Leonard David wrote
the books Moon
Rush: The New
Space Race and
Mars: Our Future
on the Red Planet.
He has reported on
space exploration
for over 50 years.He’d made this declaration in a December 1955
episode of the TV series Walt Disney’s Disneyland
called “Man and the Moon.” (The weekly series
would change titles several times, but remained
on the air for decades.) The episode included an
appearance by Wernher von Braun, who explained
in matter-of-fact terms how a trip around the moon
would work. This was almost two years before the
Soviet Union hurled Sputnik 1 into Earth orbit, an
event that made Disney look more like an oracle
than an animator-turned-entertainment mogul.
Tomorrowland had plenty of allure. You could
take a high-speed drive on the “Autopia” freeway
then dive “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” via a
submarine on tracks. But neither of those could
compare with Tomorrowland’s crown jewel:
“Rocket to the Moon.”
The dazzling red-and-white moon rocket stood
even taller in the theme-park skyline than Sleeping
Beauty’s Castle. The mind-expanding excursion
cost a top-tier “E-ticket” but was worth it. It was
sponsored by Trans World Airlines (TWA), which
made it seem safe and generally legitimate to me.
A Disneyland advertising supplement in the
Los Angeles Times in July 1955 delivered the pitch:
Welcome aboard Trans World Airlines’ Rocket to the
Moon! In Tomorrowland’s world of 1986 you’ll zoom
through space at speeds over 172 thousand miles an
hour! Actually experience the “feel” of space travel—
see Earth below and Heavens above as you pass space
station Terra, coast around the Moon and return! An
eight-hour light in ten thrilling minutes—all without
ever leaving the ground.
If the ride’s 10 minutes sounded short while
you were standing in line awaiting your turn, you
forgave the brevity of the adventure. You had to
consider those waiting impatiently behind you to
blast off on their lunar cruise.
Once through the turnstile, we were ushered
inside a Moonliner. I recall three rows of passenger
seating encircling a large circular screen on the
ceiling and another on the floor. These observa-
tion portals let you view the rocket’s liftoff from
Anaheim, but more importantly, the sky and space
we all were headed for. At liftoff, the seats pulsated
and inflated while wall-mounted gauges indicated
our speed and altitude as we streaked moonward.
A calm (and fictional) “Captain Collins” narrated
our trek. Who could have guessed then that the
name of Apollo 11’s Command Module pilot would
be Michael Collins?
Suddenly,a shower of meteorites began to strike
ourcraft,setting off alarms and flashing lights.
CaptainCollinsannounced that the ship was safe
andthatourjourney would proceed. That on-the-spot decision felt good to me as I didn’t want to
ask for my money back.
As our Moonliner made its backside swing of
the moon, riders were treated to facts about Earth’s
single satellite. To this day, I remember the voyage
leaving us space commuters in a quandary. During
the far-side flyby, our ship launched flares onto
the moon’s darkened terrain. Those projectilesbrightened up the surface for a few seconds. One
of them revealed some kind of structure—ruins of
an ancient city, perhaps? Our minds reeled at the
possibilities, but already we had circled the moon
and were on a homeward trajectory. Piercing the
Earth’s atmosphere, we broke the sound barrier
before our captain skillfully reduced our speed,
eventually touching us gently back down on the
tarmac at Anaheim.
Our feet firmly planted on Earth, each passenger
got a “Lunar Flight Certificate” indicating that we
had rocketed round-trip to the moon from the
Disneyland Spaceport via the TWA Rocket Ship,
with some extra public relations spin appended:
“The distance to the Moon, 238,857 miles, is
exceeded daily by TWA on its regular Earth flights
across the U.S.A., Europe, Africa & Asia.”
TWA ended its association with “Rocket to the
Moon” in 1961. The Douglas Aircraft Company
become the ride’s sponsor, remaining so for
the next three decades, even after the company
became McDonnell Douglas in 1967. (The
attraction’s name was updated to “Flight to the
Moon” that year.) In 1975, Disney revamped the
ride to carry visitors to a new destination, Mars,
because the advent of humans on the moon was
old news by then. The “Mission to Mars” ride
offered tours to the Red Planet until it closed in
November 1992.
The ride’s building was dormant until “Rocket
Redd’s Pizza Port” opened there in 1998. Last year,
the restaurant was renamed “Alien Pizza Planet,”
after a fictional location in the Toy Story films,
which star a character named Buzz Lightyear, a
sort of 1950s imagining of a 21st century space-
man. Like me, he’s been to the moon too many
times to count.“ THE DAZZLING RED-AND-WHITE MOON
ROCKET STOOD EVEN TALLER THAN
SLEEPING BEAUTY’S CASTLE. THE MIND-
EXPANDING EXCURSION COST A TOP-
TIER ‘E-TICKET’ BUT WAS WORTH IT.“September 2019 AIR & SPACE 15ERIC LONG