hrcollectibles
Active Member
What is or was rocket rods and what happend to them?
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Spaceship Earth Soft Opening?
- Thread starter farmgirl
- Start date
What is or was rocket rods and what happend to them?
PhilharMagician
Well-Known Member
WDI have lock down on the facility right now, so it`ll have to be a whispering mouse
As for the inside.... gaps, holes, and most of central Floridas scaffholding. As for pics, there are a few gaps that havn`t been plugged here and there. As another forum member will agree, the wall below the camrea center sign can be just the right height...
I also heard unofficially a Christmas opening may be optimistic. But never say never.
This can't be true!
Vernonpush
Well-Known Member
What about a Christmas "soft opening"?:lol:WDI have lock down on the facility right now, so it`ll have to be a whispering mouse
As for the inside.... gaps, holes, and most of central Floridas scaffholding. As for pics, there are a few gaps that havn`t been plugged here and there. As another forum member will agree, the wall below the camrea center sign can be just the right height...
I also heard unofficially a Christmas opening may be optimistic. But never say never.
Or a few weeks before?:ROFLOL::lookaroun:shrug:
BSikor
Active Member
Hey there everyone. I was at the park last night and I was speaking to a CM that has worked there for a while and he seems somewhat reliable but from time to time has less than accurate facts so take with some salt...
SSE will not open until January most likely due to a construction worker totally dismantling a show scene that shouldn't have been taken apart. He said it was right before where the boy and girl were.
He said that they brought in materials to have the cars exit the building and they are up in the 180 top but since they were told that the whole building would come crashing down, they aren't going to do anything with it. "The stuff is just sitting up there" He didn't know anything else about the 180 top.
He said there would be virtual games that the passengers can play onboard during the decent and that during the decent, our pictures will be taken and then displayed on the globe in Project Tomorrow as we exit.
Again, we shall see.
The January comment makes me sad. I really wanted to ride it last night. You know how you just have a craving to sail through the universe of time?
SSE will not open until January most likely due to a construction worker totally dismantling a show scene that shouldn't have been taken apart. He said it was right before where the boy and girl were.
He said that they brought in materials to have the cars exit the building and they are up in the 180 top but since they were told that the whole building would come crashing down, they aren't going to do anything with it. "The stuff is just sitting up there" He didn't know anything else about the 180 top.
He said there would be virtual games that the passengers can play onboard during the decent and that during the decent, our pictures will be taken and then displayed on the globe in Project Tomorrow as we exit.
Again, we shall see.
The January comment makes me sad. I really wanted to ride it last night. You know how you just have a craving to sail through the universe of time?
BSikor
Active Member
Rocket Rods was a ride in Disneyland's Tomorrowland that replaced their PeopleMover. They also took over the old CircleVision theater to make room for the preshow and que areas.
The infrastructure was removed leaving just a flat bed for the new "Tomorrowland Rapid Transit System" It opened in 1998 and was highly anticipated. It was billed as the next big step in Transportation surpasing the monorail and people mover. Unfortunatly, the fast cars couldn't maintain their speed on a flat surface and Disney made a mistake in not banking the track to keep the speed up for the turns. It had to keep changing speeds when making turns so it wouldn't put too much strain on the support columns. The basic reason for it closing was that disney wanted a big E ticket attraction but didn't want to spend that much. Saving costs killed Rocket Rods. It broke down often and the structure of the old peoplemover couldn't take the strain of the new cars and acceleration.
GM pulled sponsership as their other sponsered attraction, Test Track (which used basically the same type of technology) was delayed in opening. Once Gm pulled out, they lost any chance of going back and fixing the mistakes and the structural problems grew. It closed in late 2000 for "Refurbishment and Enhancment" and was slated to Re-Open in Spring of 2001, but it was later announced that Rocket Rods will never re-open.
If you can, download Matin's Tomorrowland PeopleMover and Rocket Rods tribute. It really is one of his best and has a lot of information as well as a complete mult-angle ride through of the Rocket Rods attraction.
BSikor, thanks for that :wave: BTW; expect a new version of that video. Sometime this decade.
If I may just add a few points;
Rocket Rods and Test Track shared the same basic ride system, developed at the same time. Whereas Test Tracks is mostly hidden under a false road surface, the Rods was visible. And also a bit more basic.
As Test Tracks problems grew in early 1997, due to the software control system not being up to the task (it really was on the jagged edge of technology) and issues with the stresses on the cars, GM grew more unhappy. The way I understand it, GM were signed to TT but only had an option on RR, which they pulled. This left the mouse to foot the bill for the Rods. This was DLC a decade ago, with Pressler and Harris running the show. I`ve heard a figure of $5-10 million thrown around as the extra cost it`d take to bank the steepest turns for the Rods, and thus save on wear and tear. The duo refused, despite being told the attraction would suffer. And it did. The track began to show stress points, the cars actually had to be welded back together overnight, and the whole elevated structure was showing signs of fatigue, despite running the Poeplemover flawlessly for decades.
