Star Trek Archives

April 2, 2013December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

NASA Trailer Achieves Crowdfunding Goal to Run Before Star Trek: Into Darkness

Here’s one bit of NASA outreach that won’t be affected by suspensions or sequesters: an edited version of “We Are The Explorers,” a video highlighting the past successes and future goals of the space administration — created by NASA and featuring an inspiring narration by Peter “Optimus Prime” Cullen — will be screened in several major U.S. cities during the premiere of Star Trek Into Darkness thanks to an overwhelmingly successful crowdfunding effort on Indiegogo.com.

Now that the initial goal of $33,000 has been met and the 30-second ad spot can be purchased, the team responsible for the campaign (Aerospace Industries Association of America) will use any funds donated during the next 29 days to reach its next target: getting the ad in at least one theater in every state in America for two weeks. In order for that to happen, a grand total of $94,000 will need to be reached.

Want to help make it so? Find out more about how you can contribute:

According to the Indiegogo campaign page, “If we raise our funding total to $94,000, students, young people, and the general public will see this video from coast to coast. This new goal will expand our reach from 59 movie theater screens to 750 screens!”

That means a lot more chances that the spot will run at the theater where you go to see the new Star Trek film when it comes out on May 17. (Because you know you’re going to go see it, let’s be honest. It’s Star Trek.)

And because it’s Indiegogo you’ll get a “perk” depending on the amount you contribute, ranging from digital copies of the final spot to DVD copies of the excellent HBO series “From Earth to the Moon” (while supplies last.) Because the initial goal has been met, some perks are already sold out… but then, contributing to something as important as space exploration isn’t about the stuff you get, it’s about the message you can give.

“This is more than a fundraiser, it’s a demonstration of support for space exploration programs. By donating to this campaign, you’re making a very powerful statement about the widespread enthusiam that exists for space programs. A crowdfunding campaign is the best vehicle to deliver this message. By reaching our goal, we not only enable a first-of-its-kind ad campaign, we also demonstrate that countless people support a strong space program that’s in development.”

You can contribute here, and be sure to spread the word too. That way, when you’re looking at the video on the big screen, when you see them putting Al Shepard’s gloves on, when you see the fiery exhaust of the Saturn rocket and you hear Cullen’s voice rumble “we are the explorers,” you can know that you helped make it happen — and that somewhere in that same theater a young mind may very well be inspired to continue the exploration.

Maybe that mind might even be be your own.

“Our next destination awaits. We don’t know what new discoveries lie ahead, but this is the very reason we must go.“

This crowdfunding campaign is the work of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) of America. This campaign is not endorsed by NASA nor is it conducted at their direction or request. Note: by donating you acknowledge that donations are not tax deductible.

March 4, 2013December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

How Do You Build a Holodeck?

Star Trek first officer William Riker steps into a simulated jungle on the USS Enterprise-D's holodeck. Credit: Paramount Pictures/CBS Studios, via Memory alpha

What would it be like to step in an ordinary room and feel a gentle, computer-generated jungle breeze, with trees swaying nearby that you could touch?

AMD, a micro processor manufacturer, is trying to figure that out. The company has been doing a conference circuit in recent weeks promoting its research in heterogeneous system architecture, which is essentially a method to bind parallel computing processes together for greater efficiency.

The “holy grail” of these efforts, according to AMD’s Phil Rogers, would be building something like the holodeck — the computer deck on Star Trek (notably in The Next Generation) where characters would play immersive games. They could dial up a mystery novel, for example, then find themselves in a seedy bar with virtual-yet-real-looking holograms in 1940s-style clothing.

Rogers, a corporate fellow at AMD, has spent years working in 3-D technologies. It’s only recently that the company felt comfortable enough to speculate about the holodeck, he says. Other entities are also working on holodeck-like technologies, such as Microsoft and Stony Brook University, so perhaps that helped.

AMD believes it could be only 10 to 15 years before a holodeck becomes real. What would it take to get there?

A better-than-Imax video experience. We hope you’ve had the experience of sitting back in a domed Imax theatre and watching the shuttle launch in Hubble 3-D. Yet despite the awesome wrap-around view, it doesn’t feel like reality. A holodeck would need 360-degree fidelity. It would need to understand that objects get closer when you step towards them, and further when you step away. Perspective must tilt as you move your head. “You inevitably have to combine multiple video feeds to do that and stitch them together seamlessly,” Rogers said.

