Friday, February 29, 2008

Astro Jets

Hey, let's go over to Tomorrowland and see if the Yachtsmen are playing! What the - - there are RIDES in Tomorrowland too?

The Astro Jets went 'round and 'round from 1956 until 1966. Carry the six, divide by the hypotenuse, be sure to account for the curvature of the earth, and add the remainder... that's ten years! These colorful rockets (rockets with headlights, no less!) were Tomorrowland's answer to the Dumbo attraction. But seriously, which would you rather ride? Here's a little-known fact; they spun faster than the speed of light, so that when you departed the ride, you were younger than when you boarded. Incredible!


The Astro Jets had their very own attraction poster, and it was a beauty. I like the fact that it bears only a slight resemblance to the actual attraction. The artist's version shows pointy nosed rockets and cool looking fins that were absent on the real vehicles. One interesting variant of this poster (sold at auction years ago) simply said "Jets".

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As the Astro Jets spin faster than the speed of light, how useful are the headlights?

Jason Schultz said...

Graffer: I think that what ends up happening is that because each rocket has a headlight, you end up traveling through the light waves of the previous rocket and after a few seconds it's like a cloud of light surrounds the jets. But this is all speculation, because I never experienced the attraction myself!