Disney World After Dark: Mission: Space

During Christmas 2003, my wife, my mother and I decided to make a quick visit to Walt Disney World. My wife would enjoy the time away, my mother would love the parade, and I, well there was new ride to ride. Mission: Space opened on October 9th and I was eager for a new Future World experience. I wanted to feel the G Force, experience the effects of weightlessness, and learn how they would provide the illusion of hibernation.

I will not share the full play-by-play of that first ride. You have all been on the ride so you know what goes on. I will share though that on December 26th, I skipped breakfast (taking precautions) and headed straight to Epcot and immediately to Mission: Space. My wife and mother waited for me at the Electric Umbrella. The ride was thrilling! It was at about the four and a half minute mark that I started feeling a little uneasy. I didn’t become ill, but I knew that having had the experience, it would be awhile before I printed a FastPass for this ride. Now, a few years on, I am happy for Mission: Space Lite. I can enjoy the images without taking chances of something far worse happening.

So there you have it. A little more Back Story from Doc.

All of this has been to lead up to a new group of Disney World After Dark pictures. Those wonderful people at Imagineering have given us many architectural gems and Mission: Space is a gem. The sweeping spans reach out as if to draw you in. It is visually inviting. It is as though the building is embracing you as you walk into the queue.

And, as it is with other areas of Disney, when the night falls, a whole new magic emerges. Here is Mission: Space After Dark.


(Editor's Note: Having paid this photographic tribute to Mission: Space, I must also express my appreciation for Horizons. I will often put in a VHS tape from eariler trips and revisit this extinct attraction. It was one of Doc's favorites.)