is star trek real

10 'Star Trek' Technologies That Actually Came True

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"Beam us up." It's one of the most iconic lines in television history. It's something often heard in the hit science fiction television series "Star Trek" and all of the television shows and movies that followed.

The transporter essentially dematerialized a human body at one point only to rematerialize it in the transporter bay on the ship. Somehow, it broke down atoms and molecules within the body -- scattered them through the vacuum of space without losing a single one from point A to point B, then voila, that person re-emerged out of thin air. Sounds pretty cool, though impossible, right? But what if there was such a device?

The truth is, you can forget about a transporter. No one has been able to realize such a concept. But that doesn't mean some of the ideas that seemed far-fetched when the show debuted in 1966 haven't become a reality. In this article, we feature the top 10 technologies from Star Trek that actually did come to fruition, listed in no particular order. Some of them may surprise you.

Transparent Aluminum (Armor)
Communicators
Tractor Beams
Universal Translator
Geordi's VISOR
Torpedo Coffins
Telepresence

10: Transparent Aluminum (Armor)

The fourth installment of the original "Star Trek" movies is perhaps the most endearing to fans. The crew returns to modern-day Earth. Kirk, Spock and the rest of the gang ditch a Klingon Bird of Prey spacecraft in the San Francisco Bay after narrowly missing the Golden Gate Bridge while flying blind in a storm. You may remember the scene -- but how many of you remember Scotty introducing transparent aluminum for the first time?

In the flick, Scotty traded the formula matrix for transparent aluminum -- a huge engineering advancement -- for sheets of plexiglass in order to build a tank to transport the two humpback whales (George and Gracie) to the Earth of their time. The claim was that you'd be able to replace six-inch (14-centimeter) thick Plexiglas with one-inch (2.5-centimeter) thick see-through aluminum.

It may sound impossible, but there is such a thing as transparent aluminum armor or aluminum oxynitride (ALON) as it's more commonly known. ALON is a ceramic material that starts out as a powder before heat and pressure turn it into a crystalline form similar to glass. Once in the crystalline form, the material is strong enough to withstand bullets. Polishing the molded ALON strengthens the material even more. The Air Force has tested the material in hopes of replacing windows and canopies in its aircraft. Transparent aluminum armor is lighter and stronger than bulletproof glass . Less weight, stronger material -- what's not to like?

9: Communicators

Whenever Captain Kirk left the safe confines of the Enterprise, he did so knowing it could be the last time he saw his ship. Danger was never far away. And when in distress and in need of help in a pinch, he could always count on Bones to come up with a miracle cure, Scotty to beam him up or Spock to give him some vital scientific information. He'd just whip out his communicator and place a call.

Fast-forward 30 years and wouldn't you know it, it seems like everyone carries a communicator. We just know them as cell phones . Actually, the communicators in "Star Trek" were more like the push-to-talk, person-to-person devices first made popular by Nextel in the mid to late '90s. The "Star Trek" communicator had a flip antenna that when opened, activated the device. The original flip cell phones are perhaps distant cousins. Whatever the case, the creators of "Star Trek" were on to something because you'd be hard-pressed to find many people without a cell phone these days.

In later incarnations of the "Star Trek" franchise, the communicators evolved to being housed in the Starfleet logo on the crewman's chest. With the tap of a finger, communication between crewmembers became even easier. Vocera Communications has a similar product that can link people on the same network inside a designated area like an office or a building by using the included software over a wireless LAN. The B2000 communication badge weighs less than two ounces and can be worn on the lapel of a coat or shirt and allows clear two-way communication. It's even designed to inhibit the growth of bacteria so it's suitable for doctors [source: Vocera ].

8: Hypospray

The creative team behind "Star Trek" found spiffy ways to spice up some activities we endure on a day-to-day basis. Take medical treatment, for example: Not many people enjoy getting a flu shot, and in "Star Trek," inoculating patients was one of Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy's primary duties. It seemed not an episode went by that Bones wasn't giving someone a shot of some sort of space vaccine . But what was more fascinating was the contraption he used.

Hypospray is a form of hypodermic injection of medication. A hypospray injection is forced under the skin (a subcutaneous injection) with high air pressure. The air pressure shoots the liquid vaccine deep enough into the skin that no needle is required. The real-world application is known as a jet injector .

Jet injectors have been in use for many years. In fact, the technology predates "Star Trek." Jet injectors were originally designed to be used in mass vaccinations. Jet injecting is safer (no needles to pass along infectious disease) and faster in administering vaccines. Similar in appearance to an automotive paint gun, jet injection systems can use a larger container for the vaccine, thus allowing medical personnel to inoculate more people quicker.

7: Tractor Beams

When NASA needs to make repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope, astronauts have to be specially trained to get out of the Space Shuttle for extravehicular activity. They also have to learn how to work within the confines of their space suits, with thick gloves on. Wouldn't it be nice to just bring the telescope inside, where repairs wouldn't be so challenging and dangerous?

In science fiction, space ships including the Starship Enterprise snatch each other up using tractor beams. In some cases, large vessels have a tractor beam strong enough to prevent smaller vessels from escaping the gravitational force. So is this science even plausible?

Yes and no. Optical tweezers are as close as you're going to get to a legitimate tractor beam on current-day Earth. Scientists have harnessed small lasers into beams capable of manipulating molecules and moving them with precision. Optical tweezers use a focused laser to trap and suspend microscopic particles in an optical trap. Scientists can use optical tweezers to trap and remove bacteria and sort cells. Optical tweezers are used primarily in studying the physical properties of DNA. While the beams used in optical tweezers aren't strong enough to dock the space shuttle to the International Space Station, it's a start in that direction.

"Set phasers to stun" -- another oft-heard command given to the Enterprise crew. The crew often relied on the stun setting of their fictitious weapon of choice known as a phaser. Armed with a phaser, Kirk and his colleagues had the ability to kill or more desirably, stun their adversaries and render them incapacitated.

Actually, stun guns have been around for some time. In fact, electricity has been used for punishment and to control livestock as far back as the 1880s. But it wasn't until 1969 when a guy named Jack Cover invented the first Taser that the stun gun was most realized. The Taser fails to kill like the phaser did, yet, it packs enough of an electrical punch to render its victim disorientated, if not completely incapacitated.

Unlike the phaser, the Taser and other stun guns must come in physical contact with the target in order to have any effect. Tasers take care of this by projecting two electrodes, connected by wires, which attach to the target's skin. Once in contact, the handheld unit transfers electricity to the target, thus having the stun effect. Stun guns with stationary electrical contact probes are somewhat less effective because while they have a similar effect on the target, you have to be much closer (within arm's length) in order to zap your target.

Something more along the lines of the phaser may be in development. Applied Energetic has developed Laser Guided Energy and Laser Induced Plasma Energy technologies that are said to transmit high-voltage bursts of energy to a target [source: Applied Energetics ]. In other words, these pulses of energy would stun the target and limit collateral damage. So a true phaser may soon be a reality.

5: Universal Translator

Imagine if no matter what country you visited, no matter what the culture, you could understand everything the indigenous people were saying. It sure would make traveling easier. Take that thought to another level like say, if you were planet hopping like the crew onboard the Enterprise. Fortunately for Captain Kirk and his peers, they had a universal translator .

The characters in "Star Trek" relied on a small device that when spoken into, would translate the words into English. Guess what? The technology exists for us in the real world. There are devices that let you speak phrases in English and it will spit back to you the same rhetoric in a specified language. The only problem is, these devices only work for certain predetermined languages.

A true universal translator like the one on the show may not be a reality, but the technology is available. Voice recognition has advanced considerably since its inception. But computers have yet to be able to learn languages. Computers would be able to theoretically gather the information much faster than a human brain, but a software program is dependent on actual data. Someone has to take the time and expense to put it together and make it available, which is probably why these systems focus on more popular languages.

4: Geordi's VISOR

When "Star Trek: The Next Generation" thrust the love of everything "Star Trek" back into popular culture, the quirky Mr. Spock and crass Bones McCoy and others were supplanted by a new cast. One of the most popular characters on the new show was engineer Geordi LaForge.

What made Geordi unique, perhaps even mysterious, was his funky eyewear. Geordi was blind, but after a surgical operation and aided through the use of a device called VISOR (Visual Instrument and Sensory Organ Replacement), Geordi could see throughout the electromagnetic spectrum. Though it may sound far-fetched, in reality, similar technology exists that may someday bring sight back to the blind.

In 2005, a team of scientists from Stanford University successfully implanted a small chip behind the retina of blind rats that enabled them to pass a vision recognition test. The science behind the implants, or bionic eyes as they're commonly referred to, works much the way Geordi's VISOR did. The patient receives the implants behind the retina, then wears a pair of glasses fitted with a video camera. Light enters the camera and is processed through a small wireless computer, which then broadcasts it as infrared LED images on the inside of the glasses. Those images are reflected back into the retina chips to stimulate photodiodes. The photodiodes replicate the lost retinal cells then change light into electrical signals which in turn send nerve pulses to the brain.

What it all means is that in theory, a person with 20/400 sight (blind), due to the loss of retinal cells from retinitis pigmentosa, can obtain 20/80 sight. It's not good enough to pass the driving test (normal vision is considered 20/20) but it's good enough to read billboards and go about your day without the aid of a seeing-eye dog.

3: Torpedo Coffins

In the second installment of the "Star Trek" movie franchise, the beloved Mr. Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy, died after saving the Starship Enterprise from certain disaster. The movie culminated with the crew firing Spock's corpse out of the torpedo bay in a coffin shaped like one of the ship's weapons, the photon torpedo .

Believe it or not, you too could be laid to eternal rest in your own Federation-approved photon torpedo casket. OK, it may not technically be Federation-approved since there is no such thing as the United Federation of Planets (UFP) but the coffins are, in fact, very real.

Designed by Eternal Image, the "Star Trek" coffin was slated to be available early 2009, but is still not for sale as of this writing. The price is yet to be determined. If the fan would prefer to be cremated , the company also plans to offer a "Star Trek" urn as well.

2: Telepresence

In 1966, the idea of interacting with each other while separated by the void of space seemed as far fetched as, well the idea of being in space. That's precisely what the idea of telepresence is.

Telepresence is more than just video conferencing . The visual aspect is important and immersion is vital. In other words, the more convincing the illusion of telepresence, the more you feel like you're there.

In 2008, AT&T teamed up with Cisco in delivering the industry's first in-depth telepresence experience. The key to Cisco's TelePresence is the combination of audio, video and ambient lighting working together. These telepresence kits are designed to mirror surroundings and mimic sounds so that users on each side of the video conference will feel as though the images on the screen are in the same room with them. For instance, the people in boardroom A will see the people on the screen in boardroom B as though they are sitting across the table from them. The ambient lighting and room features are constructed to mirror each other. Sure, these telepresence kits are much more advanced than anything drummed up on "Star Trek," but perhaps that's because the show sparked our imagination so many years ago.

1: Tricorders

How many of you remember that instrument Mr. Spock used to always carry over his shoulder, especially when the crew (usually consisting of only Spock and Captain Kirk) first surveyed a new planet? That was a tricorder.

One of the more useful instruments available to "Star Trek" personnel, variations of the tricorder (medical, engineering or scientific) were used to measure everything from oxygen levels to detecting diseases. Often times the tricorder gave an initial analysis of the new environment. So, what's the real-world tie-in? NASA employs a handheld device called LOCAD, which measures for unwanted microorganisms such as E. coli, fungi and salmonella onboard the International Space Station [source: Coulter ]. Beyond that, two handheld medical devices may soon help doctors examine blood flow and check for cancer, diabetes or bacterial infection.

