Story Land: Voyage To The Moon/Space Fantasy POV

After a year of study and preparation, Story Land announced in 1981 that it would add a new, original, state-of-the-art dark ride. Inspired by Disney's Space Mountain coaster and loosely based on the 1865 Jules Verne novel From The Earth To The Moon, in which travelers blast into space with a cannon, it would be housed in a fabric-covered dome 50 feet tall and 124 feet wide. Bob Morrell had seen a similar structure in a Florida cow field and was determined to add one to the park. The interior of the white fabric roof was painted black, and two of the creative collaborators on Heritage-NH, artisans Peter Stone and David Norton, were hired to create the storyline and scenes inside. The dome took shape in 1981. The skeletal steel of the huge cannon was ready in winter 1982. Space Fantasy, later renamed Voyage To The Moon, officially opened in June 1983 after nearly three years of engineering and construction. Gov. John Sununu shared the first five-minute voyage with Bob Morrell in the bullet cars built by Bradley and Kaye of California. Each car had speakers to broadcast sound effects triggered by an antenna underneath, computer-synchronized with lighting effects. The cars moved slowly through the cannon on a chain-driven conveyance into the darkened dome, slowly winding back down through a series of fantasy scenes such as a candy land and a polka dot sea, each populated by friendly, animated, imaginary creatures. By the mid-1990s, the high maintenance costs and low capacity of the Voyage To The Moon led to consideration of alternative uses for the domed structure. Story Land's only dark ride operated for about 15 years before the dome was converted to Professor Bigglestep's Loopy Lab play area in 1998. One side was dedicated to an indoor playground full of foam balls, giant vacuums and hoses, and compressed air cannons. The original blackened ceiling was replaced by an all-white one in 2008.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• story
• land
• storyland
• voyage
• to
• the
• moon
• outer
• space
• fantasy
• dark
• ride
• 80s
• 90s
• glen
• nh
• new
• hampshire

[CaptainHollyShort]

Man, I forgot how cheesy this was. But I remember riding it SO many times when I went to Story Land. That, and the Bamboo Chutes.

[SirNadroj]

Thanks a million for uploading this. This ride is one of my earliest childhood memories, and I've been searching for ages for video footage of it. :)