ABANDONED SPACE RIDES

There is something really sad about derelict fairgrounds, something haunting. Its hard to say why really, The fading of childhood perhaps? The passing of a time and a place? The ghosts that remain?

This picture I found on the net is of an abandoned Flushing Meadows in the States, an icon of the New York Worlds Fair. Mother Nature appears to be getting a toe-hold doesn't she. I seem to recall the saucers at the back featuring in Men in Black. Is that right? I wonder what this site will be like in 50 years? At least it still exists. Britain's similar iconic tower was the Skylon, the space needle at the Festival of Britain 1951. Its fate wasn't even faded glory. It was melted down and made into knives. You can hear this salutary tale of space scrap on Radio 4 from 2011 here.

This web picture of ruined Dodgems is particularly chilling as its in Chernobyl. Its combination of nuclear winter and lost childhood I find harrowing, almost an oxymoron. These dodgems will never ride again.

This web image is also chilling. It depicts a forgotten Gulliver lying friendless in a Japanese theme park. Lilliput never looked so lonely.

Some derelict features were never meant to be abandoned like old fairground rides. Incredibly this black and white photograph is of the the ruins of the double-ring space station, which featured in Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece 2001 Space Odyssey. See all four of Trevor Parson's amazing photos at the Visual memory Kubrick site and read about how he found the space station at the local dump [Question 51].

What all these rides and icons should be like is surrounded by laughter and life like the fun park shown below in Wales. Again, I chanced on this via the net and was smitten with the Supercar/ SpaceX- like cars on the ride.

Are there any space rides or icons, thriving or abandoned, near you readers? Pictures welcomed.