The Legacy of Star Trek

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: September 17, 2006 3:28:15 AM GMT+02:00
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] The Legacy of Star Trek
Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com

The Legacy of Star Trek
By Seth Shostak SETI Institute
posted: 14 September 2006 07:32 am ET
<http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_legacy_trek_060914.html>
This weekend I met the aliens, and they spoke pretty good English.   
They were Klingons.

Yes, bearded, bulky Klingons, sawtooth-eared Vulcans, grunting  
Romulans, and clean-cut graduates of Starfleet Academy had all  
amicably come together in Seattle's Science Fiction Museum for a  
three-day toast to Star Trek.  This was a gathering of fans, drawing  
a few thousand Trekkies from around the country. But it had a novel  
twist: the usual crowd of Star Trek devotees and show celebrities was  
leavened by a fistful of scientists.  Real scientists; not just the  
play-acting kind.

Incredibly it's been four decades since Federation Starship NCC-1701,  
better known as the Enterprise, first ignited its matter-antimatter  
engines and coasted into the dark spaces of the Galaxy to seek out  
new life.  The crew members, packaged like sausage meat in stretch  
Lycra, were multicultural to the max; a noteworthy exception to the  
norm of 1960s television.  Indeed, the Federation's H.R. Department  
was so committed to equal opportunity, it hired a non-Homo sapiens as  
Science Officer.  (This was no doubt an early acknowledgement of the  
poor state of American science literacy.  By the 23rd century, we  
will apparently have to offshore science to other planets, such as  
Vulcan.)

The scrappy, low-budget series, which was cancelled after three  
seasons, became known for its imposing repertoire of futuristic  
gadgetry. There were handheld communicators and tricorders; shipboard  
holodecks, giant view-screens, and deadly phasers.  Some people today  
have come to believe that Star Trek's creators possessed a crystal  
ball, simply because of the resemblance of some of this paraphernalia  
to contemporary, hi-tech hardware like cell phones and plasma TV's.   
Consequently, one reason that scientists were brought to Seattle was  
to offer opinion on the degree to which this science fiction had,  
indeed, inspired science fact.

The answer turned out to be "not very much."  The most conspicuous  
reality check came from Martin Cooper, the man credited with  
inventing the cell phone.  Cooper pointed out that the development of  
portable phones was underway long before Captain Kirk ever flipped  
open his communicator.  Most of the other Enterprise hardware remains  
either impractical or impossible.

But if Gene Roddenberry and the Star Trek writers weren't  
particularly prescient when it came to the technology, they were  
definitely out front when it came to social evolution.  The  
Enterprise crew sported archetypes from around the globe, and – get  
this – a black woman.  In reality, Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt.  
Uhura, the always-attentive Communications Officer (and obviously a  
dedicated SETI researcher – constantly listening for alien signals),  
nearly quit the series because of behind-the-scenes harassment.  
Martin Luther King urged her to tough it out however, and Nichols  
became an inspiration, and later a friend, to Mae Jamison: the first  
black, female Shuttle astronaut.  It's worth remembering that at the  
time the original series aired, multiculturalism was hardly a  
national passion.

So it was a major social innovation to suggest that only a few  
centuries hence, everyone – irrespective of race, gender or ear  
morphology – would qualify for such plum jobs as zapping hostile  
aliens. But there's another important component of the Star Trek  
legacy: something that continues to shape our attitudes to rocketing  
beyond our world.  Star Trek re-defined space.

Consider Europe five centuries ago, when the "final frontier" was the  
ocean that lapped Iberia's western shores.  Any chart would end  
within a hundred miles or so of the coast, and the Atlantic beyond  
that thin edge was presumed to be filled with sea monsters and  
dragons. To venture far beyond land was to enter lethal territory.

In contrast to this fearful belief stood a few legends that told a  
different tale: the Greek story of the Argonauts, for example. To the  
daring seamen in this ancient epic, the unprobed frontier beyond the  
shore wasn't the exclusive province of hungry monsters, but was home  
to wondrous beings. Adventure lay beyond the horizon. A millennium  
later, the siren song of the Argonaut legend encouraged Renaissance  
sailors to dare the rollers of the open ocean, and eventually  
discover the world.

At the dawn of the space age, Star Trek did the same for another  
frontier: the bitterly cold, dauntingly hostile voids between the  
stars. For millions of people, outer space became a good place to be.  
Space promised adventure and hinted at amazing discoveries.

It's a mythos we believe today. What's remarkable is that we take for  
granted that we always have. As I wandered the halls of the Seattle  
convention, watching aging actors sign photos of themselves as they  
once were, and chatting with fans costumed as they would dearly love  
to be, it occurred to me that there was truth to the insouciant claim  
that Star Trek was much more than a TV show.  Star Trek convinced an  
entire generation that space is not simply the empty tracts through  
which the stars course their lives. It's a place we are manifestly  
destined to go.
Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>



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