Scientists at Loughborough University in England use photoplethysmography technology in a handheld device that can monitor the functions of the heart. Meanwhile, researchers at Harvard Medical School have developed a small device that utilizes similar technology found in MRI machines that non-invasively inspect the body. Using nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, this device would be sensitive enough to measure samples of as few as 10 possible infectious bacteria. This kind of sensitivity (800 times more sensitive than sensing equipment currently used in medical labs) could revolutionize the way doctors diagnose disease [source: Mick ].

Lots More Information

‘Star Trek’ Is Right About Almost Everything

The epic series—celebrating its 50th anniversary this year—bases its science fiction on scientific fact.

Resistance is futile.

For half a century now the Star Trek franchise has been winning new fans and inspiring real-world innovators. Over the course of 12 feature films (the 13th will be released next month) and six TV series—plus an ever-growing constellation of books, games, comics, magazines, and documentaries—it has boldly gone where no science fiction has gone before.

The secret to its success, says Andrew Fazekas , is its allegiance to science fact. Fazekas—a National Geographic writer and astronomy blogger known as the Night Sky Guy—is the author of a new book on the series’ reality-based astronomy and prescient technology. In Star Trek: The Official Guide to our Universe , he explains that unlike most sci-fi, the franchise has always rooted the innate human urge to explore in plausible science, providing “a hopeful pathway to a possible human future that’s not too distant.”

With Star Trek celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, National Geographic recently spoke with Fazekas about the real science and enduring appeal of the series.

You’re a science writer, amateur astronomer, and lifelong fan of Star Trek . This book, you say, represents a sort of Vulcan mind-meld of those passions. Tell me a bit about how and why it came together.

I’ve been an amateur astronomer—a backyard stargazer—since I was 10 years old. At the same time, I’ve always been a Star Trek fan. So I knew that I wanted to mix these two very different worlds together. But I wasn’t sure how.

Then I began to realize that in Star Trek , most of the astronomical objects and destinations have real-life counterparts. Watching the TV shows and movies, you hear names like Andromeda galaxy and Alpha Centauri —real things I’ve come across in my own travels across the night sky.

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I soon began to find many instances where I could reference the series in terms of an astronomical object. Like, if I would show someone a supernova through my telescope, I could quote the Star Trek episode in which it appeared. And I could say, “Remember in ‘All Our Yesterdays’ when the Enterprise had to rush away because the impending explosion of the star would destroy the planet?”

About 10 years ago, I began to make a casual list of all the astronomical objects that have appeared in Star Trek . And as I went through the episodes, I saw, again and again, that the writers were always talking about real-life stuff. They were always taking real science seriously.

book cover for Star Trek: The Official Guide to Our Universe

Tell me about your methodology. I imagine it involved a lot of research and collaboration with scientists. How did you decide what to focus on and explicate?

Star Trek is a fire hose of information and trivia. It’s overwhelming. So I decided that I needed to focus on a few things. Coming from an astronomy-education background, I knew I needed to make it easy for the reader. To make it something that they’d be familiar with: a guidebook about the night sky.

So we’d start off with things in the solar system. Then we’d move on to planets outside the solar system—the exoplanets. Then I’d explain the stars—where they’re born, how they live, where they die. And finally I’d get to the grandest structures of the galaxy.

The cornerstone of this book is looking at the destinations and the true science of Star Trek . Scores of today’s scientists and engineers and physicists—as well as mathematicians, chemists, even astronauts—were inspired as children by Star Trek to pursue these fields professionally. The show captured their imaginations.

And that’s what’s so cool about Star Trek . I mean, I’m not dissing Star Wars —I like that too—but I find it to be much more fantasy-based. I liken Star Wars to The Lord of the Rings . Star Trek is more of a realistic vision.

What were the biggest surprises you encountered in the course of writing this book?

One thing is just how accurate the science really is, throughout all the different incarnations. The foundation that Star Trek is built on is scientifically sturdy. You can tell that the writers and producers took the time to get the science right.

They did that by involving real scientific consultants, whose professional opinions were incorporated into the plotlines, the filming of the scenes. And over the decades—as our technology has gotten better, as we’ve pushed the boundaries of exploration, as we’ve learned more about our universe—new knowledge has made its way into Star Trek plots and story lines.

Nowadays the canvas that all these adventures play out on is almost hyperreal. With the computer simulations we have these days, Hollywood has the ability to re-create any kind of object in space, based on whatever knowledge we have, and give us the ringside seats to the cosmos that all we space geeks wish we had.

In an episode of the original TV series, crew members find themselves encircled by a force field at the O.K. Corral. Since it first aired 50 years ago, Star Trek has relied heavily on input from actual scientists, including physicists, astrophysicists, mathematicians, and chemists.

For instance, let’s say the Enterprise is hiding out in a nebula. Well, as earthbound stargazers we’re never going to be able to see what it would be like. We have only an outside view of these beautiful, colorful star clusters. But Hollywood can now place us within that nebula. And it’s based on computer simulations that real scientists are using to understand what these clouds are, how they form, how they evolve. It’s amazing! It’s like you’re there.

Of course, there has to be artistic license taken. The whole idea of warp drive or teleportation —those were plot devices that were included by [ Star Trek creator] Gene Roddenberry . He came up with those devices 50 years ago, to move the storyline along. You can’t have your characters taking 300 or 400 years to get to one star system.

The technology in Star Trek has often proved prescient in terms of real-world innovations. Specifically, what are some of those things?

Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that device that they called the PADD (Personal Access Display Device). It had no keypad; you just used your finger. Today we call it an iPad, or a tablet. Really eerie. The dream has come true! Life is imitating art.

Of course, it’s not a coincidence that an iPad and a smartphone and wrist-worn medical devices look like they do. They harken back to what we saw in Star Trek in 1966.

Then there’s voice recognition—talking to your device. It reminds me of a scene in Star Trek IV —the one with the whales—where Scotty goes to this engineering firm, and wants to talk to the computer. So he goes, “Hello, computer.” Then Bones says to him, “You’re supposed to use the mouse!” And Scotty says, “Oh, how quaint.” And then he speaks into the mouse.

Scores of today’s scientists and engineers and physicists—as well as mathematicians, chemists, even astronauts—were inspired as children by Star Trek to pursue these fields professionally. Andrew Fazekas , author, Star Trek: The Official Guide to Our Universe

We’re already there. We can dictate. We have voice recognition. We can type a letter or an email without even touching a keyboard now.

When StarTalk’s Host Sits Down With Star Trek’s Barkeep

Could 'The Last of Us' or 'Jurassic Park' really happen? We asked scientists about sci-fi movies.

A strike threatened to cripple Hollywood in 1960. Here's how they resolved it.

In the first Star Trek series, they had a quadriplegic character sitting in a big, burly machine. All you saw was his head. And he could communicate only by using this flashing light—two flashes for yes, one flash for no.

Look what we have now. Stephen Hawking is able to communicate through his computer. He can speak full sentences. He can write books! It’s not just a flashing light. So technology there has far surpassed Star Trek . And that’s supposed to be 300 years in the future! We’ve gone much farther, much faster than they envisioned back in 1966.

Conversely, which visions of the future haven’t come to pass? Are there any things—in terms of astronomy, technology, or general science—that Star Trek has really gotten wrong?

The biggie is warp drive. That may very well remain science fiction. It depends on which scientists you talk to. But right now there are scientists doing experiments in the laboratory, on very small scales, to see if this is something we might one day be able to do. Equations exist that show that this might be possible.

Still, warp drive may very well never materialize. The same thing with teleportation. Quantum teleportation—moving a particle from one system to another—does exist. And one day we may, perhaps, be able to move inanimate objects. But teleporting humans—I mean, would we ever really want to do that? You would have to literally deconstruct a living being onto a molecular level, then reconstruct it. Its DNA would be pulled apart.

I was recently asked: Are we molding our future the way we are because we’re trying to mirror and mimic Star Trek ? Or is it just happening on its own? I think it’s the former. We’re being influenced by this very popular science-fiction franchise.

I think one of the things that distinguishes Star Trek from other sci-fi is its philosophical bent—its thoughtful consideration of life, the universe, and everything. Do you think that approach is the reason why it has endured and thrived for so long, finding new audiences across half a century?

There’s definitely something there for everyone, for different kinds of fans and generations. And that thoughtfulness you mention is what touches so many people. Even folks who aren’t science geeks, per se. They like the message that Star Trek has of a hopeful future for humankind. That we’ve passed through these petty problems and difficulties we have now amongst nations and cultures and races. In the Star Trek future of humankind, we’ve gone beyond all that.

Also, this yearning and passion for exploring the unknown—for pushing the frontier. I think that’s very deeply rooted in the DNA of humans. The desire to go where no one has gone before. North America would not have been explored if we didn’t push beyond the European continent. In Star Trek , the stage is not one continent or planet; it’s the entire Milky Way galaxy—and beyond.

four Star Trek characters with photon torpedo

On an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation , the crew modifies a photon torpedo, which they'll use to mine a nebula for subatomic particles known as vertions. The astronomical objects we see in Star Trek often overlap with those in our own universe.

These are the things that really speak to people. And I think what also captures their attention, through all the incarnations of Star Trek , is how the series has always incorporated social issues of the times. The civil rights movement, for instance, was very big in the original series. Remember that iconic kiss between Uhura and Captain Kirk ? That made a lot of waves at the time. It was one of the first interracial kisses on TV.

William Shatner wrote the foreword to this book. Did you meet him or any other Star Trek stars during your research? Were you ever, um, starstruck ?

I knew right from the start that I wanted to have Shatner involved—to have him launch the book from the beginning and introduce it. Because it’s a grand, sweeping cosmic adventure that’s very much like the stories that take place in Star Trek . And who better than Captain Kirk to set the scene?

So I begged my editors: “Please get Shatner! If we need to, appeal to his roots and let him know that the author is also from Montreal, and that we went to the same university.” It seemed to work. They made it happen, the stars aligned, and Shatner was part of the book.

You can see from the intro that he wrote that he’s very much into science and science fiction. And you can tell that he wrote it. I’m very keen to thank him personally.

But no—unfortunately I haven’t yet met anyone from Star Trek in person. I’m hoping to rectify that during my book tour. I’ll have opportunities to meet up with most of the cast members of the different series at the major Star Trek convention in New York—the grand 50th anniversary gala—in early September. My dream is to have the cast members all sign my book.

Star clusters like these are perfect laboratories for examining the evolutionary path of stars. But while earthbound astronomers can only observe them from afar, Starfleet crews get to conduct their studies up close.

What effect do you want this book to have on readers? What’s the desired takeaway?

As an astronomy educator and communicator, I hope that people who aren’t familiar with the night sky but love Star Trek will take this book and understand what they’ve actually seen—the true science behind an exploding supernova, for instance.

The sky is a natural resource that we’ve really become disconnected from. People sit at their computers, in front of their devices. And that part of the future that Star Trek has shown us is coming true. But it’s detached us from nature—from the grandness of nature that is the night sky above us. And that’s the canvas that Star Trek plays out on: the heavens above.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Star Trek’s Holodeck: from science fiction to a new reality

Senior lecturer, RMIT University

Disclosure statement

Fabio Zambetta has received funding from the ARC (Australian Research Council) under the ARC Linkage and ARC Discovery programs.

RMIT University provides funding as a strategic partner of The Conversation AU.

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Many of the technological advances predicted in Star Trek’s fictional universe have become reality , such as the mobile communicator and hand-held tablet computers.

Others, such as tractor beams and warp drives , are still a work in progress. But what of the Holodeck ?

The Holodeck first appeared in The Practical Joker , a 1974 episode of the Star Trek animated series. It was depicted as a recreation room containing a simulated, alternative version of reality. It featured heavily in The Next Generation series and in the 1996 film First Contact .

