This week’s video is sponsored by Wishes Candle Co!
Spaceship Earth, or as many around the world like to call it, the big golf ball, is no
doubt an iconic part of not only Epcot, but Walt Disney World as a whole.
The 180-foot tall geodesic sphere is an icon, but what is it made of?
Now if we want to be pedantic, Spaceship Earth is made of a lot of different materials.
It’s the home of the opening day dark ride with the same name after all, so it’s obviously a
very complex structure.
However when most people ask what Spaceship Earth is made of, they’re usually referring
to the exterior.
Those 11,324 panels that make up the outer shell of Spaceship Earth are a material called Alucobond.
It is an aluminum composite material, which basically means that it’s an aluminum sandwich.
Both sides of the quarter-inch-thick panels are aluminum, with a polyethylene core in
the middle.
Polyethylene is an incredibly common plastic.
It’s the same used to make things like grocery bags and shampoo bottles.
Alucobond is thin, lightweight, durable, and it’s story begins in Switzerland.
Alucobond was developed over the course of a number of years in the 1960’s by Alusuisse
Composites, an aluminum company that was founded in Switzerland in 1888.
They found that by using aluminum as an outer shell with a plastic core in the middle, it reduced the
weight of the material, not to mention improved its insulation properties.
Alusuisse began manufacturing Alucobond at the end of 1968 in Germany, and it ended up
being a useful material for everything from shop signs and building facades to tunnel
lining and exhibition stands.
With its success, Alusuisse looked to expand their production to the United States, and
did so in Benton, Kentucky.
In 1978 through their subsidiary, the Consolidated Aluminum Co., they reopened a plant just on
the north side of town that used to be one of the production facilities of the Ashby
Corporation, a company that manufactured aluminum furniture like lawn chairs and cots.
While Alucobond was a fairly new material, the plant-worker’s experience with aluminum,
through Ashby, proved beneficial.
Just a couple of years later, as the 1980’s began, a company called Demarest in Manatee
County, Florida threw their hat in the ring to design and build the iconic centerpiece
of Disney’s newest theme park, EPCOT Center.
They pitched the idea of coating this geodesic sphere with the futuristic and slick looking
Alucobond, even sending Disney an example of the some of the pyramids in a frame.
According to the company’s founder, David Demarest, Disney was pretty noncommittal on
the idea.
It left Demarest thinking that they failed to impress and missed their chance.
As it turned out Disney was actually delighted with the idea, and ended up awarding the contract
to Demarest, putting them in charge of the engineering, fabrication, and installation
of the Spaceship Earth shell.
Before using Alucobond for the Spaceship Earth exterior, the material was put to the test at MIT.
It was subjected to 120mph winds without shattering, withstood multiple simulated lightning strikes, and
was classified as fire retardant.
The material was also anodized, which is a process that helps protect the aluminum from
the weather and corrosion.
This was especially helpful for Spaceship Earth, since the logistics of regularly cleaning
those eleven-thousand panels would have been a major problem.
With the two main sources of Alucobond being Germany and Kentucky, Demarest went with Kentucky,
and the Consolidated Aluminum Co found themselves manufacturing an estimated 500,000 pounds
of alucobond triangles.
It took a reported 350 men and women to create and install the panels on Spaceship Earth.
They used a crane with a 300 foot boom to mount the panels corner by corner, which ended
up proving especially difficult for the lower half of the structure, where gravity was constantly
working against them.
While the structure as a whole took over two years to build, the installation of the panels
took four and a half months.
According to Demarest, Disney later informed them that the Spaceship Earth shell installation
was one of the most hazardous jobs on the project, adding distinction to the fact that
the project was completed without incident.
Back in Kentucky, Consolidated Aluminum would end up winning an “Industrial Award of the
Year” from the Marshall County Chamber of Commerce for their work with Demarest and Disney.
The company continued on as a major US supplier of alucobond, which still gets plenty of use today.
Consolidated Aluminum would pass through a number of parent companies and evolved a few
times, but they still exist in Kentucky today as 3A Composites.
In a way, those panels that envelop Spaceship Earth are, themselves, an example of the spirit
of Epcot.
Alucobond was a new innovative product of industry; the collaborative effort involving
the developments of one nation and the manufacturing and design of another.
All to create an icon that still stands tall to this day.
As iconic as the outer shell of Spaceship Earth is, the ride within is equally famous.
Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Wishes Candle Co, you can experience one of the ride’s
most memorable scents in your own home.
Wishes offers 100% all natural soy candles, wax tarts, room sprays, and brand new aroma
oils, which are all hand made in Rhode Island.
They offer scents that embody everything from hotel lobbies to snacks to even the fall of
the mighty Roman empire.
One of my favorite aspects of Wishes is that each candle offers a free hidden pin inside!
If you want to learn more, head on over to wishescandleco.com today and use code RobPlays
for 10% off your entire order, and be sure to check out their Black Friday sale all weekend
long for some fantastic deals.