TAMPA, Fla. — Every year, millions of families go to EPCOT Center, but how many families can say they helped build it?
“This is a photograph of my son, my dad, myself,” said Bob Clark, looking at photos from the construction of Spaceship Earth, inside his office at Tampa Steel Erecting Company.
WATCH: Tampa company reflects on groundbreaking of Spaceship Earth 45 years later
“At the time we did Spaceship Earth, it was an unusual job, and there were very few people bidding on it,” said Clark.
So, during the summer of 1981, Tampa Steel Erecting Company, a staple in the community since Bob’s dad founded it in 1945, got to work.
Over the next year, they spent 100,000 man-hours and used 2,000 tons of steel to create the iconic 180-foot-high dome.
“Spaceship Earth is an honest-to-God geodesic dome,” said Clark. “What that means is the ball you see floating there is floating in space, it is only attached to the structure about a third of the way up in about 32 places.”
Engineering News Record Magazine would later classify it as one of the 125 most significant structures ever built, right alongside the Statue of Liberty and Eifel Tower.
“A lot of my friends will send me a picture in front of it so then I will send them back a picture of me standing in front of the ball,” said Clark.
Clark, now 88, said the project he cares most about is always the one he’s currently working on, but he says Spaceship Earth will always have a special place in his heart.
“It’s like peeing in my pants with a dark suit on, it gives me a warm feeling even though nobody notices,” said Clark.
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