Lift Off!

My parents scheduled a trip to Walt Disney World for the last week of summer vacation before my senior year started to act as our last vacation as a family before I went to college. I had decided that, as an extremely mature 17-year-old, I would go on all the roller coasters and I would enjoy them. The most intimidating of them all was Mission: Space. An attraction meant to approximate a rocket launch and mission to Mars through the use of a rotating simulator. This ride had notoriously been modified to be less intense after it had triggered a series of severe health problems (i.e., massive motion sickness) shortly after its opening. Even that had not been enough. So the ride had been split into two different versions: the green team (less intense) and the orange team (more intense). Well, I decided that if I was going to go on Mission: Space, I might as well go with the more intense version. So when we arrived in Epcot, my dad and I headed for the Mission: Space building and I confidently asked the cast member outside for the “orange team, please”.

            One thing I love about Disney World is their attention to detail. The queue line was incredible. In one section, the line ran past a huge rotating gravity chamber complete with dining room and treadmill. In another the line passed a mock control room filled with brightly colored buttons and screens displaying flight paths and planets. Inside were a couple of Disney employees who looked like their only job was to appear busy to the passing guests.

            When we finally reached the front of the line, we were ushered into a small room for the pre-recorded ‘mission briefing’. I watched with studious attention. On Mission: Space, each rider is given a job assignment with a few specific buttons to press along the ride and there was no way that I was going to mess it up. We then were instructed to wait outside the simulator room and it was at that point that we got our assignments. I was the navigator.

            After what seemed like forever waiting in the circular hallway, we finally entered the simulator capsules and took our seats. I pulled the overhead restraint down as tight as it would go and nervously contemplated the fact that, like most roller coaster restraints, it did not go quite as tight as I would have liked. But, after all, a simulation of blasting off would push me into my seat, not the restraint. I looked at the small blank screen in front of me and tried to predict every worst-case scenario. What if I missed the job I was supposed to do? What if, even worse, I got motion sickness?

            I felt the capsule tilt back, and the image on the screen opened up to show an animation of the sky above a nonexistent launch platform. The countdown began, and I noticed a bird fly by. I tightened my grip on the seat restraint as the numbers dwindled down. And then we were off.

            The sensation was incredible. I could feel the skin of my cheeks being pushed against my jaw. The capsule jittered as one of my crewmates deployed the first stage separation. We cleared the cloud layer in seconds and rushed past the Hubble Space Telescope and Space Station. Then I felt the pressure recede as mission control announced that we were in “zero gravity”.

            In that moment, every childhood fantasy I had ever had about being an astronaut came rushing back. Watching a space shuttle launch 11 years ago, visiting the rocket garden in the Kennedy Space Center, listening to my uncle explain how, if I took the space shuttle to school, it would take less than a minute. It was as if I had rediscovered a piece of my childhood I had completely forgotten. I had been so busy worrying about planning a practical future that I had blocked out the impractical daydreams that had consumed so much of my life in elementary school.

            I have always heard that Disney World is a place where everyone can feel like a kid again. I was never the kind of kid who dreamed about being a princess. But an astronaut or archeologist, that was something I could get into. So on August 29^th, 2012, I got to live a childhood fantasy that I had almost forgotten. When I got off the ride, I felt so much confidence and accomplishment. Sure, all I did was press a few overtly labeled flashing buttons that would have made no difference in the outcome of the ride anyway. But for three minutes I was a six year-old again, and I believed every second of it. I had gone to space.