The Canadian-built Atacama Cosmology Telescope in the high Chilean desert mountains, which has just given up its final batch of data from looking into the heavens for the lingering glow of the Big Bang, was built in 2006 near Vancouver by a company that also makes rollercoasters.

That is no mere coincidence. Amusement park rides present similar engineering problems as big telescopes: extraordinarily precise motors that move smoothly through their motions, rigorous data collection, and lots of regulatory and managerial hoops to jump through.