{"id":17371,"date":"2022-07-05T17:49:54","date_gmt":"2022-07-05T09:49:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/how-the-star-trek-saga-blazed-new-trails-for-space-exploration-with-a-hand-from-superfan-jeff-bezos\/"},"modified":"2022-07-05T17:49:54","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T09:49:54","slug":"how-the-star-trek-saga-blazed-new-trails-for-space-exploration-with-a-hand-from-superfan-jeff-bezos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/how-the-star-trek-saga-blazed-new-trails-for-space-exploration-with-a-hand-from-superfan-jeff-bezos\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Star Trek saga blazed new trails for space exploration \u2014 with a hand from superfan Jeff Bezos"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full-width\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/220627-bezos-trek-630x392.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-707993\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/220627-bezos-trek-630x392.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/220627-bezos-trek-1260x784.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/220627-bezos-trek-768x478.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/220627-bezos-trek-1536x955.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/220627-bezos-trek-2048x1274.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption>Jeff Bezos celebrates after his Blue Origin spaceflight in 2021, at left, and plays it cool as a Starfleet officer in the 2016 film \u201cStar Trek Beyond.\u201d (Photos: Blue Origin \/ Paramount via Justin Lin) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Over the course of five decades, advances in space science and exploration have changed the Star Trek saga \u2014 but it\u2019s obvious that the sci-fi TV show has changed the course of space exploration as well.<\/p>\n<p>You need look no further than Amazon\u2019s billionaire founder Jeff Bezos, who took inspiration from Star Trek to green-light&nbsp;talking computers&nbsp;and his very own&nbsp;Blue Origin space effort. The same goes for SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who\u2019s&nbsp;mentioned in the same breath as the Wright Brothers&nbsp;in a \u201cStar Trek: Discovery\u201d episode.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t imagine a version of the world where Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos exist, for better or worse, however you feel about them, without Star Trek,\u201d says Ryan Britt, the author of&nbsp;\u201cPhasers on Stun,\u201d&nbsp;a new book chronicling the history of the Star Trek sci-fi franchise.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not saying that those guys embody all of Star Trek\u2019s ideals, because they may not,\u201d Britt says in the latest episode of the&nbsp;Fiction Science podcast. \u201cBut there is an audacity to space travel, whether it is from a government like NASA or another nation\u2019s government that\u2019s putting people in space, or if it\u2019s from the private sector.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; background: transparent;\" src=\"https:\/\/embed.podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/fiction-science\/id1528078321\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" sandbox=\"allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In his book, and in the podcast, Britt traces the ups and downs of Star Trek\u2019s evolution \u2014 from a relatively short-lived TV show that creator Gene Roddenberry envisioned as a&nbsp;\u201cWagon Train to the Stars\u201d&nbsp;to a fan phenomenon that has engendered two dozen spin-offs. The latest Trek incarnation,&nbsp;\u201cStrange New Worlds,\u201d&nbsp;wraps up its first season on the Paramount+ streaming service this week.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the concepts that Star Trek popularized \u2014 palm-sized communicators, quantum teleportation, holodecks and medical tricorders \u2014 have made the leap from fiction to fact well in advance of the 23rd century. But there\u2019s another side to the equation: Real-life science and technology have changed Star Trek as well.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/britt.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-707998\" width=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/britt.jpg 332w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/britt-249x300.jpg 249w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/britt-200x241.jpg 200w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/britt-83x100.jpg 83w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 332px) 100vw, 332px\"><figcaption>Ryan Britt is the senior entertainment editor at Fatherly and writes for Inverse, Den of Geek and other publications. (Photo by Mary Britt)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Take black holes, for instance. Gravitational singularities and their time-warping effects have been a Trek standby since 1967 (when an&nbsp;encounter with a \u201cblack star\u201d&nbsp;threw the Enterprise into the \u201960s). But Britt says Star Trek has upped its black hole game, thanks to science consultant&nbsp;Erin McDonald.