The highest-fidelity audio ever. You know those people who swear that records produce better music than MP3s? “People are very much more fussy about video than audio,” Rogers points out. To make the holodeck feel real, the audio not only has to be immersive, but also directional and able to change as the person moves. The latest in surround-sound technologies doesn’t even close to that, he said.

The sensation of touch. Sure, Captain Jean-Luc Picard can slug a virtual villain in the head, but it wouldn’t have that same oomph unless Picard could feel his hand making contact with the other guy. “We still need to develop the tactile feedback, as somebody in a holodeck interacts with an object and another person they need to touch, and they need to feel that they touched,” Rogers said. “The most likely way that we’d do that is with targeted air jets, and transducers that haven’t been developed yet.”

Efficient memory allocation. While the blue screen of death in three dimensions would be rather epic, that’s not what holodeck designers want. The best way to keep the holodeck humming will be sharing memory between the central processing unit and the graphics processing unit, Rogers said. We’ve already made strides in this direction. Still, millions of parallel processes will have to happen simultaneously, so there’s quite a ways to go.

Lots of processing power. It will take mega computer juice to sync up the images, audio and other features that make the holodeck real. Remember that line in the movie Apollo 13 when Tom Hanks refers to the impressive computer “in a single room”? It’s laughable now when glancing at an iPhone, but we face a similar challenge now with holodecks. “The problem is it would take racks and racks of mainframe-like computers,” points out Rogers. A holodeck can’t be commercially available until the components fit to a small rack and draw small amounts of power.

Find paying customers. Naturally, a holodeck won’t happen without a captive market. We’ve had at least one petition asking the White House to build the Enterprise, but looks like that won’t happen anytime soon. Luckily for humanity, AMD has a backup. The firm believes business conference calls could really use a boost from holodeck-like technologies. Instead of having a talking head and a standard PowerPoint presentation, imagine how much more interesting the report would look if said person could, say, grab a virtual model of the solar system and spin it before your eyes.

Target the open-source community. For those people who want to channel their inner Wesley Crusher, AMD plans to leave at least some of the holodeck architecture open to amateur programmers. It’s hard to predict what computer languages will take hold at that time, but it would be the equivalent of letting somebody with C++ or Java experience into the hardware. Perhaps it will let you set your phasers to … whatever you choose.

February 7, 2013December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Captain Kirk Hails the Space Station

Screenshot from the Canadian Space Agency's live UStream webcast of the Hadfield/Shatner event.

Ah, the nerdy joys of living in the 21st century! Chris Hadfield, an astronaut on board the International Space Station and William Shatner, who portrayed someone in space, were able to talk to each other live. After Captain Kirk opened hailing frequencies, Hadfield replied — using some Star Trek sound effects. Needless to say, when science fiction and reality collide like this, it is an epic day in nerdom.

January 23, 2013December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

Don’t Tell Bones: Are We One Step Closer to “Beaming Up?”

It’s a crazy way to travel, spreading a man’s molecules all over the Universe…

While we’re still a very long way off from instantly transporting from ship to planet à la Star Trek, scientists are still relentlessly working on the type of quantum technologies that could one day make this sci-fi staple a possibility. Just recently, researchers at the University of Cambridge in the UK have reported ways to simplify the instantaneous transmission of quantum information using less “entanglement,” thereby making the process more efficient — as well as less error-prone.

(Because nobody wants a transporter mishap.)

In a paper titled Generalized teleportation and entanglement recycling, Cambridge researchers Sergii Strelchuk, Michal Horodecki and Jonathan Oppenheim investigate a couple of previously-developed protocols for quantum teleportation.

“Teleportation lies at the very heart of quantum information theory, being the pivotal primitive in a variety of tasks. Teleportation protocols are a way of sending an unknown quantum state from one party to another using a resource in the form of an entangled state shared between two parties, Alice and Bob, in advance. First, Alice performs a measurement on the state she wants to teleport and her part of the resource state, then she communicates the classical information to Bob. He applies the unitary operation conditioned on that information to obtain the teleported state.” (Strelchuk et al.)

