January 15 - Space Mountain

Image copyright Disney

On this day, in 1975, Space Mountain launched its first guests in Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom of Walt Disney World. Walt Disney wanted to build a space themed roller coaster in the Sixties after the success of the Matterhorn Bobsleds, which opened in 1959, convinced him that thrill rides were okay to have in his park. Concept drawings were made as early as 1964 for a coaster called Space Port, consisting of four separate tracks that (slightly) intertwined with each other. Unfortunately, Disneyland didn't have enough land to accommodate that design and mid Sixties technology wasn't quite up to something that ambitious anyways, so the project was delayed. By 1967, the design had gone through several refinements, one of which was a name change to Space Mountain (another was the reduction to two tracks), but Walt's death and a focus on the Florida Project caused the coaster to be shelved indefinitely.

Image copyright Disney

Once Walt Disney World opened, it proved to be extremely popular, especially with teens. Disney executives were suddenly in need of something to satisfy their teenage guests. They considered building a replica of the Matterhorn Bobsleds (in fact the show building for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea had been constructed to support that ride) but ultimately brushed the dust off the Space Mountain plans instead. Computing power had advanced enough to pull the coaster off and Tomorrowland had the space. The only thing that lacked was the funds to actually build it. That's where RCA came in.

Image copyright Disney

When Disney signed a contract with RCA to provide all the communications hardware for the Florida Project, there was a clause that said if a suitable attraction were developed, RCA would pony up $10 million to make it happen. Executives showed RCA the plans for Space Mountain, they agreed that it sounded good and construction moved forward. RCA would sponsor the ride for its first eighteen years. In 1994, sponsorship switched to FedEx, who would lend their name for a decade. Since 2004, there hasn't been a sponsor (and yet it still seems to function with great regularity).

The version of Space Mountain in Florida may have been the first one (and is the state's oldest operating coaster) but versions of the attraction have opened in every Magic Kingdom type theme park around the world except Shanghai Disneyland. The Magic Kingdom's reaches a top speed of 35 MPH, pretty tame compared to most coasters, but since it's in the dark, it feels a whole lot more thrilling than that for the two and half minutes of whiplash inducing twists and turns. And, of course, the most thrilling part doesn't even occur on the ride itself. Everyone knows that only happens when you're on the PeopleMover and you happen to get to see Space Mountain with the lights on.