![]() In addition to all that, riders strap on virtual-reality goggles meant to transport them right out of the English countryside and into another galaxy. On Galactica, Alton Towers’ newest attraction, which opens on 24 March, riders fly facedown around an 840-meter track, Superman-style, reaching 75 kilometers per hour and 3.5 g’s-more force than an astronaut feels during a rocket launch. The content may be sci-fi, but the physical experience is the real deal. ![]() ![]() I’m at Alton Towers, a theme park in Staffordshire, England. I take off my Samsung Gear VR headset as a teenager in a uniform exclaims, “Welcome back, Galactinauts!” And then, my spacecraft rights itself and lands. From Eve’s technobabble, I gather that something’s gone wrong-something about timing, a portal closing. And then I’m exiting a third portal, dodging giant icicles on a frozen world that looks a lot like Krypton.Īlarms sound. Before I can think twice about whether that’s even scientifically possible, I’m thrust through another portal, which shoots me over rivers of lava on a volcano planet. “You’ve just witnessed the birth of a new sun,” explains Eve, my AI tour guide. ![]() I’m through the portal, and to my left a planet explodes. A synthetic voice counts down: “Three, two, one.” Up ahead, there’s a portal waiting to launch me across the galaxy. The world around me blinks into being, and I find myself floating through a long metal conduit, which opens beneath me, leaving me dangling over a massive space station inhabited by spiderlike robots. I feel my body tilt forward, then lurch into motion. ![]()
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