Mission Space
[Disney Vacation Planner]
| At A Glance |
Horizons replacement at EPCOT.
Likely to feature a simulator style ride, transporting guests
to Mars. |
Mission Space, formerly Horizons, is a new space-based attraction
being constructed in Epcot at Walt Disney World.
The official announcements made so far don't provide a great
deal of information, other than the attraction is being jointly
sponsored by NASA and Compaq Computers, and that it will open
in late 2002 (or possibly early 2003).
It's widely anticipated that the attraction may well be based
around some of the simulators used in the shuttle training programme,
seating four or possibly six guests at a time on a journey to
Mars.
The Mission Space ride will feature the Disney Fast-Pass system
of guest ticket allocation, and for the first time the ride's
own computer system will be used to allocate FastPass tickets,
relative to how busy the attraction is.
Ride Supplier
It seems likely that the supplier of the Mission Space ride simulator
will be the "Entertainment Technology Corporation" a
subsidiary of the "Environmental Tectonics Corporation"
, who according to press releases "signed a contract with
a major entertainment industry Customer" on January 28, 2000.
The press release states:
"The contract, exceeding $25 million in value, with an
approximately 3-year performance period, was awarded to ETC's
wholly owned subsidiary, Entertainment Technology Corporation,
and will be performed at ETC's Southampton, PA, facilities. The
total project will entail the design and production of a totally
new entertainment ride attraction, and also includes supervising
of installation."
ETC have previously been involved with Disney to provide the
Cyberspace Mountain at West Side's DisneyQuest.
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