-themed fast ride that park officials hope will lure crowds back to the Epcot theme park. The second thrill ride added to Epcot in recent years -- Test Track, a twisting, turning car ride through a General Motors proving ground, is the other -- Mission: Space is designed to compete with the Incredible Hulk and the other popular "hypercoasters" at nearby Universal's Islands of Adventure theme park.

But will it work? If Disney's track record is any indication, the answer is probably yes, though some riders say taking one spin on this equilibrium-challenging attraction is plenty.

Mission: Space relegates the aging Space Mountain, Disney's once cutting-edge simulated space-travel adventure, to the realm of sheer quaintness. The first of the next generation of theme park attractions, Mission: Space combines high-end computer graphics (courtesy of Hewlett Packard) with centrifuge technology (borrowed from NASA) to create an incredibly realistic rocket blast into space.

It was hard for me not to be impressed by the ride's sheer technical wizardry, even though my onboard "tasks" -- flicking switches, pushing lighted buttons -- seemed like unnecessary distractions. But the shtick paid off, because the initial sensation of centrifugal "blastoff" is extraordinary, and the high-resolution graphics -- watch the birds scatter on the horizon at ignition -- will make you forget you're on a ride. (One word of advice: keep your eyes forward and your head straight during blastoff or you'll know why kids call the park "Dizzy World.")

The intensity of blastoff is quickly replaced by an eerie sensation of floating through space after the main engines cut off (another of my "duties"), and within a minute or two I avoided meteor fields and crash landed on Mars and the ride was over.

But those two sensations -- liftoff and weightlessness -- are what I felt so acutely when I rode it and what linger afterward. Even Story Musgrave, one of the NASA astronauts who served as a consultant for the project, claims that the ride is "even more realistic" than NASA simulators, which leads me to another bit of advice: if the spinning teacups at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party in the Magic Kingdom are more than you can handle, then Mission Space is definitely not your cup of tea.

Mission: Space may be the most expensive new attraction at Disney World in Orlando, but it's not the only recent addition. In the Magic Kingdom is Mickey's Philharmagic, a computer-generated 3-D musical romp through some of Disney's most popular films (the ride with Aladdin through the casbah is breathtaking), and Wishes, a newly revamped nightly fireworks show, said to be the most technologically advanced of its kind in the world. Hi-tech or not, it's a refreshingly tasteful, almost subtle display, unlike the traditional Disney "oooh-and-ahh" extravaganzas.

Bringing the Mountain to Florida

Mission: Space is the first in a series of large-scale attractions the entertainment giant plans to unveil in the coming years. Here's a rundown of others currently in the works at Disney World.

• By the year 2006, Animal Kingdom park will be the site of Florida's tallest mountain, a 200-foot-high man-made peak that will be the centerpiece of Expedition Everest, a high-speed train adventure designed to zip riders through forests, under waterfalls, and along snowcapped ridges to evade the legendary Abominable Snowman. The unusual touch is that the track will disintegrate halfway through the ride -- the monster destroys it in a tantrum -- forcing a full-speed backward ride to escape the monster (the actual look of the creature is a closely-guarded Disney secret).
• Over at Magic Kingdom, Disney's "Imagineers" are working on what's expected to be a tour-de-force of Audio-Animatronics, an attraction called Stitch's Great Escape!, based on the animated film "Lilo & Stitch" and scheduled to debut in late 2004. Rumor has it they've perfected a free-standing robot that will roam about untethered.
• In 2005, the Disney-MGM Studios park will be home to Stunt Show Spectacular, a live-action show imported from Disneyland Paris that features stunts using cars, motorcycles, and jet skis. It's part of a redevelopment of the back-lot area that will also include the addition of the Chicago and San Francisco skyline (New York is currently the only city skyline represented).
• Imported to Epcot from the original Disneyland in Anaheim, Soarin' Over California is a motion-based movie with bird's-eye views of some of the Golden State's most recognizable landmarks -- the Golden Gate Bridge, a redwood forest, the Napa Valley -- projected onto the inside of a giant, dome-shaped movie screen. To achieve the effect of flying, the theater seats become airborne 40 feet in the air, enhancing the experience with the sights, sounds, scents (pine trees, orange groves), and sensations of flying over the areas yourself.

David Downing