CN Tower's spaceship ride was Toronto's wildest entertainment experiment
Between 1986 and 1992, the Tour of the Universe simulator let guests board a spacecraft from Spaceport Toronto, complete with customs, aliens, and a trip to Jupiter — all for $7.
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For six years in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the CN Tower housed an elaborate space-travel simulator that became the stuff of birthday-party legend: the Tour of the Universe.
The experience was the brainchild of CityTV and MuchMusic creator Moses Znaimer, who read an art book called Tour of the Universe imagining a futuristic spaceport and decided to build one inside Canada's most iconic tower. Znaimer had been pioneering a concept called "The Living Movie" — interactive entertainment that pulled viewers out of passive consumption into active participation.
To realize the vision, Znaimer assembled an ambitious team: Canadian Pacific Airlines, the CN Tower, Sim-Ex, NASA artist Robert McCall, and Showscan (the UK effects company founded by special effects wizard Douglas Trumbull, who worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner). The experience cost $7.
Guests descended 1,816 feet in an elevator and emerged at Spaceport Toronto in the year 2019. They purchased tickets from CP Air Interplanetary, then passed through customs, security, and a medical booth where they received inoculations against fictional space diseases like "Ganymeade Rash." Actors in alien and galactic-police costumes performed scripted dramas throughout the port. Massive video screens promoted futuristic news — "Galaxy Pulse" and "MuchMoreMusic, the universe's hottest music station." The voice of the station's master computer, the "Central Scrutinizer," was performed by Marilyn Lightstone.
A mural titled "Grand Tour" by NASA's official space artist Robert McCall hung behind the check-in area. The gift shop sold moon rock and astronaut ice cream, along with Tour of the Universe teddy bears that have since become sought-after collector's items.
The core attraction was a shuttlecraft simulator, built from two Boeing 747 flight simulators and designed by Toronto's Sim-Ex. Forty passengers at a time experienced an 11-minute film presented in 70mm and produced by legendary effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull. The craft would "blast into outer space" from inside the tower's shaft — engines throbbing, floor shaking, lights flashing — before soaring toward Jupiter's moons. Inevitably, an asteroid collision forced a return to Earth. A video-loop actor, designated "Captain Moses," appeared to address passengers as the captain.
The ride closed in 1992, fading into local memory and becoming fodder for internet debates about the Mandela Effect — the strange phenomenon where large numbers of people share false memories of the same thing.