Keep Moving Forward

temporallydisplacedrocketman:

The von Braun ferry rocket concept. This is one of my all-time rockets, one that I got to see live out in his book Project Mars. I highly recommend it, as it suggest a cohesive space programme that achieves great things through hard work, government and public determination, and willpower. This is large enough for a poster.

Disney fans will recognize this as the rocket that launches at the end of the Man in Space special.

epcotexplorer:

New York World’s Fair Ephemera: 

(And seeing that this showed up on my Dashboard’s random post section affirms the fact that I made a good choice in choosing Tumblr as my blogging service. A good blogging service respects their World’s Fair history, FOR SURE. ) 

thepenguinpress:

From the General Motors Futurama Exhibit, 1940. Featured in the Harry Ransom Center’s upcoming “I Have Seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America” exhibit. 

#Retro pins I would buy if they were reissued (Like my “If I Were 21, I’d Vote For Kennedy” button.)

epcotexplorer:

Humanistic Horizons

On the land, under the sea, and even out in space… Horizons was the one pavilion that took the topical elements of Future World and blended them into one grand ride that served as the capstone or thesis statement for EPCOT’s forward thinking part of the park. 

Even with this in mind, the reasons behind Horizons’ large fanbase, even today, 13 years after it was demolished, are quite simple. Horizons was warm and relatable. The pavilion dwelled in the serious subjects of Future World but presented them in an organic way: through the eyes and actions of a family. Nameless re-occuring characters, warm narrators, amusing situations and gags populated the fantastical and scientific settings that we had seen earlier, but under industrial pretenses. Now, the ride and the settings were personal, and felt closer to home. Much in the way that the Carousel of Progress addressed the audience, the narrators did the same in Horizons. You were being talked to, given a tour, and welcomed into the home of the family that was living in this fantastical, futuristic environment. For this reason, the Carousel of Progress and Horizons were considered to be in a symbiotic relationship and Horizons to be Carousel’s sequel. 

Further, the aesthetics of the environments supported the warm connotation that Horizons had. The treatments that each scene and environment were given were highly similar, even if not geographically (or spatially!) related. Each vehicle was of a concurrent shape and design to another in a scene. In fact, the design of the Solo Subs in Sea Castle were much of the same body type as the Space Shuttles in Brava Centauri. With this in mind, the familiarity of each aesthetic, of each environment you were being shown played a subtle trick on the guest’s brains. You’d expect to see certain things, and the relatable feeling to the pavilion was created and fostered by the simple memory of the scene before it. 

Horizons’ warmth was not accidental. The pavilion was the humanistic manifestation of all of the subject matter and challenge that was put on display in Future World. But in the fact that the basis for the experience was rooted in family, and in relationships, the pavilion’s intent was one that anyone could enjoy, relate to, and feel at home in. 

EPCOT Center is missing this today. We all cry and clamor for EPCOT to attack the broad and sweeping subjects now missing from it, but if EPCOT Center truly wants to return, it must be based in warmth and feeling like a relatable future that you can easily imagine yourself in. 

I feel like I have no right to comment on anything related to Horizons because I never rode it…

epcotexplorer:

New York World’s Fair Ephemera: 

(And seeing that this showed up on my Dashboard’s random post section affirms the fact that I made a good choice in choosing Tumblr as my blogging service. A good blogging service respects their World’s Fair history, FOR SURE. ) 

thepenguinpress:

From the General Motors Futurama Exhibit, 1940. Featured in the Harry Ransom Center’s upcoming “I Have Seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America” exhibit. 

#Retro pins I would buy if they were reissued

(Like my “If I Were 21, I’d Vote For Kennedy” button.)

epcotexplorer:

Mother and Father narrate a tour of Progress City, their home in the Carousel of Progress’ last scene, in the 1967 Disneyland version of the show. This model was the “post show” to the carousel theater, and was housed on the second level of the revolving building. 

Today, a part of the  model resides in Walt Disney World, along the WEDway tracks. 

“Don’t stand in the way of Progress!”

I’m proud to say I’m currently living in a city with the kind of rapid transit system they’re talking about, although, like them, I’m still waiting for the SSTs.

epcotexplorer:

Carousel of Progress Kaleidoscope 

This 1963 rendering by Claude Coats reveals some of the earliest plans for the Carousel of Progress, Disney’s exhibit for GE at the New York World’s Fair. Most of the form and function from this design remain, with the addition of a larger base and a extension of the sweeping Space Age buttresses that swept up the entire length of the building on the final design. 

What didn’t remain, however, is the vivid use of the color spectrum on the building. Added in to lighten up the rather stark facade, the vibrant swaths of sequential colors would have “faded” into each other as the building rotated, suggesting more kinetic movement for each rotation that the building took. 

The final version of the Carousel theater, instead, had a roof, tiled in color changing lights that would play different patterns and color schemes to achieve the same spinning effect. 

Walt Disney World’s Carousel of Progress, meanwhile, boasted a striped pattern on it’s facade. To allow for the Carousel’s kinetics to really be eye catching, this design would “grow”, as the pavilion rotated, and the stripes would get “thicker” to create a pleasant optical illusion. 

That lighted roof is the bomb.

epcotexplorer:

Carousel of Progress Kaleidoscope 

This 1963 rendering by Claude Coats reveals some of the earliest plans for the Carousel of Progress, Disney’s exhibit for GE at the New York World’s Fair. Most of the form and function from this design remain, with the addition of a larger base and a extension of the sweeping Space Age buttresses that swept up the entire length of the building on the final design. 

What didn’t remain, however, is the vivid use of the color spectrum on the building. Added in to lighten up the rather stark facade, the vibrant swaths of sequential colors would have “faded” into each other as the building rotated, suggesting more kinetic movement for each rotation that the building took. 

The final version of the Carousel theater, instead, had a roof, tiled in color changing lights that would play different patterns and color schemes to achieve the same spinning effect. 

Walt Disney World’s Carousel of Progress, meanwhile, boasted a striped pattern on it’s facade. To allow for the Carousel’s kinetics to really be eye catching, this design would “grow”, as the pavilion rotated, and the stripes would get “thicker” to create a pleasant optical illusion. 

That lighted roof is the bomb.

epcotexplorer:

EPCOT Center from the air. Perfection. 

Yes!

magicjourneysdisneyland:

See America from outer space

Space Station X-1!

epcotexplorer:

Spinning Space Age Spire (Taken with instagram)

After Complex 34 pointed it out to me, I can never see these cars as anything but lifting body vehicles.