Anyone entering the Holodeck could interact with “solid” props and characters in any scenario based on whatever parameters they programmed.

These programs are not unlike the narrative-driven, cinematic videogames we have today, such as Grand Theft Auto , Red Dead Redemption or The Witcher .

The Holodeck was a narrative device that allowed Star Trek’s writers to experiment with philosophical questions in settings not available in a typical sci-fi context.

It inspired several generations of computer scientists who spearheaded research in artificial intelligence, computer graphics and human-computer interaction.

The convergence of these research areas has given rise to other forms of reality on the path to the construction of a real Holodeck.

A real Holodeck?

In virtual reality ( VR ) we are fully immersed in a synthetic, “virtual” version of reality, experienced through dedicated VR headsets such as the Oculus Rift or the HTC Vive .

A typical example of VR is an immersive war game that puts a user in charge of a Roman army as Caesar, battling Vercingetorix’s Gaul troops at Alesia.

But VR has a major drawback for some applications. Being isolated from the real world, it’s not easy to engage in social interaction or physical movement in a way that feels natural to most people.

Augmented reality ( AR ) blends synthetic, virtual objects with the view of our physical reality. In AR, we can interact with virtual humans inhabiting our physical space or we can work with our children, for example, to build virtual LEGO houses on real tables in our own living rooms.

Headsets are available that allow us to create AR in our office or lounge rooms, such as the Microsoft Hololens or the Meta .

But AR headsets still suffer from several technical limitations, such as a reduced field of view. The software that lets the virtual and real worlds interact believably and naturally still needs work.

Sensing humans

Real-world Holodeck programs would also need the technology to sense human actions. This would provide useful information that the virtual personas inhabiting the Holodeck programs would use to anticipate our human intentions.

Progress here has been fast and constant, with great improvements in speech recognition and language translation, such as Apple’s Siri , Google’s Assistant and Microsoft’s Cortana .

We now take almost for granted the ability to search for information with speech or to command our mobiles to schedule meetings and appointments. Other devices, originally conceived for entertainment applications, can track human gestures or even their full body posture.

For example, Microsoft Kinect can track a human body, and the technology is now included in the Hololens as its gesture-recognition component.

Lots of other sensing devices are now commonplace in mobile devices, such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, and temperature and pressure sensors.

The general trend is towards giving humans the ability to communicate using a combination of their body and their voice via hands-free or wearable user interfaces.

Enter the artificial intelligence

The key ingredient for Holodeck programs in the real world is the ability to equip virtual characters with sophisticated forms of artificial intelligence (AI).

AI and machine learning – the art of teaching a machine how to learn to perform a complex task – have seen advances in areas such as automated game playing , autonomous car driving and drone control , and deep learning .

These advances, while noteworthy, do not necessarily show strong progress towards general forms of artificial intelligence (AGI) exhibited by humans.

It has been argued that defining or providing general human intelligence may prove a very elusive problem for a long time, or indeed forever.

Fortunately, a restricted version of a Holodeck program may only require a slightly weaker, not fully general form of intelligence. This was exemplified by androids in the popular TV series reboot of Westworld .

Almost human? Close enough

The good news is that this may shorten the time needed to realise the hypothetical Holodeck programs. The bad news is that such a feat is still beyond us at this stage, although recent progress in machine learning will likely help us close the gap faster.

The question is then whether we shall ever be able to reach the level of sophistication in AR and AI needed to build a Holodeck? And if so, when?

Making predictions on such matters is not trivial, but I am inclined to think that current advances in VR and AR technologies will provide us with the required sophisticated headsets within the next five to ten years.

The question then is also whether we shall ever be able to achieve AR using alternative forms of projections that remove the need for a headset altogether.

This may be possible, eventually, but it would be irrelevant if headsets could be miniaturised and potentially implanted into human eyes, similar to what was suggested in other sci-fi classics such as Neuromancer or Snow Crash , and recently advocated by transhumanists .

The recent predictions about breakthroughs in general artificial intelligence by experts seem to converge around a date around 2040. This would put the sort of AI required for Holodeck characters somewhat earlier than that.

So I believe that one day humans will be able to experience some form of Holodeck similar to what was envisaged in Star Trek.

To paraphrase Star Teek’s infamous Borg alien race, I will say that resistance to this technological progress is futile and it will be assimilated, one day.

Artificial intelligence (AI)
Science fiction
Augmented reality
Virtual reality
Machine learning

Executive Dean, Faculty of Health

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The Influence of Star Trek and Science Fiction on Real Science

For Star Trek Day, learn about the relationship between sci-fi and real-life science in this excerpt from “Reality Ahead of Schedule”

As with several other iconic Star Trek technologies, replicators are directly responsible for inspiring developments in real-life technology, which use 3-D printing to create food, meals, plastic and metal items, buildings, and even complex machine parts. Star Trek is far from being the only sci-fi source of inspiration for the dream of a device that can produce finished items from scratch.

Reality Ahead of Schedule: How Science Fiction Inspires Science Fact

A rich visual history of science fiction's impact on real-world technologies, this book is perfect for lovers of H. G. Wells, Star Trek, Isaac Asimov, Jules Verne, Aldous Huxley, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

To trace the roots of Star Trek ’s replicator, it is necessary to understand that it is essentially a repurposed form of the transporter—the teleportation or matter transmission device that “beams” the crew between starship and planet surface. According to legend, the transporter was invented only because the original series lacked the budget to film special, effect-heavy scenes of planetary landing shuttles, but Star Trek did not invent the concept of matter transmission. Its first appearance in science fiction dates back at least as far as 1877, in Edward Page Mitchell’s story “The Man Without a Body,” which prefigures George Langelaan’s much better-known 1957 story “The Fly,” by having a scientist experience a teleportation mishap when his batteries die while he is only partway through a transmission, so that only his head rematerializes. The replicator uses the same basic principle as the transporter, in which the atomic structure of a physical object is scanned and the information is used to reconstruct the object at the “receiving” end through energy-matter conversion. In practice, all transporters are replicators and matter “transmission” is a misnomer, because matter itself is not transmitted, only information. Every time Captain Kirk steps out of the transporter having “beamed up” from a planet’s surface, it is, in fact, a copy of him—the original has been disintegrated during the initial phase of the operation.

In the world of the TV series, the replicators of Picard’s Enterprise are a development of food synthesizers— simpler machines present on James Kirk’s Enterprise in the original Star Trek series (known as The Original Series , or TOS). These closely resemble the later replicators but were conceived by the writers of TOS more as highly advanced, mechanical food preparation devices instead of matter-energy converters. They, therefore, represented a televisual outing for a concept long popular in science fiction: the automatic food preparation device. A machine that performs complex autonomous physical tasks can reasonably be described as a robot, and, as early as 1899, Elizabeth Bellamy’s novel Ely’s Automatic Housemaid features a robot cook, which might be seen as a precursor to later food synthesizers. Unspecified “mechanical apparatus” was at work in the automated cafeterias of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Mars. In his 1912 A Princess of Mars , Burroughs, probably inspired by the automat (a kind of vending machine café imported from Germany to the United States in 1902), describes “gorgeous eating places where we were served entirely by mechanical apparatus. No hand touched the food from the time it entered the building in its raw state until it emerged hot and delicious upon the tables before the guests, in response to the touching of tiny buttons to indicate their desires.”

Moving from Burroughs’s mechanical cafeterias to a Star Trek -style food synthesizer was simply a matter of miniaturization, and, by 1933, David H. Keller was imagining “a small but complete production laboratory, not much larger than [an] electric refrigerator … entirely automatic and practically foolproof.” In his story “Unto Us A Child Is Born,” Keller envisages a machine that can both create food and prepare it “for the table in any form desired by the consumer. All that was necessary was the selection of one of the twenty-five menus and the pressing of the proper buttons.” Only recently has this dream of a kitchen appliance-scale food synthesizer neared reality, with the launch of the Genie food replicator, explicitly inspired by Star Trek ’s replicator. The Genie, a device not much larger than a microwave with futuristic styling, claims to be “a kitchen in a box” that can make nutritious, freshly cooked meals in 30 seconds. However, it should be noted that the device relies on pods that contain dehydrated ingredients; in other words, the food preparation labor has simply been moved upstream in the process, and the Genie might be little more than a device for adding hot water to a cup of dried noodles.

So what is meant by today’s technology boosters when they talk excitedly about Star Trek -inspired, real-life replicators? The technology to which they refer is the 3-D printer, a device that lays down some form of plastic (in the sense of malleable) medium in layers to build up a three-dimensional form. Such printers are heralded as the drivers of a second Industrial Revolution, in which manufacturing is distributed and universal, available to all through desktop 3-D printing machines. These devices are already available, usually restricted to fabrication using quick-setting plastics or resins, but larger and more specialized machines can print in media varying from living cells and foodstuffs to metal to mud or concrete. Large-scale concrete printers, for example, are suggested as a solution to housing crises, such as those found in refugee camps, where rapidly assembled, cheaply erected structures are needed. Meanwhile, biological implants and replacement tissues can be printed by laying down layers of cells on organic scaffolding, and, in the near future, it may be possible to print entire organs for transplant.

Although the 3-D printing community often plays up the lineage of inspiration from Star Trek ’s replicators to desktop fabricators, in practice, the former has a completely different mechanism. The true conceptual forefather of the 3-D printer is a 1964 story by Italian writer Primo Levi, “L’ordine a buon mercata” (“Order on the Cheap”). A mysterious multinational enterprise of dubious intentions makes available a device called the Mimer duplicator, which can create exact replicas of anything from money and diamonds to food and humans. It works by extruding “extremely thin superimposed layers” of a multielement substance named “pabulum.” This is a concise and extremely accurate description of how a modern-day 3-D printer works.

Star Trek featured gadgetry and devices that have since become iconic, and that have been directly responsible for inspiring the gadgetry and devices that have come to dominate modern personal technology—including the smartphone and the tablet computer—and perhaps soon to include portable, personal medical devices. Science and technology sometimes progresses in mighty leaps, but more generally it advances incrementally, contingent on prior research.

Reality Ahead of Schedule: How Science Fiction Inspires Science Fact is available from Smithsonian Books. Visit Smithsonian Books’ website to learn more about its publications and a full list of titles.

We're ahead of schedule to turn Star Trek tech into reality

Most of the sci-fi franchise takes place centuries in the future, but some of the technology from the universe of Kirk and Picard could be a reality sooner than you think.

Finalist for the Nesta Tipping Point prize and a degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Most Star Trek stories from the vaunted franchise turning 50 this week take place in a distant future we're not likely to see. Unless, that is, Gene Roddenberry and his successors underestimated the pace of technological progress across Earth and the rest of the galaxy.

Turns out we're actually ahead of schedule when it comes to building many of the key components of that "classic" space-faring society from the 23rd and 24th centuries.

One of the key moments in the Trek universe comes in 2063 with the first demonstration of a human-built warp drive. The Vulcans are nearby enough to witness a new species gaining warp capability and initiating first contact with Earth, and we're off to the races with the fundamental premise for the franchise.

A not-quite-so-distant future?

You might think the notion that humans will come up with the tech for faster-than-light travel in the next 47 years is preposterous. After all, it's been 47 years since we landed on the moon, and we still have yet to send a traveler any farther into space.

But there is at least some work happening now on this technology, and it could be on the verge of actually being taken somewhat seriously by the science and engineering community. Last year we learned that a NASA lab has been working on a controversial project called the EM drive . It's controversial because it would seem to violate the laws of physics, but if it actually works in space, it could drastically reduce the length of a trip to the moon, Mars or beyond.

