AHC: Have Disneyland's Tomorrowland Become an Innovation Hub

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Starting in 1955, the challenge is to have Walt Disney's Tomorrowland in Southern California become a national hub of scientifc research and technology

How might it's retro-futuristist aestetic effect the innovation of the 50s, 60s, 70s, etc.
 
I'll take the first shot...

Disney's animatronics are so stunning to the 1950s Jet Age populace, people begin demanding for them to be commercialized for home use

Walt obliges by creating a subsidiary company called Robo-Disney Inc resulting in the decade becoming synonymous with tail-fin cars, rock and roll, and robot butlers that greet you when you come home from work.

(Might make a Time Line on this)
 
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Fun fact, somewhere on the great inter-web is a picture of the "actual" Disney Tomorrowland TWA Moon Rocket as it was supposed to work.

The Atomic powered (NERVA variant type) RS Hiroshima.

The "assumptions" were a bit naive to say the least, (several hundred mega-watt reactor with water for reaction mass, no shielding mass listed but it at least showed a shield which many concepts at the time didn't, room for around 10 passengers and two crew) but Disney was fully into the "Our Friend the Atom" mode so it could be possible for him to 'showcase' nuclear power at Disneyland. Bonus points if he uses a "non-standard" (not a PWR design) reactor that showcases "clean and safe" nuclear energy.

Randy
 

jahenders

Banned
I think the biggest challenge for this is that, for Tomorrowland to really become an innovation hub, one of two things must happen -- either:

1) Disney has to share control and allow a wide range of inventors/entrepreneurs develop/field there. It could be, in part, like a technology conference that never ends. Various companies could get their stuff demo'd there, perhaps with multiple companies working together. This could work, but it'd mean that Disney wouldn't have sole control and would lose space that it IOTL uses for rides or to sale merchandise.

2) Disney would have to develop its own science division or give grants to promote various scientists/developers. Then, it would need to use Tomorrowland as a way of promoting those ideas/technologies. Again, that would mean they could do less rides/sales.
 
I think the biggest challenge for this is that, for Tomorrowland to really become an innovation hub, one of two things must happen -- either:

1) Disney has to share control and allow a wide range of inventors/entrepreneurs develop/field there. It could be, in part, like a technology conference that never ends. Various companies could get their stuff demo'd there, perhaps with multiple companies working together. This could work, but it'd mean that Disney wouldn't have sole control and would lose space that it IOTL uses for rides or to sale merchandise.

2) Disney would have to develop its own science division or give grants to promote various scientists/developers. Then, it would need to use Tomorrowland as a way of promoting those ideas/technologies. Again, that would mean they could do less rides/sales.


If Walt took either one (or both) of these suggestions. What do you think the long term effects might be on Jet Age and Space Age tech?
 
As implausible as it would probably be, a part of me wants to see this turning Disney into a tech company with an entertainment subsidiary.
 
A lot of Science Fiction and artwork became reality in OTL; the motocycle sidecar was first put in a comic book and someone said "Hey I can build that for real!" and it was invented. The cell phone at least partially owes its existence to Star Trek. GE has admitted some of their research goals in health care technology is based on "make Star Trek technology real". SciFi is a real innovator on pushing the envelope of technology. To me it would have been a no brainer for Walt to push to commercialize the genius of his animators and imagination. GE's tagline is "Imagination at work", I can see Walt coming up with that slogan 50 years earlier and out-innovating GE, GM, IBM, AT&T, and the other big companies of the time in numerous fields of electronics, consumer goods, etc. Imagine if some Disney tech person came up with "hey, we could communicate with these computers and share information quicker, and expand on what DARPA is doing and commercialize it as well! We could use it to send Disney annimation to people's homes directly and bypass movie theaters and TV!" Imagine a world where the internet was "given" to the public by Disney!
 

jahenders

Banned
If you look at what Disney charges at its parks and for its souvenirs, coupled with how zealously they guard their intellectual property, it's hard to see them GIVING anyone anything. Now, they might 'give' you internet IF you sign up for an expensive monthly service, but that's it and it'd be limited to Disney content.

A lot of Science Fiction and artwork became reality in OTL; the motocycle sidecar was first put in a comic book and someone said "Hey I can build that for real!" and it was invented. The cell phone at least partially owes its existence to Star Trek. GE has admitted some of their research goals in health care technology is based on "make Star Trek technology real". SciFi is a real innovator on pushing the envelope of technology. To me it would have been a no brainer for Walt to push to commercialize the genius of his animators and imagination. GE's tagline is "Imagination at work", I can see Walt coming up with that slogan 50 years earlier and out-innovating GE, GM, IBM, AT&T, and the other big companies of the time in numerous fields of electronics, consumer goods, etc. Imagine if some Disney tech person came up with "hey, we could communicate with these computers and share information quicker, and expand on what DARPA is doing and commercialize it as well! We could use it to send Disney annimation to people's homes directly and bypass movie theaters and TV!" Imagine a world where the internet was "given" to the public by Disney!
 
If you look at what Disney charges at its parks and for its souvenirs, coupled with how zealously they guard their intellectual property, it's hard to see them GIVING anyone anything. Now, they might 'give' you internet IF you sign up for an expensive monthly service, but that's it and it'd be limited to Disney content.

Yes, that's what I meant. I meant imagine an internet where Disney had the only portal to it, sort of what AOL (and the AOL/Time Warner merger) had hoped to do. Disney could have succeeded in fragmenting the emergent internet and butterflied away the WWW; causing us to have separate unconnected internetS; where you have Disney/ABC content, GE/NBC/Universal, and so on competing against satelitte TV, Cable, and on air content. Might even see (if Microsoft and Apple aren't butterflied away) the same thing where Microsoft does more than join with NBC on creating MSNBC and instead goes forward with its own internet and you see iApple and iOS running on their own proprietary internet. And on AH.com we could instead be having this conversation about "What if Disney hadn't kept the technology to itself, what if this Senator from Tennessee Al Gore, Jr had sponsored a bill to make ARPA's version public and we had one big internet?"
 
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