In order for the teleportation to work, the process relies on entanglement — the remote connection between particles or individual bits of information regardless of the physical space separating them. This was what Einstein referred to as “spooky action at a distance.” But getting particles or information packets entangled is no simple task.

“Teleportation crucially depends on entanglement, which can be thought as a ‘fuel’ powering it,” Strelchuk said in an article on ABC Science. “This fuel… is hard to generate, store and replenish. Finding a way to use it sparingly, or, ideally, recycling it, makes teleportation potentially more usable.”

Read: Beam Me Up, Obama: Conspiracy Theory Claims President Teleported to Mars

Considering the sheer amount of information that makes up the also-difficult-to-determine state of a single object (in the case of a human, even simplistically speaking, about 10^28 kilobytes worth of data) you’re obviously going to want to keep the amount of entanglement fuel needed at a minimum.

Of course, we’re not saying we can teleport red-shirted security officers anywhere yet. But if.

Still, with a more efficient method to reduce — and even recycle — entanglement, Strelchuk and his team are bringing us a little closer to making quantum computing a reality. And it may very well take the power of a quantum computer to even make the physical teleportation of large-scale objects possible… once the technology becomes available.

“We are very excited to show that recycling works in theory, and hope that it will find future applications in areas such as quantum computation,” said Strelchuk. “Building a quantum computer is one of the great challenges of modern physics, and it is hoped that the new teleportation protocol will lead to advances in this area.”

(I’m sure Dr. McCoy would still remain skeptical.)

You can find the team’s full paper here (chock full of maths!) and read the article on ABC Science by Stephen Pincock here.

January 4, 2013December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

Captain Kirk Tweets the Space Station

Chris Hadfield’s response to William Shatner got quite a bit of attention on Twitter

You know that you’re living in a very special point in time when you can watch a man who became famous playing a starship captain on television send a tweet to a man who’s actually working in a spaceship orbiting the Earth — and get an amusing response back.

Which is exactly what happened earlier today when William Shatner got a reply from Chris Hadfield, currently part of the Expedition 34 crew aboard the ISS. For many people Shatner was the first starship captain remembered from TV in the late ’60s, and in a couple of months Chris Hadfield will become the first Canadian astronaut to assume command of the International Space Station.

(Shatner, by the way, is also from Canada. Hmm…maybe there’s something more going on here…)

December 6, 2012December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Star Trek Teaser: “Into Darkness” Trailer Released

James T. Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise will be back for a second pre-quel of the young original Enterprise crew with next summer’s “Star Trek Into Darkness.” From this new teaser trailer just released today, it certainly looks dark, with lots of explosions, fight scenes, women screaming, Chris Pine’s Kirk having omnipresent cuts on his face, and what looks like a starship falling into an ocean.

The description of the film on the IMDb website:

After the crew of the Enterprise find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction.

The bad guy (actor Benedict Cumberbatch) has a British accent (wasn’t that big in the 1960’s?) and rumors are starting to surface with Cumberbatch playing either a villain similar to the classic ‘Trek’ nemesis Gary Mitchell, who gains glassy eyes and superpowers and tries to take over the world in the second pilot episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before” for the 60’s TV series, or Khan, the genetically-engineered tyrant who first appeared in the original Trek TV series episode “Space Seed” but was killed in the “Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan” movie. So, in my mind, revisiting Khan would would cause the Trek world to get complicated.

But while the villain hasn’t yet been revealed, it is someone who “has returned,” so expect it to be a familiar name.

From the teaser, it appears all the main actors from the 2009 “Star Trek” film have returned, but does Spock have a new haircut?

A disclaimer: this was posted for all our Trek fans, so don’t complain that this isn’t space or astronomy news, because in our Trekkie minds it is space news.

August 15, 2012April 26, 2016 by Elizabeth Howell

Captains, Cylons and Wizard World Chicago

After years watching from the sidelines, I’m fast becoming a comic convention convert. It seems there is something at cons for every geek, whether you enjoy meeting celebrities, hearing illustrators talk about tricks of the trade, or browsing the show floor in search of posters, T-shirts and comic books.

