Memory Exercise - flow of Spaceship Earth ride

Upon clearing the queuing area, a moving walkway assists you in getting up to speed to the ride cars. In theory they are set up to not stop. The cars are a blueish-green, probably to go with the theme of the planet. As you head up the ramp, the video screen comes to life, encouraging you to identify your home location. Clicking on the USA made the states available and clicking on Wisconsin then allowed us to click on Milwaukee. This information is used after you exit the ride, in conjunction with the picture for which the video screen next helps you line up. Upon exiting the ride, your picture appears on a video screen of the Earth, near the location you selected. The picture is also used in a video as you exit the ride.

The first room of the ride is a pale video screen depicting a 'caveman' facing off with a wooly mammoth. When verbal communication was invented, it allowed for teamwork and a group could attack an animal, making the process easier.

This leads into a diorama of a cave with animatronic people painting on the cave walls, the first written communication. Next we see a 'nameless Egyptian' pounding reeds into papyrus, inventing the first paper. We see it in use in the next diorama, the throne room of the Pharaoh.

Our next big leap forward is the Greeks, one of the few scenes on the right side of track, as the Greeks provide us with mathematics (George cheered for his people, which is pretty rare to be honest). Their philosophy is taken a step forward by the Romans.

Then, tragedy as the great library in Alexandria burns (it even smells of sulphur). Thankfully, the knowledge is not lost as another scene on the right reveals that copies of a number of these books exist in the collections of Jewish and Middle Eastern scholars, here identified as the first backup system. Human progress continues.

We see monks copying books (one dozes at his desk) in an effort to prevent the Alexandria disaster from ever occurring again. This is taken a step forward by Guttenberg with his invention of the printing press. Samuel Morse invents the telegraph (once again on the right) so that information can be transmitted on a timely basis.

This leads to the transmission of information by the mass media, first in the form of the newspaper (the headline, being checked by a black man, announces the end of the Civil War). The motion picture appears next (on the right) while telephone lines begin to crisscross the sky on the left.

Next is the television, here displaying footage of the 1969 moon landing, with a brief guest appearance by Walter Cronkite! An entire room (left and right) bring us into a computer room in the 1970s (the music and the afro on one character identify this time), with plenty of reel-to-reel data tapes (which I got to use for awhile in the early 90s).

We see a garage where the personal computer is invented (Steve Jobs? Is that you?) and that takes us to 'now', the Matrix, a tube of green ones and zeros that surround us. This fades into a starscape and a view of the Earth from space (beautiful!). The future is something we can be involved in making.

The car spins backwards and the hallway gets dark. To distract us while we exit, the video screen returns to life. Do we want to see a future about work? Leisure? Vacation? We are encouraged to answer a series of questions and that triggers a video. Your picture from the beginning of the ride is edited into the video, giving the animation an odd 'Canadians on South Park' type feel. Exiting the ride there are a number of different things from the future to investigate. At the centre of this room is the video screen with the Earth. A number of panels sit below this, allowing you to send the video you just saw as a video postcard (the first time we went through this was no problem, the second time people didn't seem to figure out the process and I couldn't get near one).

Good time. I think I remembered most of it. The middle of the ride is a little fuzzy so I'm not sure I got it all. Blame my congested head today for that I guess.