But, back to the OP. I can neither confirm or deny the CMs account for a delay, but I can say I`ve heard that from the TV Lounge set in SSE the area was totally empty - back to the structure. The TV Lounge and Cinema are intact as of a few weeks ago, the boy and girl scene was gone. The latter scene being left intact sounds like too small a space to fit the new show scenes I`ve mentioned elsewhere, so it`s my guess if this is true either the TV lounge, Cinema, or (gasp) the 1982 Comms Center right of the track was messed with when it shouldn`t have been.
If I may just add a few points;
Rocket Rods and Test Track shared the same basic ride system, developed at the same time. Whereas Test Tracks is mostly hidden under a false road surface, the Rods was visible. And also a bit more basic.
As Test Tracks problems grew in early 1997, due to the software control system not being up to the task (it really was on the jagged edge of technology) and issues with the stresses on the cars, GM grew more unhappy. The way I understand it, GM were signed to TT but only had an option on RR, which they pulled. This left the mouse to foot the bill for the Rods. This was DLC a decade ago, with Pressler and Harris running the show. I`ve heard a figure of $5-10 million thrown around as the extra cost it`d take to bank the steepest turns for the Rods, and thus save on wear and tear. The duo refused, despite being told the attraction would suffer. And it did. The track began to show stress points, the cars actually had to be welded back together overnight, and the whole elevated structure was showing signs of fatigue, despite running the Poeplemover flawlessly for decades.
But, back to the OP. I can neither confirm or deny the CMs account for a delay, but I can say I`ve heard that from the TV Lounge set in SSE the area was totally empty - back to the structure. The TV Lounge and Cinema are intact as of a few weeks ago, the boy and girl scene was gone. The latter scene being left intact sounds like too small a space to fit the new show scenes I`ve mentioned elsewhere, so it`s my guess if this is true either the TV lounge, Cinema, or (gasp) the 1982 Comms Center right of the track was messed with when it shouldn`t have been.
JEANYLASER
Well-Known Member
I can't wait to see the new Spaceship Earth Ride!
loweyan
New Member
I can confirm one thing, in July when I was riding SSE I noticed at the top of the incline a small set of led lights in the shape of a mickey. The LED's pulsed and rotated around to draw your attention before you headed into the first scene.
Later when I was down in project tomorrow, I noticed a small podium with three people standing next to it. So I wandered over to see what they were doing. Two of the people were systems engineers for Disney and were testing a new image recognition system.
Basically the LED mickey was a test for it, they captured live video and were able to pull individual frames out of it to allow you to select one of up to 15-20 pictures as the best one. The resolution was excellent considering that it was in low light conditions. But the really interesting thing was that the system took a facial scan of you and using over 60 different criteria, your face was picked out of the video/still stream and your ride photo was displayed. They were picking people out of the crowd as they exited the ride and had them scanned by the system. Being a CS person myself, I began to talk with them about some of the computer vision techniques used to determine a match. Ranging from facial geometery extrapolated from a 2d image, to skin tone, to facial features (moles, scars, hair lines etc), to many more. When I asked them how the testing had gone, they stated out of the 70+ people they tested that day, they had only picked out one person incorrectly.
So they put me up to the scanner and sure enough, I got an excellent match criteria, and there were the shots pulled from the feed.
All in all, a pretty nifty system, and I am excited to see how they impliment it in the SSE.
~Marcus
Later when I was down in project tomorrow, I noticed a small podium with three people standing next to it. So I wandered over to see what they were doing. Two of the people were systems engineers for Disney and were testing a new image recognition system.
Basically the LED mickey was a test for it, they captured live video and were able to pull individual frames out of it to allow you to select one of up to 15-20 pictures as the best one. The resolution was excellent considering that it was in low light conditions. But the really interesting thing was that the system took a facial scan of you and using over 60 different criteria, your face was picked out of the video/still stream and your ride photo was displayed. They were picking people out of the crowd as they exited the ride and had them scanned by the system. Being a CS person myself, I began to talk with them about some of the computer vision techniques used to determine a match. Ranging from facial geometery extrapolated from a 2d image, to skin tone, to facial features (moles, scars, hair lines etc), to many more. When I asked them how the testing had gone, they stated out of the 70+ people they tested that day, they had only picked out one person incorrectly.
So they put me up to the scanner and sure enough, I got an excellent match criteria, and there were the shots pulled from the feed.
All in all, a pretty nifty system, and I am excited to see how they impliment it in the SSE.
~Marcus
Lee
Adventurer
What? Where?
I wouldn't know anything about that. No sir...not me.:lookaroun
At least not in daylight....and certainly not sometime after midnight on a rainy Monday.