This past weekend I briefly attended Chicago Comic Con Wizard World Convention, which typically draws tens of thousands of fans — including friends of the space genre, judging by the T-shirts surrounding me. I was there to line up for a brief photo op with three Star Trek captains (Kirk, Archer and Sisko), and I have to say my whole time there was a pleasant experience.

I’ve been to two other comic cons that were an organizational mess, with fans lining up for autographs and photo opportunities, waiting hours for late celebs. One con was so crowded that the fire marshall had to prevent people from coming in.

While I admittedly was at Wizard World at a slower time (Friday afternoon), the relaxed pace was a welcome change from other cons. Lineups were very short, allowing me time to have a quick chat with Dean Stockwell of Battlestar: Galactica fame. I also got a quick picture of him on my cell phone.

My favourite part of each con is looking at funny T-shirts and posters. Some of the jokes are rather obscure, but I usually can figure out what the space-related ones mean.

As for the Captains, they were there at the appointed hour. I had about 15 seconds for the photo op — just enough time to shake hands with Scott Bakula, agree with him that Chicago is a beautiful city, smile beside him and William Shatner and Avery Brooks, then scoot out of there to make way for the next person.

My goal is to meet all of the starring Star Trek captains. As of this con I’ve seen all but two. Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) actually was supposed to be at Wizard World, but had to back out due to another commitment. The other I’m looking for is the new Captain Kirk (Chris Pine). Guess I’ll be saving my money for next year.

All pictures by Elizabeth Howell.

Elizabeth Howell (M.Sc. Space Studies ’12) is a contributing editor for SpaceRef and award-winning space freelance journalist living in Ottawa, Canada. Her work has appeared in publications such as SPACE.com, Air & Space Smithsonian, Physics Today, the Globe and Mail, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., CTV and the Ottawa Business Journal.

July 30, 2012January 6, 2016 by Ken Kremer

Curiosity’s Grand Entrance with Star Trek’s William Shatner and Wil Wheaton – Video Duet

Video Caption: Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, actor William Shatner, guides viewers through the video titled, “Grand Entrance,” showing NASA’s Curiosity Mars Science Lab mission from atmospheroic entry through descent, and after landing on the Red Planet on August 6 2012.

As NASA engineers and scientists make final preparations for the Red Planet landing of NASA’s most difficult planetary science mission to date – the Curiosity Mars Science Lab – inside Gale Crater on the night of August 5/6, Star Trek actors William Shatner and Wil Wheaton lend their voices to a pair of new mission videos titled “Grand Entrance”

The video duet describes the thrilling story of how Curiosity will touch down on Mars and guides viewers through the nail biting “7 Minutes of Terror” – from entry into the Martian atmosphere at over 13,000 MPH and then how the rover must slow down through descent, set down for a soft and safe landing and ultimately how Curiosity will search for signs of life. Continue reading “Curiosity’s Grand Entrance with Star Trek’s William Shatner and Wil Wheaton – Video Duet”

July 30, 2012December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Red-Shirt Risk: How Likely Is It That You’ll Die?

Remember that moment in the movie Star Trek (2009) when James T. Kirk, Hikaru Sulu and the red-shirted Engineer Olson don spacesuits, and free-style plummet from orbit to a giant machine threatening the planet below?

For those who didn’t see it: We hate to ruin the surprise for you, but … Olson didn’t make it. It was an homage to an old joke stemming from Star Trek‘s original series (1966-69). In that show, anonymous crew members in red shirts frequently died to demonstrate how risky a certain voyage was to the main cast.

How statistically accurate is that assertion of red shirts dying more often than others? One Star Trek geek – who happens to deal in analytics for a living – put it to the test.

His analysis says 73% of deaths in that series were red-shirted crew members. If you’re gonna die, he adds, there’s a better-than-even chance that will happen if you’re a part of a landing party.

“Besides not getting involved in fights, which usually proved fatal, the crewmen could avoid beaming down to the planet’s surface, which is inherent to their end,” wrote Matt Bailey, president of SiteLogic, an online marketing consultancy based in Ohio.

So the answer is simple, it appears: Refuse to leave the spacecraft. But in Star Trek‘s military-like universe, it’s not that easy. “That could result in a court-martial for failure to obey orders,” Bailey added.

So it’s jail, or death. Quite the choice.

