Now that Concorde has lowered its elegant nose for the last time, the only way Joe Public can go supersonic is by becoming a fighter pilot or an astronaut. Or by spending $20-million to become a space tourist on a Russian rocket, as two wealthy businessmen have done.
Package tours to the moon cannot be far away now and the ”son of Concorde” debates will go on. In the meantime, there is a neat solution that allows you to go supersonic without being a millionaire.
Disney and those Magic Kingdom moguls have come up with a new ride that real astronauts say is about as close as you can get to the real thing. You don’t even have to be a grown-up.
Those who venture on to the Mission: Space ride are sealed into state-of-the-art simulators at the Epcot park within the Disney complex near Orlando, Florida, and are told they are on a mission to become the first humans to land on Mars.
Early samplers report that the ride is a shattering experience. ”I thought I was going to die,” said Sharon Gould from Burton-on-Trent in the United Kingdom, as she staggered out.
Even preparing to go on the ride is unsettling. Participants are gathered in a high-tech cavern, told about their ”mission” and warned to rather reconsider the whole thing if they are prone to motion sickness or nervous of enclosed spaces.
Those who have the nerve file into four-person capsules. Seat-braces lock and a control consul with buttons, joystick and a large screen with a ”view” clicks into place. The capsule tips back; riders are now on their backs with a ”view” vertically up the virtual launching gantry into the blue sky. It’s the point of no return.
With a mighty roar, the rocket-ride ”lifts off”, its virtual vehicle heaving slowly up the gantry before firing off the top in a head-splitting, eye-watering, cheek-sucking surge.
Involuntary grunts, gasps and growls emit from the ”astronauts”, each terrified and thrilled in equal parts.
Most stomachs are left firmly on Earth at this point, only to catch up with the body with a belated wallop as the rocket levels off sharply into the weightlessness of space.
Disney admits that the simulated speed and G-force is not as powerful as can be experienced on some extreme roller coasters. But with the ultra-sharp visuals fooling the mind that it is being shot into space, the all-round sensation has more impact because it works on physical and mental levels.
The experience is similar to taking off on the Concorde, only more extreme, and is apparently only slightly less powerful than the forces experienced by real astronauts.
Disney used Nasa consultants and astronauts to design the ride and come up with an experience that is very close to travelling on a real shuttle, but shunted into the future with the kind of simulated Mars rocket technology that is currently on aerospace drawing boards.
After blast-off the virtual rocket flies to the moon and as it catapults around it the riders are treated to that famously awesome view of Earth from space. For this, and the superb first view of the Red Planet itself, Disney pulled out all the stops and engineered crystal-clear images from satellite pictures.
But lest delicate riders think that it is just a picturesque cruise to Martian touch-down from here on, forget it. The rocket has to dodge a giant asteroid shower and on final approach to Mars loses autopilot, prompting requests from ”mission control” for the riders to grab their joysticks and ”navigate” through treacherous ravines towards Mars’s polar ice cap for landing.
Naturally, for a final stomach-churning nerve-shredder, the rocket overshoots its icy runway and comes very close to pitching over the end of a crumbling precipice, before finally landing safely on Mars to ecstatic cheers from ”mission control”.
The ride is streets ahead of the space simulators at the Kennedy Space Centre, just an hour’s drive from Disney. Its machines, which simulate a buggy ride on Mars and docking with the International Space Station, seem jerky, grainy and less realistic by comparison.
The most realistic ”sim” at Kennedy is the F-16 combat jet trainer, which active pilots say is akin to the real thing. It will pull the skin from your face with the force of three Gs, stretch your fear threshold and seriously challenge your stomach.
When you come out of the Kennedy simulators you are confronted with the astronaut hall of fame featuring genuine equipment and personal effects donated by the likes of John Glenn, Neil Armstrong and Sally Ride.
Elsewhere in the Kennedy complex is the monument to the astronauts who have lost their lives in the space programme since the 1960s — to which the names of the crew that perished in Columbia in January 2002 will soon be added.
For even more facts with your fantasy, you can have lunch with an astronaut. On my visit, Jerry Carr (71) explained to wide-eyed children in the gathered group of visitors that when he was training in 1965 to be one of the very first people in space, the most famous astronaut was the fictional Flash Gordon.
Carr has not yet tried Mission: Space. But no lesser person than Buzz Aldrin, who followed Neil Armstrong on to the surface of the moon in 1969, has said it is the best there is. — Â