It's not a warp drive, but it could be a stepping stone to developing faster-than-light transport. The concept has actually been around for years without starting any revolutions in space travel, but that might soon change. Late last month, Jose Rodal posted on the NASASpaceFlight forum that a research paper on the EM drive has actually passed peer review and could soon be published.

A 23rd-century tourist guide to the galaxy

What's more, a community of EM drive enthusiasts is springing up and researchers affiliated with various governments, universities, small companies and even a few garage tinkerers are now working on their own version of the impossible technology, with at least a few aiming to test the drive in space to finally prove that it actually works.

So could we demonstrate actual warp capability by 2063 to keep pace with the Star Trek universe? The conventional wisdom is still that it's technically impossible, but stay tuned for a possible shift in that thinking if many EM drive demonstrations turn out to be successful (and that's a huge "if").

But that pesky warp drive is just one of the Trek tech challenges when it comes to converting the sci-fi franchise into science fact. Many of the gadgets and staples from the series, like the phaser, are already in development. The below video clip from the Smithsonian Channel's "Building Star Trek," which premiered online Tuesday, shows how a high-energy laser similar to the phaser is being developed in a Lockheed Martin lab. Not only could it be used to stun enemies, it can even track and destroy rockets.

Much of the other 23rd-century technology from Roddenberry's imagination is also quickly becoming real. Those nifty communicators are more than possible when you combine contemporary staples of technology like Bluetooth and cellular/satellite/mesh networks. And who needs a Holodeck when today's virtual-reality headsets are more portable?

Click for full coverage.

We've also made respectable progress in the last half-century toward developing a Tricorder , a universal translator and even a limited food replicator .

But when you think about it, that's the easy stuff. Those devices reflect the needs and concerns of the mid-20th-century era from which Star Trek originally sprang. They address problems that we were already developing solutions for, so it's not entirely surprising those efforts have already started to come to fruition.

But what about some of the more far-out, imaginative and physics-bending innovations from the show, like cloaking, force fields and tractor beams?

In this clip from Smithsonian Channel's "Building Star Trek," a few University of Rochester scientists explain how they're working on a real-world cloaking device:

According to some Trekkers , this puts us a couple of centuries ahead of humans in the Trek universe in terms of starting to harness potential cloaking capabilities.

But it isn't just cloaking that's slowly being pulled out of imagined worlds of science fiction fantasy into the realm of the real -- we've also reported on efforts to create tractor beams (in water) and force fields that are no joke. They might not be able to act upon a huge object like a starship just yet, but the proof of concept is there. We could spend several decades working to scale up these innovations and still outperform the Star Trek timeline.

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Here are all the technologies Star Trek accurately predicted

We’ve gone some of the places they boldly went on TV.

On September 8, 1966, NBC aired the first episode of a new TV series about a starship on a five year mission of space exploration. Today, Star Trek turns 50.

The first episode told of an endangered shape-shifting, salt-sucking alien posing as a human woman to lure prey to its lair. (The creature was killed rather than added to the red list ). Half a century, 726 episodes, four spin-off series ( a fifth is on its way), and 13 movies later, we’ve yet to meet any metamorphosing salt vampires in real life.

On the other hand, a surprising number of fanciful ideas and technologies that appeared on the show over the years have come to pass in the real world. Star Trek , it seems, is one of the great augurs of 21st century living.

Some technologies, like flip-phone communicators, are the fairly predictable result of fiction inspiring fact— Star Trek is a commonly cited influence for scientists. Others, like transparent aluminum, are things even Mr. Spock couldn’t have seen coming.

Here’s a list of all the real-world tech, presaged Star Trek , we could find:

Tablet computers
Tractor beams
Tricorders (there’s also an X Prize for that)
Flip communicators ( and wearable badge communicators )
Replicators
Cloaking devices
Voice interface computers (hello Siri)
Transparent aluminum
Bluetooth headsets (Uhura had one first)
Google Glass
Portable memory (from floppy disks to USB sticks)
Focused ultrasound technology
Biometric data tracking for health and verifying identity
Automatic doors
Big screen displays
Real-time universal translators
Teleconferencing
VISOR bionic eyes for the blind
Diagnostic beds

There are a few technologies we’re still waiting for:

Warp drives/matter-antimatter power
Transporters (“Beam me up”)
A moneyless society
The Vulcan nerve pinch

Scientists, make it so.

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Could we really build Star Trek's USS Enterprise?

Just how close are scientists to building Star Trek’s U.S.S. Enterprise?

The USS Enterprise, one of the most famous spacecraft in science fiction

Travelling faster than the speed of light

Additional resources, bibliography.

Launched into space from the mind of creator Gene Roddenberry in the 1960s, the U.S.S Enterprise NCC-1701 was the very first Star Trek spacecraft to reach warp speed on television screens around the world. The time-travelling, ultra-fast and near-invisible "Constitution-class" starship was the most advanced spacecraft at the time of its launch in 2245.

Built-in space, the U.S.S Enterprise was a feat of fictional engineering. It’s estimated that the spacecraft would weigh around more than four million tonnes in weight and house a crew of 430. In comparison, the heaviest man-made object to venture into space is the International Space Station (ISS) , which has a mass of around 419 tonnes. However, China is reportedly researching the possibility of constructing a colossal spacecraft measuring up to 0.6 miles (0.96km) in length, the ISS is only 360 feet (110 meters) long.

Engineers still have 233 years until humankind reaches Roddenberry’s vision for space exploration and several scientific breakthroughs suggest that we might be heading towards a spaceship that’s reminiscent of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

As a Constitution-class Starfleet Federation starship, the main role of the Enterprise was to venture on intergalactic exploration and diplomatic missions. To assist them on their journeys of discovery, the Enterprise was equipped with an array of advanced scanners and sensors. Before descending upon foreign land, the crew aboard the Enterprise firstly flipped a few stitches and scanned the planet below for signs of life. It’s a pretty handy gadget to have when discovering new life, but one that seems unrealistic. However, scientists are one step closer to making the technology a reality.

Researchers have discovered that the biochemistry of all life forms interact with light in a way that inorganic or artificial materials don’t. For example, when light hits long chains of carbon molecules that make up amino acids (the building blocks of proteins ) it becomes circulatory polarized. This means it travels in either clockwise or anticlockwise spirals. Scientists could theoretically observe and identify this light interaction in the hopes of discovering new life forms from observatories of spacecraft, such as novel Enterprise or from future space-based telescopes, such as the Large UV Optical Infrared Surveyor ( LUVOIR ).

One of the most iconic abilities of the Enterprise is its ability to zip from one end of the galaxy to the next in mere moments, using its fictitious warp drive . Currently, humankind is nowhere near advanced enough to replicate the Enterprise’s warp drive. However, the theory behind building one has been around since the early 1990s.

To achieve speeds faster than the speed of light, physics’ natural speed limit, theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed that we must bend the fabric of space-time. Space-time can be imagined as a sheet of rubber on which all matter sits, creating dips in the rubber relative to their mass.

Alcubierre proposed that if space-time could be folded in front of a spaceship and then expanded behind it, the ship could travel much faster than the speed of light and achieve "warp speed". This bending of space-time would theoretically continue to move in a wave and act as a conveyor belt carrying the spaceship along it.

To achieve such space-time manipulation, Alcubierre suggested that an enormous amount of negative mass, a phenomenon rarely created in laboratories and seen as vacuum energy in space. The amount of negative mass needed to facilitate Alcubierre’s warp drive would have to be equivalent to the mass of a massive star distributed in a ring around a spacecraft. This hypothetical ring of negative mass would create a "warp bubble" which would distort space-time and transport any spacecraft within it.

Although Alcubierre’s theory required negative mass, recent research out of Göttingen University, Germany, offers a new area of physics for researchers to explore potentials for warp power. In 2021, Physicist Erik Lentz hypothesised that positive mass and energy could also provide the necessary requirements to construct a warp bubble. Instead of a solid ring of negative mass detailed in Alcubierre’s theory, Lentz proposes that layering rings and risks of extremely dense fluid, similar to the composition of a neutron star’s interior, would yield the same result.

With the ability to bend space-time, those inside of the warp bubble could travel through space faster than the speed of light without breaking any physical laws. For example, much like the ability to walk freely in the belly of an airplane, the warp bubble would theoretically also allow a spaceship and its crew to move around without feeling the effects of warp speed.

There are several questions that remain unanswered about building a real-life warp capable vessel, such as how to control it’s direction and distance, as well as how do you exit a warp bubble?

In Star Trek, however, to fuel their warp drive and create enough energy to bend space-time, the U.S.S Enterprise uses the annihilation reaction between matter, in the form of deuterium (a real-world isotope of hydrogen ), and antimatter, which is regulated by a fictional crystal called dilithium. The “electro-plasma” energy released from this reaction creates the necessary warp bubble to manipulate space-time and move.

The biggest hurdle to overcome in using annihilation reactions for energy is producing enough antimatter to power a warp drive.

One of Star Trek's most famous inventions is the teleporter

As the name suggests antimatter is a mirrored and opposing version of matter, for example, an electron has a negative charge so its antimatter partner has the same mass but an opposite positive charge, called a positron. In order to create antimatter, particle accelerators, such as the Large Hadron Collider, which fire particles at one another to release antimatter.

Star Trek: Latest News The Greatest Spaceships of Science Fiction 6 'Star Trek' Captains Ranked from Worst to Best

However, there are several physical issues with antimatter as a fuel source. First, the yield of its production is very low. For example, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) can only produce enough antimatter in an hour to power 1/1000 of a watt and therefore 100,000 Fermilabs would be required to power a single light bulb. Due to the fact that antimatter annihilates when it comes in contact with matter, storing it is near impossible as everything is made up of matter.

Despites these quantum woes, research into antimatter spacecrafts is still in development. One of the latest advancements in antimatter propulsion, is NASA’s proposal for a space probe that will travel all the way to our stellar neighbourhood Proxima Centauri, using an annihilation accelerator. But until scientists can successfully mass produce and store antimatter, powering a spacecraft that resembles the Enterprise remains firmly in the realm of imagination.

Keep up with the all the latest Star Trek news on the official site . Or if you wanted to see how the different USS Enterprises Rank, check out this article by Popular Mechanics or this one by Gizmodo .

Adam Mann: " Scientists are Building a Real Life Version of The Starship Enterprise's Life Scanner " LiveScience, 2019
Circular Spectropolarimetric Sensing of Vegetation in the Field: Possibilities for the Remote Detection of Extraterrestrial Life
International Space Station Facts and Figures
Deceleration of Interstellar Spacecraft Utilising Antimatter
Robert Gast " Star Trek's Warp Drive Leads to New Physics " Scientific American, 2021
https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/3240.html?id=6192
Matt Williams " What is the Alcubierre 'warp' drive? " Phys.org, 2017
Sarah Lewin; " Will Anti-Matter Engines Power the First Starships? " Space.com 2016
Spacecraft in a ‘warp bubble’ could travel faster than light, claims physicist - Physics World
Bill Andrews: " If Wormholes Really Existed Could We Travel Through Them? " The Verge, 2019
" Deflector shield envisioned for Mars mission " NBC News
" Measurements of galactic cosmic ray shielding with the CRaTER instrument " AGU
" Needed: Materials for 24th Century" , JOM 48 (6) (1996), pp. 14-16. Starships"
" Spaceships Made of Plastic Could Carry Us to Mars " Smithsonian Mag
" The Dxter Is A New Tricorder Sensor That Can Detect Various Medical Conditions " Strammer.com
" Quantum Teleportation Was Just Achieved With 90% Accuracy Over a 44km Distance " Science Alert

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Scott is a staff writer for How It Works magazine and has previously written for other science and knowledge outlets, including BBC Wildlife magazine, World of Animals magazine, Space.com and All About History magazine . Scott has a masters in science and environmental journalism and a bachelor's degree in conservation biology degree from the University of Lincoln in the U.K. During his academic and professional career, Scott has participated in several animal conservation projects, including English bird surveys, wolf monitoring in Germany and leopard tracking in South Africa.

