Star Trek Influence Lives Long and Prospers

May 23, 2013

Academics, professionals and Star Trek fans are once again discussing the iconic franchise's influence on society, science, and technology, as the dazzling new sci-fi adventure Star Trek Into Darkness plays in theaters.

The starship Enterprise is well-known to viewers of the iconic Star Trek TV series and visitors to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, where the original model is on display in the gift shop. The fictional craft - whose long-running mission has been to explore the farthest reaches of "space, the final frontier" - even inspired the name of NASA's prototype space shuttle, said museum curator Margaret Weitekamp.

"Well, the very first space shuttle was actually named Enterprise as a result of a write-in campaign orchestrated by Star Trek fans of the 1970s," she explained.

Star Trek and Society

Weitekamp, who recently took part in a panel discussion at the museum about Star Trek's relevance, noted the television series began airing in the 1960s as women and minorities pressed for equal rights.

"Star Trek has been a really important vision not only of what future spaceflight could look like, but also a reflection of what the hopes were, especially in the 1960s, for what human society could look like," she said. "So, very importantly in 1966, it is a mixed-sex, racially integrated, multinational space crew that even includes an alien going out and really working together as equals."