Website brings back memories

I happened upon an intriguing headline the other day. It read, “Engineer: Star Trek’s Enterprise ship could be built in 20 years at a cost of $1 trillion.” With the national debt hovering around $15 trillion, a mere $1 trillion spread out over the span of 20 years doesn’t seem quite that outrageous. Honestly, wouldn’t you rather spend that money on the chance to meet a real alien without having to go to Roswell, New Mexico? Wouldn’t you rather “boldly go where no man has gone before” than give money to rich folks for making poor business decisions as we did with all the bail-outs?
The engineer in question has a website, buildtheenterprise.org, that outlines his proposal. A quick scan reveals a well-thought out plan for accomplishing this.
For those non-Star Trek fans, the Enterprise is a fictional starship that explores the universe. My daughter refers to the show as being one that all old people like. She is wrong. I’m not old and not all people of my generation are fans of the show.
For me, the show was about possibilities. It was the first time I had seen women characters who were not wearing pearls and high heels while doing housework. The women on this show were essential to the operation of the ship.
Yes, Captain Kirk was known to be romantically involved with women of every race on almost every episode. Yes, the ship in the first series was commanded by a man and the men on the show were given more emphasis than the women. But, and this is important, the women were not window dressing. They had positions of power and in subsequent incarnations of the series, were even in command.
The crew was also multi-ethnic in a time when white men ruled the airwaves. They had a black woman, a Scot, an Asian, an alien and even the blue Andorians. At the time, it was almost inconceivable that people of different colors and backgrounds could get along. And anybody who was not seen as “us” was looked down upon. In this fictional world they really were all equals. What a revolutionary concept.
Many of the products that our children use today were first seen on the science fiction series. That Bluetooth headset that looks so strange to me looks a lot like the one worn by Lieutenant Uhura in the original series. Flip phones are similar to the communicator used by Captain Kirk. They are also prone to dropping calls, much like Captain Kirk’s communicator did. That big screen television in your living room and the Skype that is used to communicate with the grandkids is remarkably similar to the technology used by all Star Trek captains to communicate with those outside their ship.
The last time I went to the doctor the nurse took my temperature by rolling a device across my forehead and I immediately thought, “tricorder.” The tricorder on the series had multiple functions and one of its functions was to diagnose patients.
When Star Trek debuted in 1966, computers were very large and inhabited equally large temperature controlled rooms. But the computers on the series ranged from the ship-wide version to handheld readers that looked remarkably like today’s Kindle or iPad.
Then there are the phasers. They look like a label maker, but have the same effect as a Taser. As far as I know, Tasers don’t have multiple settings, (or make labels) but perhaps in the future they may.
I have no doubt that if we set our minds to it we can build the Enterprise. The mechanics of the process are within our reach. What will be far more challenging will be to build the world where everybody is valued for who they are. If we can’t get along peacefully on this blue planet of ours, what makes us think we could “. . . explore strange new worlds, . . .  seek out new life and new civilizations and boldly go where no man has gone before,” without blowing ourselves and everybody else to smithereens?
Star Trek portrayed an idealized world. Wouldn’t it be nice if it really did portray our future?[[In-content Ad]]