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Could star trek replicators exist.

Experts break down what’s possible and what’s not for this sci-fi invention

a microwave-type machine has a cheeseburger inside it; the background is a purple and red starburst

It’s not quite a replicator, but maybe future space travelers will be able to 3-D print dinner on demand.

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The replicator’s superfast lasers convert incoming matter into energy. Then, they change it back into matter . “On a fundamental level, there is nothing that prevents you from building a replicator-like machine,” says Gianluca Sarri. He’s a quantum physicist who works with lasers at Queen’s University Belfast in the United Kingdom.

But a replicator is just not a top priority at the moment, he says. All that conversion of matter to energy back to matter again would require a lot of energy. Plus, there’s no way to currently make an object appear within seconds. What’s more: Right now food can be generated in a much simpler way — by cooking.

Let’s print a meal

For now, astronauts eat food sent up from Earth. To make sure they get the food they need, future space tourists and crews might rely on hydroponics — growing plants without soil. Cooking that food in space like you do at home might be an option. But it might not always be practical inside the tight fit of a spaceship. So spacefarers might instead print that meal with a 3-D printer.

Today’s 3-D printers are similar to regular printers, notes Jonathan Blutinger. Just as normal printers must be fed cartridges of ink, 3-D printers must be fed cartridges of printing material. Blutinger is a design engineer.

While at the Creative Machines Lab at Columbia University in New York City, he helped create a 3-D printer that acts like a digital chef. “The printer will not allow you to make something from nothing,” he says. “You need to start with the right base ingredients.”

Blutinger’s group recently started with ingredients for a “cake.” They put graham-cracker paste, strawberry jam, peanut butter, Nutella, cherry drizzle, banana puree and frosting into the food printer. The printer assembled and cooked the ingredients with lasers to make a slice of cake.

The cake tasted great, Blutinger says, but it was definitely a unique experience because the flavors came in “waves.” The group’s paper about the cake appeared March 21 in npj Science of Food .

a row of seven transparent upside down nozzles are full of different ingredients, such as Nutella (brown) and frosting (pink)

Appetizing or off-putting?

The 3-D printing robot chef can only assemble the ingredients it’s given and then add heat to cook the food. It cannot create foods from pure energy made from biowaste, like the fictional Star Wars replicator does. But people may not yet be comfortable eating even this relatively simple version of machine-made meals, Blutinger says.

Most people are comfortable with items like flour and peanut butter because we know where they come from. As science moves food away from the source, though, people could get grossed out. That 3-D printed cake might be easier for some to eat than 3-D printed meat, for instance. And people who did not grow up with 3-D printers in the kitchen might prefer food from the grocery store, Blutinger says.

“But pretty soon…kids will be growing up with these kinds of food robots in their kitchen,” he predicts. “Then that’s all they’re going to know.”

Macdonald agrees. “It’s just one of those things that people will have to come to terms with.”

a cake-shaped wedge of 3-D printed brown batter is being topped with pink frosting by a 3-D printing nozzle

Food printers might be on our kitchen counters within the next 10 to 20 years, Sarri says. These printers could be like “having a personal chef and nutritionist all in one,” Blutinger adds. The machine could someday recommend and create healthier food that’s customized to your diet.

A Star Trek replicator might be possible, but not nearly as soon, says Sarri — maybe 100 years down the line. Those replicators of the future could be useful in areas in beyond outer space. They could provide food in places where putting a chef might be dangerous, such as a war zone.

“There’s a feedback loop,” Macdonald says, “of scientists being inspired by Star Trek and then making that science. And then that continues to feed into the science fiction of, ‘Well this is what we can do now, so what’s next?’”

The next tech to materialize might just be a replicator.

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How Do Star Trek Stardates Actually Work?

T here are few handier delivery mechanisms for "Star Trek" exposition than a Captain's log entry, crucial Starfleet records that mark time with "stardates" — an enigmatic calendar system integrating decimals into each date. Although based on a real-world astronomical dating system, the Starfleet version doesn't make a ton of sense because it was never meant to, which is why the "Star Trek" timeline can seem confusing the deeper you dig into it.

As outlined in a 1967 "Star Trek" writer and director's guide, "The progression of stardates in your script should remain constant but don't worry about whether or not there is a progression from other scripts." Still, understanding the Julian date system can be a good starting point for those who care to try.

Speaking with The Space Review in 2019, "Star Trek: The Original Series" technical advisor Kellam de Forest explained that the futuristic calendar system was inspired by the Julian day — the solar day measurement used in the 365-day Julian solar dating system that predated the Gregorian calendar. Because the Julian day system creates a continued count of dates from the beginning of the Julian period, the ease of calculation between two dates without breaks has made it the preferred calendar for many scientific applications, including astronomical software. Julian dates are calculated by adding the Julian day — that is, the solar day since the beginning of the Julian calendar — and then adding a decimal point to indicate the fraction of the day that has passed since noon in Universal Time Code (UTC). Although the Julian date calculates days running into the millions, only the final five digits are commonly used by astronomers — and just four are used in "Star Trek."

Read more: Star Trek Stories That Are Actually Horrifying

Stardates Are Intentionally Difficult To Calculate

According to the "Star Trek" writer's guide, the Starfleet calendar system was invented to deemphasize the in-universe date. As the guide puts it, "We invented 'Stardate' to avoid continually mentioning Star Trek's century (actually, about two hundred years from now), and getting into arguments about whether this or that would have developed by then."

Speaking on the 1988 documentary "Inside Star Trek: The Real Story," de Forest emphasized that this almost wasn't the case since the original script contained dates from the Gregorian calendar. Upon reviewing the script, de Forest felt this didn't feel right for the future spacefaring society. As a solution, he pitched the Julian-inspired concept, which the tech advisor felt had a futuristic vibe thanks to its use of decimals.

While "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry liked the concept as a jumping-off point, his version was always meant to be a little esoteric, as Samuel A. Peeples, who wrote the second pilot for "Star Trek: The Original Series," recounted in "Gene Roddenberry: The Myth and Man Behind Star Trek." According to Peeples, "We tried to set up a system that would be unidentifiable unless you knew how we did it." Conceptualizing the revised stardate system over drinks, Roddenberry and Peeples took into account the weirdness of space and relative time, ultimately concluding that any date-related continuity errors in "Star Trek" could be chalked up to these issues. Or as the "Star Trek" writer's guide put it, "Stardates are a mathematical formula which varies depending on location in the galaxy, velocity of travel, and other factors, can vary widely from episode to episode." In other words, don't think too hard about it.

Read the original article on Looper

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Long-lost first model of the USS Enterprise from ‘Star Trek’ boldly goes home after twisting voyage

The first model of the USS Enterprise is displayed at Heritage Auctions in Los Angeles, April 13, 2024. The model — used in the original “Star Trek” television series — has been returned to Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, the son of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, decades after it went missing in the 1970s. (Josh David Jordan/Heritage Auctions via AP)

Joe Maddalena, executive vice president of Heritage Auctions, left, and Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, the son of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, shake hands over the recently recovered first model of the USS Enterprise at the Heritage Auctions in Los Angeles, April 13, 2024. The model — used in the original “Star Trek” television series — has been returned to Eugene, decades after it went missing in the 1970s. (Josh David Jordan/Heritage Auctions via AP)

Joe Maddalena, executive vice president of Heritage Auctions, left, and Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, the son of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, view the recently recovered first model of the USS Enterprise at Heritage Auctions in Los Angeles, April 13, 2024. The model — used in the original “Star Trek” television series — has been returned to Eugene, decades after it went missing in the 1970s. (Josh David Jordan/Heritage Auctions via AP)

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DALLAS (AP) — The first model of the USS Enterprise — used in the opening credits of the original “Star Trek” television series — has boldly gone back home, returning to creator Gene Roddenberry’s son decades after it went missing.

The model’s disappearance sometime in the 1970s had become the subject of lore, so it caused a stir when it popped up on eBay last fall. The sellers quickly took it down, and then contacted Dallas-based Heritage Auctions to authenticate it. Last weekend, the auction house facilitated the model’s return.

Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, CEO of Roddenberry Entertainment, said he’s thrilled to have the model that had graced the desk of his father, who died in 1991 at age 70.

“This is not going home to adorn my shelves,” Roddenberry said. “This is going to get restored and we’re working on ways to get it out so the public can see it and my hope is that it will land in a museum somewhere.”

AP AUDIO: Long-lost first model of the USS Enterprise from ‘Star Trek’ boldly goes home after twisting voyage.

AP correspondent Margie Szaroleta reports on the return of the original model of the USS Enterprise from the TV show “Star Trek.”

Heritage’s executive vice president, Joe Maddalena, said the auction house was contacted by people who said they’d discovered it a storage unit, and when it was brought into their Beverly Hills office, he and a colleague “instantly knew that it was the real thing.”

This combination of images fshows promotional art for the Hulu series "The Veil," left, the Hulu series "Welcome to Wrexham," center, and the comedy series "Hacks." (Hulu/Hulu/Max via AP)

They reached out to Roddenberry, who said he appreciates that everyone involved agreed returning the model was the right thing to do. He wouldn’t go into details on the agreement reached but said “I felt it important to reward that and show appreciation for that.”

Maddalena said the model vanished in the 1970s after Gene Roddenberry loaned it to makers of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” which was released in 1979.

“No one knew what happened to it,” Rod Roddenberry said.

The 3-foot (0.91-meter) model of the USS Enterprise was used in the show’s original pilot episode as well as the opening credits of the resulting TV series, and was the prototype for the 11-foot (3-meter) version featured in the series’ episodes. The larger model is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

The original “Star Trek” television series, which aired in the late 1960s, kicked off an ever-expanding multiverse of cultural phenomena, with TV and movie spinoffs and conventions where a fanbase of zealous and devoted Trekkies can’t get enough of memorabilia.

This USS Enterprise model would easily sell for more than $1 million at auction, but really “it’s priceless,” Maddalena said.

“It could sell for any amount and I wouldn’t be surprised because of what it is,” he said. “It is truly a cultural icon.”

Roddenberry, who was just a young boy when the model went missing, said he has spotty memories of it, “almost a deja vu.” He said it wasn’t something he’d thought much about until people began contacting him after it appeared on eBay.

“I don’t think I really, fully comprehended at first that this was the first Enterprise ever created,” he said.

He said he has no idea if there was something nefarious behind the disappearance all those decades ago or if it was just mistakenly lost, but it would be interesting to find out more about what happened.

“This piece is incredibly important and it has its own story and this would be a great piece of the story,” Roddenberry said.

Thankfully, he said, the discovery has cleared up one rumor: That it was destroyed because as a young boy, he’d thrown it into a pool.

“Finally I’m vindicated after all these years,” he said with a laugh.

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Published Jul 20, 2020

Introducing a Fully Functional Star Trek Tricorder

54 years in the making: the Tricorder replica that boldly goes where no other replica has gone before.

StarTrek.com

After an epic number of requests from Star Trek fans all over the world, The Wand Company can finally confirm that they are developing a fully-functional replica of the Tricorder prop from The Original Series .The Tricorder replica has been developed after years of extensive research, and meticulously designed using 3D scans of the last-remaining screen-used hero prop. Carefully chosen materials and manufacturing processes, accurately matching the prop and its original design intent, ensure that it will be the perfect companion to The Wand Company’s highly accurate Star Trek Phaser and Bluetooth® Communicator prop replicas, at last completing the Landing Party set.

