Century 21--the Seattle World's Fair

              ; *-•':«*•{.
i "ft|in«f     I   itw     i«filllf*ill*l#f
, - .  * k/ if; iii II ig
■   4.  V 3S.1.
By Glenn  B.
Coughlan
America's Space Age
World's Fair, Century 21
Exposition, is part of the
Seattle skyline this year
from April 21 to October
21. The 74-acre fair, one
mile from the city center,
is served by the first highspeed mass-transportation
Monorail.
CENTURY 21   -   The Seattle World's Fair
The Northwest's biggest city is stirring with
the same fever that gripped it in 1909 when the
Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition helped put Seattle on the map. Near the center of town is rising
a gateway into the future — the 1962 Seattle
World's Fair. Pegged to a space-age theme, the
fair is a spectacular reach to new horizons and a
lusty expression of the country's faith in getting
there. The whole fair will cost about $80 million
and up to 10 million visitors are expected during
the course of its six-month run.
U.  S.  Science  Pavilion
The biggest exhibit at the Seattle World's Fair
is sponsored by the federal government — the
United States Science Pavilion. This exhibit,
housed in a six-building complex widely hailed for
the beauty of its architecture, is the most extensive
science exhibit ever assembled. The $10 million appropriated by Congress to build the pavilion is the
most money ever authorized by the federal government for a fair.
Included is the Spacearium, with its simulated
ride through the heavens past the moon, sun, Saturn, Pluto, and into nebulae beyond. This optical
marvel is presented with the cooperation of Seattle's Boeing Company, Cinerama, Inc. and the
Fairchild Camera Company. Here 750 people at
one time will see a simulated trip into space projected on a dome by a single lens — an experience
so hair-raising that designers insisted that handrails be installed in the stand-up theater to help
viewers keep their balances.
The system employs a single lens to create a
viewing area of 360 degrees horizontally and 160
degrees vertically. As the film proceeds, the ornaments of the universe wheel slowly by, giving the
viewer the illusion that he is soaring in the nose of
a space ship. The ship takes off into the sunset,
circles Earth and quickly approaches to 2,000
miles from the moon which almost envelopes the
screen for a few moments.
Then on to skirting the sun. Then comes Mars
and a close-in look at green-bordered canals and
reddish deserts and a moon of its own, and on
through Saturn's ring.
Soon our tiny solar system is far behind and
giant stars fleet past — red giants and white
dwarfs revolving around each other; great nebulae
and dust clouds shimmering; partially exploded
stars shrinking again — as you voyage through
the billion billion stars of the Milky Way galaxy,
out to where other galaxies beckon in the distance
like single stars.
Washington  State  Coliseum
Spelling out the fair's theme is the "World of
Century 21" exhibit in the Washington State Coliseum. The theme exhibit, housed in a "floating
city" of the future, will show how man will live,
i
20
T%
v%
3fe  if*
T\KT3**
%f
igSifelP1
mm-     ^v&sm     "**!§#'    *        -*"*
i IBL.
*   §"%
1    ,„' "-'"'
iwssjt   ftfe^ta
\2        **%
'%si
1