Spaceship Earth is the icon of Epcot, towering 180 feet above the park. Its structural design is based on the original geodesic dome created by Buckminster Fuller and its name and concept were derived from his book, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. Designed by engineer Frank Heger and his firm, SGH, it is the first and largest full sphere geodesic dome ever created.

The attraction housed within the sphere takes guests on a time-machine themed experience that tells the story of human communication from the origins of prehistoric man to the early 21st century. Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury helped write the original storyline. The 13-minute dark ride begins with guests seated in Omnimover vehicles moving up into the structure through a darkened starlit tunnel, and then ascending on a spiraling track through spaces featuring a series of lighted historic vignettes peopled with audio-animatronic figures. At the top of the sphere, the seats rotate 180 degrees so that guests are lying back to view a night “sky” with projections of stars, planets, the Milky Way, and Earth, as they begin their descent.

Spaceship Earth was particularly challenging. The vehicles were linked together in a continuous chain that was driven by trackside motors and rotating wheels, which pushed against a flat platen under each vehicle. The vehicle track was quite steep and the motor noise interfered with the intelligibility of the show material. The motors were only a few feet from the track so there was no room for a large housing or an omnimover system under the track. MLA was engaged after the drive system had been built. We designed a box for each motor to control the noise. Each enclosure had a small fan to provide cooling air for the motors. The enclosures were successful acoustically but one motor at the top of the track, where the ambient temperature was the highest and the mechanical load the greatest, overheated. Rather than address the heat problem the boxes were removed.