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe way that they\u2019ve depicted the black holes in the contemporary Star Treks, starting in \u2018Discovery\u2019 season two, is very close to how contemporary science thinks that they would look and behave,\u201d Britt says. \u201cIn the original series, sometimes Kirk would throw out what a quasar is, and it wasn\u2019t quite right. But now, it\u2019s very close in terms of the way the spatial phenomena look. In the new shows, it\u2019s very cutting-edge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The same goes for communicating with aliens. Star Trek\u2019s crew members leaned heavily on&nbsp;Google Translate&nbsp;\u2026 er, I mean their&nbsp;universal translator&nbsp;\u2026 to decipher alien languages. But there\u2019s never been any guarantee that the aliens will look like prosthetic-wearing humanoids who communicate through speech. (Seattle-area sci-fi author Ted Chiang&nbsp;explored an alternate scenario&nbsp;in a&nbsp;short story&nbsp;that was adapted into a screenplay for the 2016 movie&nbsp;\u201cArrival.\u201d)<\/p>\n<p>Britt says Star Trek\u2019s writers addressed the issue in a \u201cStar Trek: Discovery\u201d episode focusing on an&nbsp;alien species that the crew couldn\u2019t figure out how to communicate with. \u201cIt ends up being pheromones \u2014 it communicates through these sorts of feelings and these emotions,\u201d Britt says. \u201cThey can translate that back into math, and then they can go from there and create a bridge language.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/phasers.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-707999\" width=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/phasers.jpg 331w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/phasers-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/phasers-200x302.jpg 200w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/phasers-66x100.jpg 66w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 331px) 100vw, 331px\"><figcaption>\u201cPhasers on Stun! How the Making (and Remaking) of Star Trek Changed the World,\u201d by Ryan Britt. (Jacket Design by Jason Booher \/ Penguin Random House \/ Plume)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In retrospect, it shouldn\u2019t be so surprising that Star Trek anticipated technologies such as communicators, translators and tricorders. Britt points out that Roddenberry&nbsp;worked with a researcher at the Rand Corporation&nbsp;to figure out which sorts of way-out innovations would lend authenticity as well as a gee-whiz vibe to his sci-fi show.<\/p>\n<p>Arguably, Star Trek\u2019s most valuable contribution to science and exploration came in the form of inspiration: Britt recounts&nbsp;the story of how Martin Luther King Jr. persuaded Nichelle Nichols to stick with the show&nbsp;because her Uhura character provided a rare opportunity to inspire fellow African-Americans. Nichols, in turn, took on a&nbsp;campaign to inspire women and minorities to apply for spots in NASA\u2019s growing astronaut corps.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen Nichelle started her campaign, NASA had very few Black or female applicants,\u201d Britt quotes documentary filmmaker&nbsp;Todd Thompson&nbsp;as saying in the book. \u201cI\u2019m not saying zero. But&nbsp;Sally Ride&nbsp;and&nbsp;Ron McNair; yes, they were there as a direct result of her campaign with NASA.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>More recent Trek shows have continued to widen diversity on the final frontier: \u201cStar Trek: Discovery,\u201d for instance, featured&nbsp;a romance between a non-binary human character and a trans alien character&nbsp;\u2014 played, respectively, by a non-binary actor and a trans actor.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Two billionaires to beam up<\/h2>\n<p>One of the world\u2019s most prominent Trekkie techies is Jeff Bezos: He was just 2 years old when the original \u201cStar Trek\u201d premiered, but the show inspired one of his favorite childhood games. \u201cWe\u2019d fight over who\u2019d get to be Captain Kirk, or Spock, and somebody used to play the computer, too,\u201d&nbsp;Bezos told The Washington Post in 2016. \u201cWe\u2019d have little cardboard phasers and cardboard tricorders.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Decades later, Bezos acquired a more expensive prop: a model of the Starship Enterprise that was used in the early Star Trek movies and is now on display at Blue Origin\u2019s headquarters in Kent, Wash. And in 2016, Bezos played Star Trek for real: He talked his way into&nbsp;a cameo as an alien Starfleet official&nbsp;in \u201cStar Trek Beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was super-fun for me,\u201d Bezos said. \u201cIt was a bucket-list item.