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00:23We're starting in Timor Island and that highway in the background right in front of the Orange Grove is Harbor Boulevard.
00:29And you're going to watch the moon ride, flight to the moon, appear very quickly.
00:35And all of this was near the end.
00:37They didn't really know what they were going to do on Timor Island until Ward Kimball did the Man in Space television series.
00:43And that really kicked it into high gear as to, you know, getting out there.
00:48But it was way late.
00:49We're already into May, two months from the opening when you're watching this footage.
00:56And it literally made it just to the finish line.
00:58And I'm not sure if the ride was actually open on opening day.
01:01It may have been delayed a couple of days.
01:03But for the press, they were able to go in and see a good part of the show.
01:08But I don't think it was actually open to the public for a few days.
01:11Now, Tony, I've heard you tell a story about the crane being featured in some of the artwork.
01:19Yeah, we're going to see when the lunar rocket arrives in a minute, which was only days, like 10 days before opening.
01:26And they set it up and they got the publicity people out there and they took a really great shot, which was made into a silk screen, a beautiful silk screen piece that we sold in the Disney Gallery many times.
01:37And I always wondered, what is that crane?
01:39And it turns out it was actually the construction crane.
01:42And whoever shot the picture and painted the painting just thought it was part of, there's the crane.
01:48And if you see any of that original artwork, you'll see that crane actually in the picture as though it's part of the gantry or something.
01:55And, you know, what did I know?
01:56As a seven-year-old kid, it looked great to me.
01:58So they had to hold it in the air while they actually attached the landing gear here.
02:04And we are about 10 days from the opening of this attraction.
02:10And I can't believe that doing what I do with Walt Disney Imagineering, if we were 10 days away and the facility looked like this,
02:18I can tell you everyone that I worked for would be having a heart attack.
02:22Okay, we're now only four days before the opening of this attraction.
02:29And it looked really good.
02:31Watch the umbrellas and things arrive here in the next few moments out in the front.
02:36And they just squeaked by, believe me.
02:41Tomorrowland was probably the least complete land.
02:45It was.
02:46There are the umbrellas.
02:47They're all in.
02:48And we're now three days away.
02:49And this is how it looked just probably a day or so.
02:53Fact and fantasy often go hand in hand.
02:56In a knocking corner of our test stage, an exact replica of the moon was being modeled.
03:02The moon was to be the destination of our Tomorrowland rocket trip.
03:06Our studio sculptor was aided by Roger Hayward, a distinguished expert on astronomical matters.
03:12Though it was visible on opening day, Rocket to the Moon in Tomorrowland didn't truly open for five more days.
03:18When it did debut, guests boarded inside hemispherical buildings that looked something like observatories.
03:25The location for the attraction was located behind the imposing Moonliner rocket.
03:29Rocket to the Moon was sponsored by TWA.
03:31But Douglas Aircraft took over sponsorship from 1962 to 1966.
03:36The attraction operated like a low-tech flight simulator.
03:39Guests sat in one of the two steeply raked 104-seat theaters named Diana and Luna.
03:45Inside each cylindrical theater, large circular screens were mounted to the center of the floor and in the center of the ceiling.
03:52For 15 minutes, the bottom screen displayed views of the ship's previous location.
03:57The bottom screen began with footage of the launch pad and morphed into a receding Earth,
04:01and its approaching target, the top screen, showed oncoming Moon, all described by an informative narrator.
04:07The rocket to the Moon also had scales to measure your weight on Mars, Mercury, Moon, and Jupiter.
04:15Welcome aboard, friends. This is Captain Collins.
04:18Now, first let me assure you that TWA has taken every precaution for your safety during this flight.
04:24We're proud of our safety record, and aside from a few brief moments of weightlessness,
04:28you will suffer no discomfort in outer space.
04:31Please observe the two tele...
04:32Specs, capacity 810 per hour, capacity for ship 162, cycle time 18 minutes,
04:36load time 1 minute 30 seconds, unload time 1 minute 30 seconds, strip time 10 minutes,
04:39dispatch interval 12 minutes, strips per hour 5.
04:44Backstage entrance to the rocket to the Moon.