Designed to work just like the fantasy version imagineered in the 1960s, with more than a little help from some 21st century technology, a full-colour LCD displays information stored in the Tricorder along with dynamic data gathered by its sensors and audio recording function. The Wand Company will reveal more details of the Tricorder’s functionality later this year.

With a target retail price of $250 USD, Star Trek fans can now look forward to measuring the environment, scanning radio frequencies, recording audio, impressing their friends, and enjoying the fact that they’ll own perhaps the most sophisticated prop replica ever designed and manufactured.The Tricorder will be available in summer 2021 directly from The Wand Company Shop, the official Star Trek Shop, and other selected terrestrial retailers. If fans want to be the first to hear about product updates and pre-order availability, they should register their interest The Wand Company's website.

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I Heard A Criticism About Star Trek Discovery That I Admittedly Don't Have An Answer For

As the series ends, I wrestle with this one.

Star Trek: Discovery is in its final season and, as I'm enjoying tuning in for the final episodes (accessible with a Paramount+ subscription ), I'm also looking back on the series' overall journey. Through various web searches I've seen lots of takes on the series that I've been aware of as well as a few I haven't seen before. While checking everything out, I was actually forced to confront a criticism that I admittedly don't have a clear answer for. And it's the fact that the series had a weird way of handling Michelle Yeoh 's "Mirror Georgiou."

It's a topic I feel is worth revisiting, given Michelle Yeoh will reprise her role for the an upcoming Trek movie , the highly anticpated Star Trek: Section 31 , which recently wrapped filming . Mirror Georgiou had a heavy presence in the first three seasons of the series, living publicly as the deceased Philippa Georgiou, and she was surprisingly treated as such. It was something I never thought was weird until now, and I have some thoughts on it.

What's The Issue Wth Star Trek: Discovery's Mirror Georgiou?

As an empress in the Terran universe, "Mirror Georgiou" enslaved and oversaw the murder of thousands of individuals if not more. Fans literally see her eat Kelpien, Saru's species, in Season 1. She's not a great person but, after being transferred to the Prime Universe and given a chance to be an asset in the Klingon war, she's given a chance to live a second life officially as her deceased counterpart.

While the character was officially re-introduced by Starfleet as Phillipa Georgiou and everyone in the know sworn to secrecy about the truth of her background, clues have slipped out in following seasons that more people know. Yet people tend to laugh off her threats and anger, as if she wasn't originally a murderous tyrant. Should we assume the characters set for the Section 31 film will act the same, or will operatives be a little colder than her Discovery shipmates?

Is Forgiving Georgiou More True To Star Trek Than Shunning Her?

Was Star Trek: Discovery wrong to write the crew's reaction to Georgiou the way it was? I don't have an answer for that, but it's worth noting that Starfleet regularly has to deal with species with laws and customs deemed unsavory by human standards. Hell, the Klingons are some of Starfleet's closest allies, and very little that they do when it comes to war would be considered humane.

Competent Starfleet officers must build up a resistance to judgment of things they don't understand, which could lend itself to more tolerance in dealing with Mirror Georgiou. Sure, she was a monster, but that monster is now a vital piece of the crew and helping Starfleet. Not everyone has to be happy with it, but they can perhaps compartmentalize it for the betterment of the regime.

Is Georgiou Redeemed Via Her Commitment To Starfleet?

As we prepare for Star Trek: Section 31 , which is confirmed to have a younger version of a Next Generation character , I can't help but wonder if the subject of Georgiou's redemption will come up. With Rachel Garrett in the mix, it seems unlikely that Georgiou will appear at a time when many of those who were previously aware of her Starfleet situation are still around. As such, her top-secret recorded record and true history may force her to prove she's worthy of a role in Section 31 and not better served with a life sentence in a penal colony.

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As someone who argues Darth Vader was never redeemed in Star Wars , I see a lot of parallels between him and Mirror Georgiou. Both were tyrants who had good acts but, for the most part, there's a real question on whether any of that negates the vast number of horrific deeds they committed. Hopefully, we'll get some real answers about this in the upcoming movie, and not just more of people treating her with kid gloves.

Star Trek: Discovery 's final season streams new episodes on Thursdays on Paramount+ as part of the 2024 TV schedule . Georgiou is not in the mix in the final season thus far but, even if we don't see her there, we can all look forward to a re-introduction in Star Trek: Section 31 .

Mick Joest is a Content Producer for CinemaBlend with his hand in an eclectic mix of television goodness. Star Trek is his main jam, but he also regularly reports on happenings in the world of Star Trek, WWE, Doctor Who, 90 Day Fiancé, Quantum Leap, and Big Brother. He graduated from the University of Southern Indiana with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Radio and Television. He's great at hosting panels and appearing on podcasts if given the chance as well.

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Balok was a male citizen of the First Federation , who was child-like in appearance. In 2266 , as captain of the Fesarius and the sole occupant of that vessel, he made first contact with the Federation .

2.1.1 Origins
2.1.2 Casting
2.1.3 Portrayal
2.1.4 Legacy
2.2 Apocrypha
2.3 External links

History [ ]

Balok encountered the USS Enterprise while it was midway through a star mapping mission. He used a puppet of a bluish, cat - eyed alien , that wavered and rippled on the Enterprise 's viewscreen , to fool the starship 's crew into believing the puppet was named Balok and was in control of the Fesarius . Balok apparently condemned the crew as warlike, because they had been forced to destroy a marker buoy , and repeatedly threatened them with the consequences, such as seemingly planning to destroy the Enterprise .

Balok sitting in his pilot vessel

After Balok's pilot vessel (a much smaller craft, launched from the Fesarius ) was damaged by the Enterprise and Captain James T. Kirk beamed aboard with a landing party that also included Doctor Leonard McCoy and Crewman Dave Bailey , the real Balok divulged the truth to his visitors; he revealed his use of the puppet and that the entire encounter had been an elaborate test of character and ethics. Balok was amused by having manipulated the Enterprise crew with the puppet, which he called " Mr. Hyde to my Jekyll ", and which he commonly used to frighten and intimidate others. He shared a drink of tranya with the landing party, and gave them a tour of his ship.

As the Fesarius had a crew of only one, Balok was the only representative of the First Federation encountered by Starfleet so far. He admitted he was lonely, so Kirk left Crewman Bailey with Balok, for an exchange of cultures and ideas. Balok gave all three visitors a tour of his small pilot vessel, before Kirk and McCoy departed. ( TOS : " The Corbomite Maneuver ")

Portrait of Balok's puppet

In 2381 , a framed photograph of Balok's puppet personae was among several others displayed on the walls of a bar on Starbase 25 . ( LD : " An Embarrassment Of Dooplers ")

Appendices [ ]

Background information [ ], origins [ ].

Balok was portrayed by Clint Howard and voiced by Walker Edmiston .

Originally (in an outline called "Danger Zone", from March 1966 ), Balok was an avian who initially told the Enterprise crew that he was the liaison officer of the Fesarius . Balok lost consciousness, but was saved by the Enterprise medical staff. Aboard the Enterprise at the end of the story, he revealed he was actually the commander of the Fesarius and shook Kirk's hand with his talons, in a friendly gesture . Before leaving the Enterprise , Balok extended an open invitation for Kirk and his officers to visit the Fesarius at any time. Balok was also described as having more attractive plumage than two of his subordinates, who were of the same species as him.

In the second draft outline of " The Corbomite Maneuver ", the character was portrayed as acting in much the same way. However, Balok was no longer an avian. Instead, he was described as a non-descript alien who was taller than his fellows and who shook hands with Kirk (though a question mark indicated that there was still some uncertainty as to whether Balok even had hands). Another change affecting Balok was the introduction of the concept of corbomite ; Balok was insistent that no such substance existed, though at the end of the story, he admitted he was unsure as to whether it did or not.

Jerry Sohl developed Balok further while trying to devise the conclusion to the episode "The Corbomite Maneuver". He later commented, " How the hell were they [the Enterprise crew] going to get out of this one? And then we added the fellow at the end, which was so much like the end of many of my novels, where a little kid is behind the whole thing. That tickled Gene Roddenberry . " ( Starlog #136, p. 69) This idea was first established in the third draft outline of "The Corbomite Maneuver", in which Balok was the only member of his species to appear – doing so only at the end of the story, using a puppet before that point – and was simply described as "a midget by Earth standards." The outline also related some uncertainty over whether he could smile . Also, rather than coming aboard the Enterprise at the end of the episode, Balok met Kirk, Spock, the doctor from the Enterprise and two of his aides onboard Balok's pilot vessel. Without shaking hands with Kirk, Balok revealed that he himself was the Fesarius ' commander, extended his open invitation for the Enterprise crew to visit the Fesarius , and admitted to being unsure if corbomite really existed.

In the first draft script of "The Corbomite Maneuver" (submitted in April 1966 ), Balok was described as "tiny by earth standards, almost childlike (a child actor), soft, warm, almost lovely in his tiny simplicity." In the final draft of the script (dated 3 May 1966 ), Balok was characterized as "a veritable child of a man, pudgy, soft-looking, warm and cuddly, wearing a robe of fine cloth, [...] smiling cherubically." The second revised final draft of the script (dated 20 May 1966) added to this description by commenting that Balok was to be "less than four feet tall." A later description in both the final draft and the second revised final draft stated, " Balok's voice, deep and commanding, belies his small stature. "

In a memo Robert H. Justman sent John D.F. Black (on 21 April 1966 ), Justman proposed that, rather than staying on his own ship and being visited there by officers from the Enterprise , Balok should come aboard the Enterprise at the end of the episode, a potentially cost-cutting but ultimately unrealized story point.

In the first draft and final draft of the teleplay for "The Corbomite Maneuver", Balok met only Kirk and McCoy from the Enterprise . In at least the final draft, though, he allowed them to contact Spock, who was on the bridge of the Enterprise . At one point in the same draft of the script, Balok reacted dismally to being asked what would have happened if they hadn't tried to save him. The scripted stage directions concerning Balok's gloomy response remarked, " The merest shadow of some of Balok's former fierceness plays over his small features and we get a glimpse of the strength that lies beneath. It passes. " All of these elements were excluded from the script by the time the second revised final draft of the teleplay was issued, that version also including Balok meeting Bailey and arranging for him to stay.

Casting [ ]

At first, the casting requirements for the role of Balok were different than they eventually became. In retrospect, Casting Director Joseph D'Agosta offered, " As I recall we had to get someone who could play young, but was an adult. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 27, No. 11/12, p. 60) This, though, was problematic. In the aforementioned memo Robert Justman wrote John D.F. Black (on 21 April 1966), Justman critiqued, " Although I like the conception of the character called Balok, there could be one drawback with regard to this. The part should be played by a midget or a dwarf. There aren't many actors with these physical characteristics who could handle the job. And certainly the few that are available are rather well known to our audience. "

NBC Manager of Film Programming Stan Robertson essentially came up with the notion of hiring two different actors to play Balok, with one of them voicing the part while the other's physical performance would be used. Robertson submitted this concept in a letter he wrote John D.F. Black (on 2 May 1966 ). However, Robertson's idea was actually to cast a large actor to appear as Balok's puppet, and the voice of "a smaller person" for that same role, then for the latter performer to appear as the real Balok in the episode's conclusion. Regarding the real Balok, he commented, " When we actually meet him in person, at this time we could see that he is a 'Michael Dunn' type person. Obviously, as you pointed out, we will be giving the whole thing away if we show Balok at the outset to be a 'Dunn' type character. " In fact, Michael Dunn himself eventually guest starred, two years later , in " Plato's Stepchildren ".