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Five years later, Bezos made a different sort of bucket-list item come true for Star Trek actor William Shatner. The guy who played Captain Kirk&nbsp;finally got his chance to fly into space for real, courtesy of Bezos and Blue Origin. \u201cWhat you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine,\u201d Shatner told Bezos afterward.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Relive William Shatner's 'profound' Blue Origin spaceflight experience with these highlights\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zLP5jmZkGwc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Elon Musk has his own set of Star Trek ties. In April, when Musk declared his intention to buy Twitter,&nbsp;Shatner joked&nbsp;that the billionaire should \u201cdump the bird\u201d and hire him as the \u201cface of Twitter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou will always be my Captain,\u201d&nbsp;Musk tweeted in reply.<\/p>\n<p>Like Bezos, Musk was given a moment of Star Trek immortality: On an episode of \u201cStar Trek: Discovery,\u201d a character named Captain Gabriel Lorca (played by Jason Isaacs) upbraids a fellow officer by asking him if he wants to be remembered as a pioneer like the Wright Brothers and Elon Musk \u2014 or as a \u201cfailed fungus expert.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Spoiler alert: There\u2019s a bit of irony to the reference, in that later episodes reveal Captain Lorca to be more nefarious than he seems.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Elon Musk mentioned in Star Trek Discovery\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4bgMCNXzNtE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Britt says he doesn\u2019t mind that Star Trek\u2019s accolades for Elon Musk come from a controversial character like Lorca. In fact, he thinks the controversies in which Musk is currently enmeshed fit right in with one of Star Trek\u2019s major themes: that we humans may be flawed, but that we are nevertheless capable of doing great things.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese things that happen when humanity leaps forward are not always going to be without their drawbacks,\u201d Britt says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI always thought that was also a secret commentary on Gene Roddenberry himself, oddly,\u201d Britt adds. \u201cI thought that was like a way of saying the person that created this will be sort of deified, but here they are when they\u2019re actually in the trenches building it, and there\u2019s messiness. I like that Star Trek is willing to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Will Star Trek continue to live long and prosper? Britt, who\u2019s in his early 40s, says there\u2019s a chance he\u2019ll still be writing about the Star Trek saga when the franchise turns 100 years old in 2066.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt will have to do a couple more radical reinventions, though, to stay relevant,\u201d Britt says. \u201cAnd I think that some of that might be a true reboot, right? Where you just completely throw it all out and you just start over, and you say, \u2018We\u2019ll do Starfleet,&nbsp;the Prime Directive&nbsp;and the Enterprise, but that\u2019s all.\u2019 And then everything else can be&nbsp;reinvented.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Check out the original version of this item on Cosmic Log to find out how close Star Trek came to predicting the course of early 21st-century history, and to look back at 20 years of Trek tech talk. Stay tuned for future episodes of the&nbsp;Fiction Science podcast via Anchor, Apple, Google,&nbsp; Overcast, Spotify, Breaker, Pocket Casts, Radio Public and Reason.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Alan Boyle\u2019s for the Fiction Science podcast is Dominica Phetteplace, an award-winning writer&nbsp;who lives in Berkeley, Calif. To learn more about Phetteplace, check out her website,&nbsp;DominicaPhetteplace.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jeff Bezos celebrates after his Blue Origin spaceflight in 2021, at left, and plays it cool as a Starfleet officer in the 2016 film \u201cStar Trek Beyond.\u201d (Photos: Blue Origin \/ Paramount via Justin Lin) Over the course of five decades, advances in space science and exploration have changed the Star Trek saga \u2014 but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4418,1046,4482,21,4631,4632,4551],"class_list":["post-17371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-books","tag-jeff-bezos","tag-science-fiction","tag-space","tag-star-trek","tag-streaming-tv","tag-television"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17371"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}