How a Disney rocket landed in Kansas City

The newest version of the Moonliner II, perched on the former TWA headquarters building.

At Disneyland in California, there once was a 76 foot tall rocket, called the Moonliner—or more accurately, the TWA Moonliner, named for its corporate sponsor from 1955 – 1962. The rocket (well, non-functional model of a rocket) was designed by a Disney “imagineer” with the help of the actual rocket scientist, Werner von Braun.

The rocket was painted with the coloring and logo of its corporate sponsor. The rocket was about 1/3 scale of what von Braun thought an actual commercial moonship would be.

Meanwhile, TWA put a 22 foot version of the TWA Moonliner (called the Moonliner II) on the roof of its Kansas City headquarters.

In 1962, this all changed. TWA stopped sponsoring the Disney exhibit. The TWA Moonliner got a new sponsor, and was repainted as the Douglas Moonliner. (Douglas Aircraft became the new sponsor.)

The Moonliner II was sold to a private company, and later to a private collector of Disney memorabilia. The rocket had deteriorated considerably after 25 years of neglect. But the new collector/owner restored it to its original Moonliner II perfection. That rocket is now on display at Kansas City’s Airline History Museum.

Fast-forward to 2006. The former TWA headquarters—a building basically unused for decades—is restored by a developer and a new, smaller version of the TWA Moonliner II is created and placed on the roof, right where the old one used to be.

And there it stands, atop a building leased to an ad agency, Barkely, Inc.

Well, I used to think that moonliners were the destiny of Pan Am, who was portrayed as operating a lunar shuttle in Stanley Kubricks’ classic movie, “2001.”

But, (the defunct) TWA certainly has a claim to unrealized lunar travel as strong—or stronger—than (the also defunct) Pan Am.