Bailey then continues his analysis on the best chances for red-shirt survival (hint: it has to do with Captain Kirk’s frequent romantic dalliances – which raises the survival rate by 84%) and how best to present the data on Star Trek deaths.

Bailey’s post is more than five years old, but still an entertaining read for Star Trek fans and statistics geeks alike.

Lead image courtesy of Star Trek Inspirational Posters.

June 5, 2012December 23, 2015 by Ken Kremer

Shuttle Enterprise Transits NYC Skyline on a Barge

NASA’s Space Shuttle Enterprise Transits the NYC Skyline on a Barge on June 3, 2012. Enterprise completed the first leg of a twp part watery journey to her new home at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. Credit: Ken Kremer

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On Sunday, June 3, throngs of New Yorkers, Jerseyites and more witnessed one of those ultra rare astronomical events – The Space Shuttle Enterprise’s Transit of the NYC Skyline !

NASA’s Space Shuttle Enterprise completed the first leg of her final voyage – a seagoing journey by barge from John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport across New York Harbor and to her final resting place at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum on the Hudson River on Manhattan’s West Side.

To prepare for the watery journey, Enterprise was hoisted by crane onto the Weeks Marine barge on Saturday, June 2. On Sunday, the barge with Enterprise firmly in place was moved by tugboat out of JFK and along the shores of Queens and Brooklyn. It passed by the Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge at about 3:30 p.m. and Coney Island at about 4:19 p.m.

NASA’s Space Shuttle Enterprise floats on a barge in front of the NYC Skyline on June 3, 2012. Pleasure craft sail nearby in New York Harbor. Credit: Ken Kremer

I watched Enterprise’s voyage with a big crowd of excited onlookers from a breathtaking north facing lookout on Staten Island towards southern Manhattan’s indelible skyscrapers.

Enterprise on a barge passes under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge as cars speed by on the bridge roadways above on June 3, 2012. Credit: Ken Kremer

At last the orbiter approached shortly after 5 p.m. along with a small flotilla of guard and guide ships. She passed gracefully under the gorgeous and lengthy span of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and past the humongous pylons, right on time at around 5:30 p.m. – as enormous Cruise Ships swarming with thousands of agog passengers steamed by the comparatively tiny space shuttle. Sailboats and pleasure craft also sailed close by for exquisite views.

Enterprise put on a fantastic, once-in-a-lifetime spectacle, enjoyed by the gathered multitudes all along the route and she sailed past Manhattan’s shore and skyscrapers and on towards the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

Ultimately, Enterprise docked late in the evening at Port Elizabeth, Bayonne, New Jersey – at a different location than had been announced – with a direct view of the Statue of Liberty and the southern tip of the gorgeous Manhattan skyline, home to the Freedom Tower currently in the final stages of construction and now the tallest building in New York City.

Enterprise on a barge passes under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge as huge Cruise ship steams by with passengers agog on June 3, 2012. Credit: Ken Kremer

Enterprise suffered some minor damage to the wing tip during the initial stages of the journey – see separate report.

Inclement NYC weather has postponed the second part of the two part barge journey to the Intrepid museum from Tuesday tentatively to Wednesday, June 6. Enterprise will again journey past the Statue of Liberty and then up the Hudson River to her new home at the Intrepid, where she will be hoisted by crane onto the flight deck of the aircraft carrier – when the weather safely allows.

Enterprise approaches the Statue of Liberty on June 3, 2012. Credit: Ken Kremer

Millions of gawkers watched as Enterprise arrived in New York on April 27, loaded on the back of NASA’s specially modified 747 Jumbo Jet for her very last flight from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum at Dulles International Airport.

Read more about the April 27 flyover arrival of Enterprise in NYC, in my article here:

The Enterprise was a prototype shuttle and the first of NASA’s Space Shuttles orbiters to be built and was used in landmark approach and landing tests that paved the way for the entire Shuttle fleet and the first shuttle launch in 1981 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Enterprise docked in Bayonne, New Jersey on June 3, 2012 in view of the Statue of Liberty. Inclement weather postpones final barge trip to the Intrepid until tentatively June 6.
Credit: Ken Kremer

Enterprise is named after the fictional starship in the world renowned and beloved TV science fiction series – “Star Trek”.

The Intrepid museum will open Enterprise to public viewing starting in mid- July.

Ken Kremer