During a casting meeting for "The Corbomite Maneuver", much discussion was concentrated on how Balok, who was conceived as being three-and-a-half feet tall, should look. Multiple strange ideas were suggested and considered, in an effort to resolve this problem. After quietly listening to the proposed ideas, Gene Roddenberry finally commented, " I think if you cast anyone over seven years old, you're in trouble. " ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 348) Concerning the casting of a child actor to appear as Balok with an adult actor providing the character's voice, Richard Arnold , who worked as a research consultant for Roddenberry, commented, " Yeah, that was Gene pushing the envelope. It was the sort of thing that good science fiction did. " ("Inside the Roddenberry Vault, Part I", Star Trek: The Original Series - The Roddenberry Vault special features)

Clint Howard was found by Joe D'Agosta, who added, " I met Clint Howard through the agents as a type, a dwarf-like type. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 27, No. 11/12, p. 60) Howard himself explained, " The Star Trek audition entailed a lot of learning of dialogue, because although they eventually voiced my character, I learned the dialogue. " ("Inside the Roddenberry Vault, Part I", Star Trek: The Original Series - The Roddenberry Vault special features) The day after Gene Roddenberry advised casting an actor under the age of seven as Balok, D'Agosta brought Howard, who was then aged seven, onto the Desilu lot. He then auditioned for the role. ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 349) " I remember his interview as being kind of overwhelming, " D'Agosta admitted, " because he had the built-in cry-baby sneer on his face. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 27, No. 11/12, p. 60) Nonetheless, Howard was offered the role. ("Inside the Roddenberry Vault, Part I", Star Trek: The Original Series - The Roddenberry Vault special features) He was cast in the part immediately after auditioning. ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 349) Decades later, Howard commented, " The character of Balok, interesting character because of the way he would taunt the Enterprise , and then the choice of hiring a child, almost with a cherub face, with an adult voice, this kid face, having played this game of death poker with Captain Kirk, was an odd [but successful] choice. " ("Inside the Roddenberry Vault, Part I", Star Trek: The Original Series - The Roddenberry Vault special features)

A voice-over performer was additionally sought for the role of Balok. In a memo Robert Justman sent Gene Roddenberry (on 4 August 1966 ), Justman wrote, " I spoke last night with Joe D'Agosta with regard to bringing in some people to be interviewed for Looping Balok's voice in 'The Corbomite Maneuver'. It is important that we set this actor or actress as soon as possible, so that we can do the necessary looping this coming Tuesday morning, August 9 , 1966. This will enable us to take advantage of the Looping Stage, as we have to do other Loops for the show currently in progress that day anyway. We should have someone cast by Friday, or Monday at the latest. "

Portrayal [ ]

Clint Howard was originally asked if, to play Balok, he was willing to shave his hair off, but both he and his father said no. ( The Making of Star Trek , p. 349; These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One ) Decades later, Howard recalled, " Now, [that] wouldn't be an issue, but back then... hell, yeah, it was an issue! They went and put a bald cap on me. " ("Inside the Roddenberry Vault, Part I", Star Trek: The Original Series - The Roddenberry Vault special features) The make-up Howard wore for the role of Balok was designed to be minimal and inexpensive. The bald cap was premade from plastic by John Chambers . It was glued around Howard's hairline with spirit gum. Once dry, the bald cap's edges were dissolved with a little amount of acetone, making the seam between the cap and the actor's head nondistinguishable on camera. To establish the overall skin tone, a tan cream base was sponged over Howard's bald cap and face. As a final touch, a pair of extremely bushy eyebrows were also employed to exaggerate the actor's alien look. These bushy eyebrows, almost belying the character's childlike appearance, were hand-laid on the actor's face, then affixed with glue. The make-up made Balok look noticeably different from the Enterprise crewmembers, but was entirely non-threatening in comparison with his puppet. ( Star Trek: Aliens & Artifacts , p. 35) (Make-up test shots of Howard as Balok, from the Gene Roddenberry Collection at UCLA, can be seen here: [1] )

The scenes involving Clint Howard as Balok were shot on Wednesday 1 June 1966 . ( Information from "The Corbomite Maneuver" call sheets )

One challenge Clint Howard found with portraying Balok was having to drink the character's tranya, which – according to the actor – was grapefruit juice, a beverage he detested in his childhood. " I saw the guy pouring it from the carton, so I went over to my dad and said, 'Dad? Come on. I mean, [...] grapefruit juice makes me gag. Can you get them to change it to apple juice? I love apple juice.' And my dad said, 'We're not going to change it. Just think about this as an acting challenge. Drink it and just act like you really enjoy it' [....] Probably the most difficult acting I did back then was to drink that stuff, " Howard laughed. ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 115 , p. 65)

It was because Balok was meant to be an adult alien, despite having a childlike appearance, that Clint Howard's vocal track was deleted in post-production and the character was instead voiced by Walker Edmiston. ( Star Trek: The Original Series 365 , p. 34) Edmiston later recalled, " We'd tried a number of different things and then we just went to one of those very soft, child-like, ethereal vocals. It was more in timing and attitude than in voice. That's what's so important in creating a voice for creatures and all types of unearthly things. You have to analyze what it is, what they do, are they large, small, and what is the process behind them. And physically, of course, that makes a lot of difference as he had those big teeth and a weird little smile. " ( Starlog #58, p. 21)

Seeing Balok in "The Corbomite Maneuver" was one of Star Trek author David R. George III 's earliest memories of watching Star Trek . In his adulthood, he remarked, " I remember understanding that the alien whom the Enterprise crew encountered was not all that different from any human being – and not simply because it turned out that Balok actually appeared quite human, and not at all like his spooky doppelgänger – but because he lived and thought and felt in a recognizable way. I really think that helped form an empathy within me, an ability to see things from other people's points of view. " [2]

The fact Clint Howard appeared as Balok was referenced during an audition the actor later had, when he was about twenty-two or twenty-three years old, with renowned filmmakers George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola . Howard remembered, " [Lucas] looks at me and he goes, 'Commander Balok, Corbomite Maneuver .' " ( Star Trek Monthly issue 49 , pp. 50 & 51) Lucas' reference to the character was the first thing he said to Howard. ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 115 , p. 65) " It absolutely blew me away, " the actor recalled. ( Star Trek Monthly issue 49 , p. 51) In reply, Howard felt he wanted to yell at Lucas to "get a life." ( Star Trek: Communicator issue 115 , p. 65; Star Trek Monthly issue 49 , p. 51)

Clint Howard as an adult Balok

Clint Howard later reprised his role as a grown Balok as part of Comedy Central 's 2006 roast of William Shatner . In it, Howard portrayed Balok as being an alcoholic, addicted to tranya . As with the episode, Balok's voice was again dubbed in by another actor.

Apocrypha [ ]

In the Star Trek: Voyager short story "Ambassador at Large" from the anthology book Strange New Worlds , Balok explored the Alpha Quadrant with Bailey for around twenty years. After that, the two decided to continue their explorations into the Delta Quadrant . Their next contact with anyone from the Federation came in 2373 when Captain Kathryn Janeway and the crew of the USS Voyager rescued Bailey from the Mondasians. In gratitude, Balok escorted Captain Janeway on a tour of the Fesarius .

External links [ ]

Balok at StarTrek.com
Balok at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
2 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

'Star Trek: Picard's Michelle Hurd Says Raffi "Will Love Seven [Until] the End of Time"

Hurd also told the story of how Seven and Raffi's relationship became part of the series during a panel at Calgary Expo.

The Big Picture

At Calgary Expo, Michelle Hurd spoke in depth about the relationship between Seven and Raffi.
Hurd confirms Raffi's enduring love for Seven, hinting at a potential future in Star Trek: Legacy if Paramount+ greenlights the series.
The unexpected Seven and Raffi romance in Picard was sparked by the chemistry between the Hurd and Jeri Ryan at Comic-Con.

While many Star Trek: The Next Generation fans watched their dreams come true in the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard , Saffi fans were left wanting more. Having gotten together in the Season 1 finale and sharing a rocky, but ultimately happy relationship in Season 2, Saffi — or Seven and Raffi to those who may not know their 'ship moniker — went through an off-screen break-up ahead of the final season. While the split was never really directly addressed in the jam-packed season, it set both characters up to serve as the captain and first officer of the newly commissioned Enterprise-G in the series finale.

Speaking during a panel at Calgary Expo hosted by Collider's Maggie Lovitt , a fan asked Michelle Hurd about the break-up and the relationship's potential future in Star Trek: Legacy . Laughing, Hurd said, "[You say] break up and I've got my U-Haul." She went on to say that she and her co-star Jeri Ryan have discussed the relationship at length. "Jeri and I have also talked about this and I’ve said it to her many times. And I’m like, ‘You do understand that Raffi loves Seven, period. End of discussion.’ She will love Seven [until] the end of time. "

While that answer is about as straightforward as they come, Hurd went on to say, "The one thing that we also have to acknowledge is that Raffi loves Seven, that Fenris Ranger, that incredible creature, that amazing individual that stands in front of her. Raffi would never want to limit her or extinguish any of her beautiful flames . So, Raffi will always be happy with Seven in her vision." Even if the pair technically shouldn't be in a relationship while in command, "She wants Seven to be happy with Raffi in her eyesight, but she's perfectly happy to be in her space."

'Star Trek': Why the Captain/First Officer Ship Is So Irresistible

Hurd went on to say, "One of the things that we really wanted to tell [was] that story of two women of a certain age, who are stubborn, who are set in their patterns, who are living their lives as authentically as they can, who can't help but find each other. So with that, it's a beautiful thing, but it's a complicated thing. And so, I think that there's always going to be love there. " While we don't know if Legacy will get the green light yet at Paramount+ , if the spin-off does happen Hurd said:

"It would be an amazing thing to see that kind of dynamic, to see the respect that each other has to have for each other's space as well as, [some] jealousy[...] I think it would be a phenomenal story. So I can't say for sure whether there's going to be, you know, a white picket fence. But if you're asking Raffi, there’s a white picket fence"

How Saffi Became Part of the 'Star Trek: Picard' Season 1 Finale

During the panel, another fan spoke about being surprised by the handhold between Seven and Raffi in the Picard Season 1 finale and asked Hurd if the relationship was planned from the beginning or if it was added in later. While their romance wasn't always planned, Hurd explained that when she looked back at the first season there was an "appreciation" between Seven and Raffi from their first scenes together. She said: "I think that in that season, that episode where they're getting ready to go down to the planet, and I'm helping Seven and Raffi’s giving her [the handcuffs], you could tell that she respects her. So there was already some kind of appreciation between the two of them that moment ."

Hurd went on to tell the story of how at SDCC ahead of the first season, co-star Jonathan Del Arco happened to snap a picture of Hurd and Ryan dressed to the nines and immediately showed it to their producers. She told the Calgary Expo crowd:

"I believe it was at the San Diego Comic-Con, that same event, which was huge and fantastic. And they had a green room, a space where all the actors and everybody goes to get ready for whatever. And Jeri was in this fantastic red dress. She was absolutely gorgeous, and I was wearing a white Helston jumpsuit, so I didn't look too bad myself. And we’re friends, I adore her, and we were standing together and I kind of put my arm around her waist and I kind of gave her a squeeze. And Jonathan Del Arco, Hugh, [and] Jeri's manager is Jonathan's husband. So we're all friends, with Kyle [Fritz]. So Jonathan was standing over there, and he was like, ‘Oh my God, look at me.’ And so we both just looked at him and he took a picture. And then I swear to God, he took that camera, walked right over to our producers, Akiva Goldsman , Alex Kurtzman , [and] Michael Chabon . We’re all sitting right there, and he said, ‘You guys look at how big these two look together.’"

