Star Date

What is it about this low-budget ratings disaster that we continue to find so compelling, now 40 years after its inauspicious debut? In my class this morning, we were talking about H.G. Wells and his bleak views of human development. The social historian in Wells' didn't see much in our future to look forward to, whether it be an underground society of cannibals or a civilization under the continual shadow of nuclear weaponry (Wells anticipated the use of atomic power for destructive purposes by nearly 25 years.). I'm using his novel, War of the Worlds, as the introductory text to a class I'm teaching on terrorism. Though many of his 1898 readers considered the existence of Martians a real possibility, his novel is more a critique of his government's colonialism than a gripping fantasy adventure (Spielberg updated this critique when he adapted the novel in 2005.).

Star Trek, like most science fiction, employs the fantastic as a means of examining the present day. Though its narrative techniques may now seem somewhat quaint (who can forget Kirk's visit to the Planet of the Nazis?), Trek's vision of the future was, unlike Wells', ultimately utopian: gleaming starships, racial harmony, and green-skinned babes. The unspoken assumption was that our future, our destiny, was one of exploration and education.

The best science-fiction program on television today paints a sterner, starker view of the human adventure, one in which the distinction between fighting your enemy, becoming your enemy, and creating your own enemy is, at best, fuzzy. But even in a terrorist age, Trek retains its mythic power. Students of mine who have never seen an episode know Kirk and Spock and recognize the Enterprise. The cynical side of me would say that this is due to unrelenting capitalist marketing, but this cannot entirely account for the presence of Star Trek in our cultural consciousness (Comedy Central roasts notwithstanding).

Though we may have far to go in terms of space exploration, our everyday existence is populated by Trek technology: the personal communicator, digital data storage, portable computers. Trek has become a kind of cultural mileage marker: "They had this on the Enterprise!" We congratulate ourselves for matching the imagination of Trek's underpaid writers, while mocking its outdated special effects.

Subsequent attempts to update the franchise have been increasingly cynical and, to my mind, inappropriate. Deep Space Nine was the last inspirational Trek series, but even it eventually devolved into a story of shiny warfare. But the original series, in all its polyester glory, still stands as a lovably hopeful portrayal of our future.

Today, one of the most complex machines ever built sits on a pad, awaiting a new opportunity to
carry its 1970s hardware into orbit. In a few years, we'll start work on a vehicle that will take us back to the moon. NASA workers, like the people who regularly attend Star Trek conventions, may be misguided, and are frequently criticized. But they have at least one thing in common, something I saw myself when I visited the Kennedy Space Center: when they walk out of a building, be it a convention center or Mission Control, they look up.

Happy 40th birthday, Star Trek. May we continue to outdate you.