Boldly Going for 50 Years Sidney Perkowitz Scans the Impacts of Star Trek on Science, Technology and Society
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The original crew of the USS Enterprise. SCIENCE FICTION Boldly going for 50 years Sidney Perkowitz scans the impacts of Star Trek on science, technology and society. alf a century ago, in September 1966, of galactic United Nations, is an advanced L73; 1994). This is not known to exist except the first episode of Star Trek aired society wielding advanced technology, and (possibly) in minuscule quantities; and some on the US television network NBC. the non-militaristic aims of the Enterprise are physicists speculate that the Alcubierre drive HNASA was still three years short of land- intoned at the beginning of every episode in might annihilate the destined star system. The CBS VIA GETTY ing people on the Moon, yet the innovative the original series (TOS): “To explore strange warp drive remains imaginary — for now. series was soon zipping viewers light years new worlds; to seek out new life and new civi- However, another application of warped beyond the Solar System every week. After lizations; to boldly go where no man [later, ‘no space-time in the series has been realized: a a few hiccups it gained cult status, along one’] has gone before.” cloaking device that shields spacecraft from with the inimitable crew of the starship USS Over the decades, Star Trek technologies view by bending light around them. In 2006, Enterprise, led by Captain James T. Kirk have fired the imaginations of physicists, electrical engineers David Smith and David (William Shatner). It went into syndication engineers and roboticists. Perhaps the most Schurig built a ‘metamaterial’ electromagnetic and spawned 6 television series up to 2005; intriguing innovation is the warp drive, cloak that hid an object from microwaves by there are now also 13 feature films, with Star the propulsion system that surrounds the refracting them to pass around it, much as Trek Beyond debuting in July this year. Enterprise with a bubble of distorted space- water flows around an obstacle (D. Schurig Part of Star Trek’s enduring magic is its time and moves the craft faster than light to et al. Science 314, 977–980; 2006). Now, simi- winning mix of twenty-third-century tech- traverse light years in days or weeks. In 1994, lar diversionary tactics are being used to hide nology and the recognizable diversity and theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre small objects under visible light, for instance complexity enshrined in the beings — human showed that such a bubble is possible within by electrical engineer Xingjie Ni and his col- and otherwise — created by the show’s origi- Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativ- leagues, who devised a “skin cloak” 80 nano- nator Gene Roddenberry and his writers. ity, but would demand massive amounts of metres thick to do the job (X. Ni et al. Science As Roddenberry put it, “We stress human- negative energy, also known as exotic mat- 349, 1310–1314; 2015). ity.” The series wore its ethics on its sleeve ter (M. Alcubierre Class. Quantum Grav. 11, The exotic Enterprise transporter, which at a time when the Vietnam War was rag- instantaneously dematerializes and teleports ing and anti-war protests were proliferating, SCIENCE. FICTION. people and things (inspiring the catchphrase along with racial tensions that culminated in A Nature special issue “Beam me up”), was supposedly conceived to major US urban riots in 1967–68. Rodden- nature.com/scifispecial save the costs of staging repeated spaceship berry’s United Federation of Planets, a kind landings. It has a real analogue in quantum ©2016 Mac millan Publishers Li mited, part of Spri nger Nature. Al8l r iSEPTEMBERghts reserved. 2016 | VOL 537 | NATURE | 165 COMMENT BOOKS & ARTS TREK TECHNOLOGIES The series’ futuristic technologies have inspired real-life innovations — some further advanced than others. A version of the warp drive that propelled the USS Enterprise faster than light (1) was proposed by physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994 (2), but remains conceptual. The diagnostic tricorder (3) has been realized in Scanadu’s SCOUT (4) and app, which measure vital signs such as blood pressure. to delight in difference, even in alien life- 1 2 forms, and ready itself to “meet the diversity that is almost certainly out there”. Star Trek’s portrayal of human diversity and refusal to engage in national exceptionalism remain landmark achievements. Emerging at a time of racial exclusion in US television, TOS crew included Lieutenant Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), the first prominent Afri- can American female role in a US television series, as well as the ‘pan-Asian’ helmsman Hikaru Sulu (George Takei), Russian navi- gator Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) — and, of course, Leonard Nimoy’s star turn as half- Vulcan Commander Spock. Native Ameri- can first officer Chakotay (Robert Beltran) 3 4 emerged in the series Voyager (1995–2001). The gender balance tended to the heavily teleportation. In 2015, for instance, quantum tethered to a computer, thus falling short of male until the advent of Voyager Captain optics researcher Hiroki Takesue and his col- delivering the seamless holodeck experience. Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), with half- leagues harnessed entanglement to send the Three-dimensional printers, which lay Klingon chief engineer B’Elanna Torres (His- properties of one photon to another over down successive layers of material to form panic actress Roxann Dawson). Real-world 100 kilometres of optical fibre (H. Takesue intricate shapes, are now being adapted to impacts abound. Nichols, for instance, has et al. Optica 2, 832–835; 2015). Above the handle food, perhaps a step towards Enter- related how US civil-rights leader Martin atomic level, however, we’re a long way from prise meal replicators. The Creative Machines Luther King urged her to remain in the series teleporting entire organisms or objects. Lab, then at Cornell University in Ithaca, New when she was considering other professional Other Star Trek technologies anticipated York, designed one model as part of its open- options. Her character, in turn, inspired astro- modern trends. The tricorder that TOS medic access Fab@Home naut Mae Jemison, the first African American Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy (DeForest Kelley) “Many young project, and Natu- woman to be sent into space by NASA. uses for diagnosis has spawned real devices, would-be ral Machines in Fifty years later, how does our world such as SCOUT from medical-technology scientists have Barcelona, Spain, compare with Roddenberry’s universe? company Scanadu in Moffett Field, Cali- found the series touts its Foodini The changes in technology are transfor- & M. RADEMAKER; 3: XPRIZE; 4: KIM KULISH/CORBIS VIA GETTY & M. RADEMAKER; 3: XPRIZE; 4: KIM KULISH/CORBIS fornia. Meanwhile, activity trackers already inspirational.” printer as simplify- mational; and although interstellar travel perform basic health monitoring, recording ing the making of has yet to become reality, NASA’s projected pulse rate, calorie intake and quality of sleep. textured or layered foods such as ravioli. 2030s human mission to Mars follows the 1: ILLUSTRATION: N. ACOSTA. STAR TREK IMAGERY: CBS-VIACOM; 2: H. WHITE CBS-VIACOM; TREK IMAGERY: STAR N. ACOSTA. 1: ILLUSTRATION: Artificial intelligence has begun to emerge More generally, and arguably with greater dream “to boldly go”. The progressive social in technologies such as speech recognition long-term significance, Star Trek raised values that Star Trek pioneered on television by Apple’s personal-assistant program Siri, enthusiasm for space exploration and sci- are now much more widely held. But new Google’s self-driving car and the ‘all-terrain’ ence. In 1975, fans convinced NASA to name conflicts and geopolitical stand-offs have Atlas robot created for the US Defense its first test space shuttle orbiter Enterprise erupted, despite efforts by our own federa- Advanced Research Projects Agency. All are (the craft was unpowered and never reached tion, the United Nations. Amid these shifts significant developments that could pave the space). And many young would-be scientists and tensions, this vastly influential fran- way to an eventual approximation of Lieu- have found the series inspirational. chise continues to carry a subtle but clear tenant Commander Data (Brent Spiner), the Its social message has been no less impor- message— we can be better than we are. ■ sentient android who debuted on television tant. The federation ethic ensured that Kirk, series The Next Generation in the late 1980s. Next Generation Captain Jean-Luc Picard Sidney Perkowitz (http://sidneyperkowitz. Star Trek’s holodeck — the immersive (Patrick Stewart) and their successors ‘waged net) is Charles Howard Candler Emeritus virtual-reality environment in which the peace’ even when confronted by aliens such Professor of Physics at Emory University Enterprise crew visits simulated locales — as the Klingons, a people genetically pre in Atlanta, Georgia. He writes frequently is also years away, but huge advances in the disposed to hostility. The February 1968 about science, technology and culture; his technology are afoot. The Oculus Rift head- episode ‘A Private Little War’, an allegory latest books are Universal Foam 2.0 and set, for instance, provides a visual and audi- about Vietnam, was a pointed example. Rod- Frankenstein 2018 (in progress). tory virtual-reality experience, but must be denberry believed that humanity must learn e-mail: [email protected] 166 | NATURE | VOL 537 | 8 SEPTEMBER©2016 M 2016ac millan Publishers Li mited, part of Spri nger Nature. All ri ghts reserved. .