Beacon of Magic Spaceship Earth EPCOT Walt Disney World Resort

Beginning Oct. 1, 2021, Spaceship Earth transforms at night into a Beacon of Magic with new lights shining across the geodesic sphere’s reflective panels.* These lights connect to one another in a symbol of optimism resembling stars in a nighttime sky.

Walt Disney once said EPCOT “would always be in a state of becoming” as a place that changes with the times. The Walt Disney World Resort theme park is delivering on that promise in a whole new way as it continues the biggest transformation in its history, bringing the next generation of immersive storytelling to life through a plethora of new attractions and experiences.

Beginning Oct. 1, 2021, EPCOT will be unified with four neighborhoods that each speak to important aspects of the world and its people: World Showcase, World Celebration, World Nature and World Discovery. These neighborhoods are filled with new experiences rooted in authenticity and innovation that take guests to new destinations, where the real is made fantastic in a celebration of curiosity, discovery and the magic of possibility.

Spaceship Earth (also referred to as the Giant Golf Ball) is a dark ride attraction at the Epcot theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida. The geodesic sphere in which the attraction is housed has served as the symbolic structure of Epcot since the park opened in 1982.

The 15-minute ride takes guests on a time machine-themed experience, demonstrating how advancements in human communication have helped to create the future one step at a time. Riding in Omnimover-type vehicles along a track that spirals up and down the geodesic sphere, passengers are taken through scenes depicting important breakthroughs in communication throughout history—from the development of early language through cave paintings, to the use of hieroglyphs, to the invention of the alphabet, to the creation of the printing press, to today's modern communication advancements, including telecommunication and mass communication.

Since its 1982 opening, the ride has been updated three times—in 1986, 1994, and 2008. On February 25, 2020, the Disney Parks Blog announced that Spaceship Earth would be closing for refurbishment on May 26, 2020.

The structure is similar in texture to the United States pavilion from Expo 67 in Montreal but, unlike that structure, Spaceship Earth is a complete sphere, supported by three pairs of legs. The architectural design was conceived by Wallace Floyd Design Group. The structural designs of both Expo 67 and Spaceship Earth were completed by Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc. of Boston, Massachusetts.

Geometrically, Spaceship Earth is derived from the Class 2 geodesic polyhedron with frequency of division equal to 8. Each face of the polyhedron is divided into three isosceles triangles to form each point. In theory, there are 11,520 total isosceles triangles forming 3840 points. In reality, some of those triangles are partially or fully nonexistent due to supports and doors; there are actually only 11,324 silvered facets, with 954 partial or full flat triangular panels.

The appearance of being a monolithic sphere is an architectural goal that was achieved through a structural trick. Spaceship Earth is in fact two structural domes. Six legs are supported on pile groups that are driven up to 160 feet into Central Florida's soft earth. Those legs support a steel box-shaped ring at the sphere's perimeter, at about 30 degrees south latitude in earth-terms. The upper structural dome sits on this ring. A grid of trusses inside the ring supports two helical structures of the ride and show system. Below the ring, a second dome is hung from the bottom, completing the spherical shape. The ring and trusses form a table-like structure which separates the upper dome from the lower. Supported by and about three feet off the structural domes is a cladding sphere to which the shiny Alucobond panels and drainage system are mounted.

The cladding was designed so that when it rains, no water pours off the sides onto the ground. All water is collected through one-inch gaps in the facets into a gutter system, and the water is channeled into the World Showcase Lagoon.

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