NASA has announced that its scientists are working on an early version of a “Star Trek”-like main ship computer. It’s pretty interesting in its own right, but it also says something else.
If you think about it, probably the vast majority of scientists and engineers at NASA are, or have been, Trekkies. If you figure that anyone under the age of about 50 or 60 was in the prime demographic when Star Trek first aired in 1966, i.e. teenager, then you can be pretty sure that a lot of them were influenced in some way into becoming space scientists by the show. Or even some other scifi, like Star Wars, 2001, or the like.
So as they develop new technologies, it’s not surprising that they will be similar to those things that were first imagined for TV and that made them say, “Cool!” as kids. For example, there’s an old story that when engineers are Motorola were developing the first pocket-sized cell phones, they deliberately designed them as flip-phones so they’d look like Captain Kirk’s communicator. It’s an example of life imitating art.
Dom,
I’m sure that you meant “1969” above.
Good analysis!
Actually, I meant “1966”. But thanks for the error correction.
Error correction? It was September, 1966! Of course, I was three years from being born but am nonetheless a big fan! I did fact checking just in case and every page reported Star Trek starting in 1966.
It originally said “1996” and I changed it to “1966.” Such is the malleable nature of the internet that errors can be purged so easily.