The rest was history as the producers immediately turned around and told Hurd and Ryan, "'Ladies, we have an idea,' and that’s how it started." While we wait to see if Hurd and Ryan will return on Star Trek: Legacy you can stream all three seasons of Picard on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Picard

Follow-up series to Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) that centers on Jean-Luc Picard in the next chapter of his life.

Watch on Paramount+

Screen Rant

8 sci-fi movie inventions ruined by real science.

Plenty of science fiction movies have presented fantastic technology which remains pure fiction, with actual science refuting its ability to exits.

Big-screen sci-fi gadgets like lightsabers and transporters are pure fantasy due to real-world physics limitations.
From shrinking tech to time travel, many sci-fi devices rely on impossible concepts like bypassing the laws of nature.
Holograms and cryogenic stasis may look cool in movies, but real-life science still has a long way to go to make them a reality.

Science fiction movies often encourage audiences to dream up technologies beyond their wildest dreams, making them seem realistic enough to be plausible, only to be bitterly disappointed by the limitations of real-world science. The most ambitious science fiction movies have presented a wide variety of settings, from the spacefaring fantasy worlds of Star Wars to the grounded realism of films like Arrival . As a result, the cutting-edge inventions presented by these films run the gamut of plausibility, with many being closer to magic than science.

The laws of physics are a definitive roadblock in the path of developing many of the most famous science fiction devices in the real world. Try though they might to explain away reality-defying objects with undiscovered materials, rare elements, or fictional applications of real-world physics, some of the most exciting ideas from the genre are doomed to never make it past the ideation stage, operating on assumptions about the natural world that simply can't be replicated in reality. No matter the technology level humans are able to one day achieve, some sci-fi gadgets will sadly manifest in the real world.

8 Lightsabers

The star wars series.

One of the most iconic movie weapons ever created, lightsabers need little introduction. The mythical weapons of both the legendary Jedi order and the insidious Sith, these blazing hot swords of pure light can slice through nearly anything in the Star Wars universe , barring specialty-made materials like Durasteel. Not only that, but they're also capable of deflecting bolts from energy-based blaster weapons, making them an impressive source of offense as well as defense. In the lore of the franchise, the lightsabers are powered by the mysterious Kyber crystals.

The lightsabers operate on different laws of physics than those in reality. Creating a powerful enough beam of light to cut through solid metal would result in a much longer, unwieldy weapon, not limited in its projection to a mere three feet. Even ignoring the issues regarding the lightsabers' power source, which would easily need to be connected to some kind of power-generating backpack with today's available technology, the ability of the weapons to physically clash with one another disobeys the properties of light. In reality, crossing lightsabers would simply pass through one another.

7 Transporters

The star trek series.

The only thing better than traveling at speeds surpassing light itself is the ability to near-instantly teleport, and plenty of science fiction films have put their own spin on the concept. Perhaps the most famous is the Transporter technology of the Star Trek series, activated by a remote operator at the behest of the classic phrase, " Beam me up, Scotty! " With its signature sound and colorful special effects, Transporters are some of the most iconic imagery of the legendary science fiction franchise, opening up the imagination to instantaneous planetside travel without the need of landing shuttles or orbital drop pods.

The issue with teleportation technology isn't so much the scientific possibility, but the philosophical concerns regarding teleporting a thinking human. It's actually not too outlandish to imagine the disintegration of physical objects into intangible data that can then be received at a different access point and reconstituted. In real life, scientists have succeeded in teleporting single photons . Yet there's no guarantee that if a human being were to use teleportation, their exact copy would retain any of their previous memories. Even if they did, the technical death and copying of a single person creates an uncomfortable "Ship of Theseus" problem.

The Dune series

Frank Herbert's Dune novels have been seeing an incredible resurgence in popularity thanks to Denis Villeneuve's excellent adaptations, introducing hordes of new fans to the far-out technology of the series for the first time. Dune: Part One and Dune: Part Two both feature some pretty unbelievable technology, such as prophetic psychoactive drugs and bullet-deflecting energy shields. However, one charming piece of iconic Fremen equipment, the Thumper, seems like a straightforward mechanical device -- Simply plant it in the sand, allow the pulses to travel, and wait for a giant sand worm to show up.

Unfortunately, even the humble Thumper seems to be outside the reach of believable technology, despite seeming like a simple mechanical device. As pointed out by pop-culture physicist Niel DeGrasse Tyson on Twitter following Dune: Part Two 's release, the idea of soundwaves traveling through sand in order to draw out a subterranean creature is impossible on any planet. Sand is an incredibly effective dampener of sound, meaning that even massive shockwaves sent through a desert wouldn't have much of an effect. The idea that the Shai-Hulud could hear across such vast distances underground is impossible to begin with.

5 Hyperdrives

Another unbelievable invention to spring from the mind of George Lucas, the Hyperdrives of Star Wars fame have less than a passing relationship with the real-world laws of physics. In the universe, Hyperdrives operate by propelling a spacefaring vessel to velocities greater than the speed of light, allowing them to enter the mysterious dimension of Hyperspace. In reality, the speed of light is a limit inherent to the laws of physics, meaning that it would take an infinite amount of energy for material objects to accelerate to the lightspeed, let alone surpass it.

The controversial Holdo Maneuver of Star Wars: The Last Jedi further complicates matters. Assuming that Hyperspace is an immaterial dimension that objects traveling faster than the speed of light quickly enter, they shouldn't be able to have an effect on the physical world. Otherwise, it makes no sense that the Star Wars series isn't filled with lightspeed weaponry being haphazardly fired across every naval battle between spaceships. Regardless, the premise of outspeeding light itself is in direct defiance of a proven universal constant.

4 Holograms

The star wars series, the star trek series, the mcu.

Holograms are one of the most iconic science fiction creations, being inherent to no single series. Popularized time and time again by Star Wars , Star Trek , and even Tony Stark in the Marvel Cinematic Universes , holograms present a far more futuristic idea for a user interface, interacting with technology with constructs of light that might even respond to human touch. Unfortunately, the real-world behavior of light particles once again rears its ugly head when it comes to the actual practicality of holograms.

Holograms do exist in a sense, infamously used by the musical talents of Hatsune Miku and the late Tupac. However, these projections are quite literally the work of smoke and mirrors, relying on optical illusions, meaning that true holograms are still a distant dream of sci-fi creators. In actuality, it would be impossible to establish a way for light to arbitrarily stop at a predetermined distance, meaning that any attempt at creating a hologram would quickly devolve into a standard projector screen. That's not even to mention the concept of being able to touch and move holograms around Tony Stark-style.

3 Shrinking

Honey, i shrunk the kids.

Shrinking technology has a flirtatious relationship with science fiction movies, showing up in places like the MCU's Ant-Man trilogy and the upcoming reboot of Honey, I Shrunk The Kids . There's even a strangely specific trope used in various TV shows regarding a situation in which characters are forced to undergo a fantastic voyage within the body of another character, typically with the aid of a shrinking submarine. It's fascinating to imagine exploring the world from a more diminutive point of view, allowing scientists to study natural phenomena like insects up close and personal, though the dangers would certainly be palpable.

Sadly, the concept of shrinking a living being down to size remains a distant dream of fantastical science fiction movies. Atoms are the basic building blocks of all matter, and to shrink an object, one would either have to be made out of less atoms or change the actual size of the atoms themselves, both of which present their own problems. In the case of the former, this could work with certain inorganic matter, but no living thing could survive the process. Otherwise, atoms are simply the smallest unit that physical matter can be subdivided into, with no exceptions.

2 Backwards Time Travel

The back to the future trilogy, the terminator series.

Time travel has long been the subject of fascination for science fiction movies, being a subgenre all of its own. From the Terminator franchise to the Back to the Future trilogy, each movie has its own rules for time travel. While time travel to the future could be theoretically possible, with movies like Interstellar exploring the delicate relationship high-speed travel and time have with one another, moving backwards is a scientific impossibility. Some versions of general relativity suggest that the necessary warping of spacetime time travel would require wouldn't allow potential voyagers to move backwards in the time stream.

One of the better episodes of Futurama, season 6, episode 7, " The Late Philip J. Fry ", played with this concept. Professor Farnsworth, Fry, and Bender all booking a one-way ticket to the distant future, comically witnessing the birth of a new universe identical to their own, allowing them to return to their own time in a roundabout sense. While it may be possible to step into the future, going backwards a la Marty McFly is a pure fantasy.

1 Cryogenic Stasis

Another way to time travel in a sense, the concept of cryogenic stasis has been played with in a great deal of science fiction films. Used most notably in the Alien franchise , the scantily-clad warrant officer Ellen Ripley begins the first film fresh out of a cryogenic stasis pod, allowing herself and the rest of her crew to endure the brutal distances of interstellar travel. In real life, the effects of such technology would extend far beyond one's legs falling asleep.

Freezing someone to wake them up at a later time is simple enough in concept -- After all, some real world frogs and insects use a similar form of hibernation to last through tough winters. Over such dramatic time periods, however, ice crystals would inevitably form between the very cells of the human body, wreaking havoc on the hapless sleeper. Additionally, the levels of glucose that creatures who use cryogenic stasis in real life use as a sort of biological antifreeze would easily kill a human being, making such techniques exist only in the realm of science fiction .

Buy Star Trek: Infinite

Packages that include this game, buy star trek: infinite - deluxe edition.

Includes 4 items: Star Trek: Infinite, Star Trek: Infinite - Designing the Galaxy, Star Trek: Infinite - Galactic Tracks, Star Trek: Infinite - Neutral Zone Tunes

Content For This Game Browse all (3)

“Star Trek: Infinite is a 4X grand strategy game that shares a lot of qualities with a good Star Trek episode: It’s cerebral, accessible, occasionally a little clumsy, and overall a good time.” Polygon “...If you’re a huge Trekkie and just happen to also like video games, Star Trek: Infinite will beam boatloads of fun right into your living room.” Video Games (Sports Illustrated) “This game is made for Star Trek fans through and through. From the well-crafted story elements to the small random easter egg events, there is something for those with various entry points into the fandom.” But Why Tho?

DELUXE EDITION

U.S.S. Cerritos & California -class Uniforms

Klingon voice pack, downloadable soundtrack, more star trek music, about this game.

Mature Content Description

The developers describe the content like this:

This Game may contain content not appropriate for all ages, or may not be appropriate for viewing at work: General Mature Content

System Requirements

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS *: Windows® 7 SP1 64 Bit
Processor: Intel® iCore™ i3-530 or AMD® FX-6350
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia® GeForce™ GTX 460 or AMD® ATI Radeon™ HD 5870 (1GB VRAM), or AMD® Radeon™ RX Vega 11 or Intel® HD Graphics 4600
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 15 GB available space
OS: Windows® 10 Home 64 Bit
Processor: Intel® iCore™ i5-3570K or AMD® Ryzen™ 5 2400G
Graphics: Nvidia® GeForce™ GTX 560 Ti (1GB VRAM) or AMD® Radeon™ R7 370 (2 GB VRAM)
DirectX: Version 12
OS: 10.11 (El Capitan)
Processor: Intel® iCore™ i5-4570S
Memory: 15 GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia® GeForce™ GT 750M or equivalent AMD® card with 1GB Vram
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 10 GB available space
OS: 10.13 (High Sierra)
Processor: Intel® iCore™ i5-4670
Graphics: Nvidia® GeForce™ GTX 780M with 4GB Vram or AMD® Radeon™ R7 370 (2 GB VRAM)

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Star Trek: Infinite on Steam
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