The Influence of Star Trek on NASA
“Trekkies” or “Trekkers”, as some Star Trek fans prefer to be called, like to think of Star Trek as a groundbreaking program, not only in the world of television, but also in the world of NASA. In the decade spanning the late 1970s to the late 1980s, Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek’s Lieutenant Uhura, was employed by NASA to recruit new astronauts, many of whom were women and minorities. The success of her efforts was shown by recruits such as the first two African-American astronauts, Guion Bluford and Ron McNair, as well as Sally Ride, the first female American astronaut.
NASA scientists are working on Mach-Lorentz thrusters, based on Mach’s Principle and Hindrik Lorentz’s work, which will provide emission-free thrust power, reminiscent of the impulse engines powering the starships of Star Trek. Once a way is found to disperse the tremendous heat produced by the process, the future possibilities of this technology are tremendous. Previous work on “impulse engines” by NASA has focused on ion propulsion, utilizing ionized gas to provide power. This system is powered by xenon gas, which is ionized, given an electrical charge and accelerated to about 30 km/second, providing the thrust when expelled from the spacecraft. One university professor has said, “Only time and money separate the current state of rocket propulsion science from the engine rooms of Star Trek’s Starfleet.
Recently, NASA has reported that the planned SIM PlanetQuest mission, once it is successfully launched and orbiting, could possibly find Vulcan, home planet of the Starship Enterprise’s Mr. Spock. The SIM PlanetQuest mission was developed to find planets, some as small as the Earth, which could potentially be habitable. One of the nearby star systems to be examined for suitable planets is Eridani, about 16 light-years from Earth and having three stars in the system. Spock’s home planet might be orbiting one of the stars in the system, 40 Eridani A, a red-orange K dwarf star somewhat smaller and cooler than the sun. If this star were found to have habitable planets, one could possibly be considered “Vulcan.” Dr. Sean Raymond of the University of Colorado, Boulder, has said he sees no reason a planet about the size of the Earth couldn’t form around the primary star, given the great distances between the stars in this system.
The Terrestrial Planet Finder mission, to be sent out after PlanetQuest, could expand upon the discoveries of its predecessor by looking for signs of life such as methane and ozone. With NASA’s plans to explore the possibility of habitable planets, the famous words from Star Trek’s opening monologue, “to seek out new life and new civilizations” seem more timely than ever.
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 14th, 2007 at 10:15 am and is filed under Mission History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
