LOBBY AREA
Live person: Ladies and Gentlemen, may I have your attention please? When we leave this area in a moment, be sure to take along all your belongings....... including, your imagination. Our Mission to Mars takes place sometime in the future, when a sightseeing trip to the red planet is a everyday adventure. When you enter, please use all three isles, keep your group together, and move as far toward the end as you can.
MISSION CONTROL
Live person: Ladies and gentlemen, this is our McDonald Douglas Mission Control room at Disneyland Spaceport. The Director of Operations has been expecting you, and while we are waiting for our flight to be called, he take a few minutes to describe what's going on.Excuse me? Mr. Johnson? All the passengers for Flight 2-95 are now in the boarding area.
Mr. Johnson: Thank you. Welcome to Mission Control, space travelers. The first part of your trip to Mars today will be directed thru this room, and so will your landing when you return to Earth.As you can see on the large screen behind me, we're keeping track of things on one of our many manned space stations now in orbit. While the small screens below show other activities being monitored by Mission Control. I'll have them repeated on the upper screen also.
Instrument: Capcon, this is instrumentation
Capcon: Roger, SPO, starting port records and TV video tape recorders.
Instrument: Wilco.
Mr. Johnson: Now on the large screen again, you see a scientist aboard the space station at the controls of a large telescope trained on the sun. This kind of solar research was begin back in the early 1970's by the Skylab astronauts. And time-lapses pictures from space like this revealing new facts on how the sun produces energy, which may help us solve some of our own energy problems on earth. This is a very interesting part of the station. Where special manufacturing processes are carried out under weightless conditions. Here you see a close up picture of a groove being melted in a stainless steel plate. Done in zero G conditions, this imparts a quality to the metal that we can't get under earth gravity.
Skylab 09: Ahh, Mission Control, this is Space Lab 0-9er, stand by for new video on B channel.
Mr. Johnson: Now to a onboard microscope and time-lapses camera, we can see the way crystals form in zero G.
Skylab 09: Ah, Capcon, this is Skylab 0-9er. Request you transmit this recording to crystallography lab console, over.
Capcon: 0-9er, this is Capcon, Roger your request. Relay coming up via Goldstein, Capcon out.
Mr. Johnson: These space-born crystals are so pure that they are going to bring revolutionize advances in electronics, which will benefit everyone of us. In fact, they're so....
Announcer 1: ATTENTION! CLEAR ALL CHANNELS, POSSIBLE EMERGENCY REENTRY!
sirens going off
Mr. Johnson: Oh, no. Not again.
Announcer 1: STAND BY! VIDEO SIGNAL COMING IN ON ALL CHANNELS!
Mr. Johnson: Just as I thought. Somehow, this silly bird trips the emergency system every time he comes in. And I think he knows the laugh's on us.
Live person: (Laughs) Well, Mr. Johnson. Would you show us what it is like for people in zero gravity? That would be very interesting.
Mr. Johnson: Of course, just a moment.(Talking to a tech behind him) Patch us into Skylab video net please.
Tech: Roger, Mission Control.
Mr. Johnson: There you see how easy it is, to get from one place to another. You simply float thru the air. That takes some getting use to.... But zero G has some other advantages too, like this for example. One man can easily handle heavy pieces of scientific equipment, that he couldn't even move under normal gravity. Astronauts quickly adapted to zero G, but over extended periods, regular exercise is absolutely vital. Here are some off duty crew members working out in the station's gymnasium.
GSC Medical: This is GSC medical, now being monitored on camera's 27. For this exercise period, all SEGs normal, Heartrate - 120+.
Mr. Johnson: It's fun, but it isn't always as easy at it looks as you can see.With a little practice thou, you can do tricks that would make circus acrobat turn green with envy.
Intercom-female: All personal, switch to number two for status check.
Intercom-male: Port communications is go.Globally communications is go.
Intercom-female: Instrumentation?
Intercom-male: Instrumentation is go.
Intercom-female: All ship status....
Announcer2: Disneyland flight 2-9er-5 to Mars is now ready for boarding at gate number three.
Intercom-male: Go
Intercom-female: SPO?
Intercom-male: Go
Mr. Johnson: Now on the large monitor, you see your spacecraft, waiting on the launch pad. Count down is in progress, and all systems are go. Have a good flight.
Live person: Thank you Mr. Johnson. Ladies and Gentlemen, please follow me to the boarding gate.
INSIDE THE SPACE SHIP
Live person: Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome aboard our McDonald Douglas DC-88 space liner for today’s Mission to Mars. The captain has asked that you remain in your seat at all times. And please, no smoking.
Mr. Collins: Attention please, folks, this is Third Officer Collins speaking, I'm your tour guide today and I'll be telling you about what is going on during the trip. Right now we're on final countdown, and you can watch our lift off on the lower screen in your cabin. I'll speak to you again when we're in space.
Captain: Mission Control, this is Mars 2-9er-5, ready for departure.
