In 1986, the U.S. boasted that within 25 years, America's space program took soil samples on Mars, close-up photographs of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus, and put a man on the moon. The United States pavilion paid tribute to the heroic accomplishments of the men and women who advanced the frontiers of space.
 

Narrated by space-suited guides, the animated displays tracked the past and future of U.S. space flight.
 
 

A 70 mm film took visitors to the year 1994 and a rendezvous with a permanent U.S. space station.  After the film, electronic doors beneath the movie screen opened onto a space platform.  Here, visitors could view a full-scale replica of a permanently manned space station command centre and habitat modules.   Larger than a football field and orbiting 250 miles above the earth, the station was scheduled to be fully operational within a decade.
 

On a sad note, the space shuttle Challenger exploded two months before Expo86 opened, creating a rather sombre undertone to the pavilion's optimistic theme.