Mission Control: 2-9er-5 Roger, countdown is go in T minus 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ignition.
Blast off sounds
Mission Control: Mars 2-9er-5, auto-control terminated, your cleared for hyperspace penetration. Good Luck!
Captain: 2-9er-5
Mr. Collins: Ladies and Gentlemen, we have just dropped our booster engines and in a moment we'll make what we call a hyperspace jump. This new method of space travel which enables us to cover enormous distances in seconds. On the side screens our ships computer has drawn a diagram of our solar system, and we'll tip it over and move in closer so you can see where we are going. You'll noticed that the orbital velocity of the planets is exaggerated, but as we approach the inner planets, you can see that they move at the proper relative speed. Earth and Mars are anywhere between 35 million to 240 million miles apart at times. Which use to make a trip to Mars pretty tricky. For example, space ships had to follow a curved path for about eight months to intercept Mars when it reached a certain spot. [Laughs] It was like trying to hit a golf ball in California hard enough and accurately enough to make it go thru one particular window on a train arriving in Florida that much later. Today it's much easier, we simply launch out into space, until we reach Mars Acquisition Velocity, or MAV. Then we generate a hyperspace field around us for a short time. When we switch it off, the space craft is approaching Mars. Back in the seventy's and eighty's, this would seem like science fiction, but today it's routine. And we...
Captain: Attention all stations, Hyperspace penetration now commencing. Secure all ship operations.
Hyperspace jump
Captain: All stations, we are now in normal space mode. Resume all operations.
Mr. Collins: Well, folks, a hyperspace jump is always *interesting*, to say the least, but we are back in the real universe again, and on the upper screen you can see Mars as it actually appears close-up. The dark markings were once thought to be vegetation but their are actually just large areas where rocky surface material has been swept clear of top soil by high winds. Mars does have a very thin atmosphere but it contains no oxygen. There is no liquid water at all and temperatures are far below zero over most of the planet.
Captain: Attention all stations, outer lock is now open. Standby to launch camera drones.
Mr. Collins: Those small unmanned rocket ships you see leaving us will shortly be sending back television pictures as they fly near the surface. But we will continue our view from orbit also. Thru telescopic lens, Mars looks even more barren. And there's definitely no signs it being inhabitant. As we now know, something once thought to existed on Mars turns out to only illusions, such as the famous Marsian canals. But it does has some natural features that are almost as amazing. For example, this gigantic rift in Mar's surface called Mariner Valley, is over three thousand miles long, ten times bigger than the Grand Canyon back home. And for a planet for only half the size of earth, that's pretty impressive. This superimposed outline of the United States will give you an idea of it's size. Here's a closer view of the rift that one of our camera craft is approaching. In a few seconds, we'll have the picture it's sending back so watch the side screens, please. There's the picture, our camera ship is down in the rift now. Seeing this close, it looks quite Earth-like, but it's hard to get the scale of things, the wall there is almost four miles high, and the floor is about fifty miles across at this point. Even those branch canyons you see are six or seven miles wide and go back as much as one hundred miles from the main rift. This is no little canal by any means. On the upper screen we are switching to what is literately the high point of Mars. Olympus Mans, the biggest volcano in the whole universe, as we far as we know now. It's 370 miles wide at the base and over 75,000 feet high at the top. Two and a half times more then Mt. Everest, the highest point on Earth. Now on the side screen, is the picture from our other ship as it approaches the top of the cone. In just a moment it will drop down in the caldara, and you can see how big it really is. On earth, the largest caldaras are up to ten miles across, but that's forty miles to the opposite rim. Olympus appears to be extinct now, but just imagine what it was like when that entire area was a sea of boiling lava. Scientists estimate that...
warning beeper goes on
Mr. Collins: Just a moment, please....
Operations: Space Con, we show lost of signal on remote two, impact count is raising.
Mr. Collins: Ladies and Gentlemen, Our camera ship has been knocked out of control by a shower of meteoritic particles, we may encounter the same conditions...
Sirens, flashing lights
Operations: Space Con, this is operations, we have damage to primary ACS.
Captain: Emergency, prepare for space warp.
Mr. Collins: Ladies and Gentlemen, we are returning to Earth immediately. Be prepared for another space jump.
Hyperspace jump
Captain: Mission Control, this is Mars 2-9er-5, we're terminating emergency space warp. Are we cleared straight in?
Mission Control: 2-9er-5, this is Mission Control, affirmative your last transmission. You are priority one for descent, auto control is lock on, and we are counting to retro fire.
Captain: 2-9er-5
Mr. Collins: Ah, Ladies and Gentlemen, Heh heh heh, As you can see, we'll be on the ground soon. Everything is all right now, but ah, that was a close call. Actually the chances are a million to one against meeting another emergency like that, so please fly with us another time. There's a lot more to see on Mars. Now, please stand by for touch down.
Live person: Ladies and Gentlemen, the outer locks are now open and you may leave the spacecraft. Thank you for flying McDonald Douglas today, and we hope to see you soon.