STARDATE 1513.1: An Ongoing Mission
by Diamond Feit
Star Trek needs no introduction. Whether you've gorged yourself on its many incarnations or viewed the entire Trekkie phenomenon as unsettling, you're already familiar with Star Trek. You can probably name at least three Star Trek characters. You know they travel the cosmos in a spaceship and you have an image of that ship in your head right now.
Yet if we turn the clock back far enough, even Star Trek had a beginning. Speak to your elders and let them explain that for decades, Americans associated the name Enterprise with the U.S. Navy or renting a car. Show them a headshot of young Canadian actor William Shatner and they might recall his guest spot on Dr. Kildare or that Twilight Zone with the gremlin on the plane.
Sixty years ago on September 8, 1966, the National Broadcasting Company added a new program to their Friday night lineup. Helmed by an experienced TV writer/producer but starring a largely unknown cast, the premiere episode of Star Trek is hardly one of the series' best. However, it certainly delivers a decent overview of the show's potential and ends by revealing a most memorable alien creature.
The initial minute of \"The Man Trap\" welcomes viewers to Star Trek's vision of our future and introduces the show's most basic elements. We see a large spacecraft called the Enterprise approach a strange planet which an unseen man identifies as M-113 via a Captain's Log. We see three individuals observing said planet from the ship's bridge but the voice makes it clear that the man sitting in command\u2014Mister Spock\u2014is not the captain. Indeed, at first glance, he isn't even human.
When we do finally get to meet the ship's captain, he's materializing on the surface of M-113 out of thin air. Continuing his voiceover, the captain tells us that he's arrived on this desolate planet with \"ship's surgeon Doctor McCoy.\" A third man in their party goes unidentified. They're here to make contact with a lone archaeologist who lives and works alongside his wife; the captain tells us she's \"that one woman in Doctor McCoy's past\" to give us some additional stakes to this first scene.
In less than 60 seconds Star Trek tosses a ton of new information at the audience but softens the blow by delivering this exposition through cordial, easy-to-parse sentences. William Shatner's narration as the captain does most of the heavy lifting, naming the Enterprise, the planet, and multiple characters. He doesn't bother with any scientific jargon nor does he explain how he transports from his vessel to the planet; later scenes will handle that. For the moment, the shimmering special effects communicate that these people have access to incredible technology.
The colorful costumes on display supplement the captain's words as only he wears a golden uniform shirt; the others on screen sport either blue or red tops. Crucially, no one dresses in bulky astronaut gear nor does gravity present any problems. Everyone we see on board or on the planet carries themselves comfortably with nary a respirator or helmet in sight.
The glimpse we get of the staff on board the Enterprise tells us that they hail from a variety of backgrounds. The presence of a Black woman demonstrates that not only does the Enterprise feature a co-ed crew but an integrated one as well, a bold statement to make on American television in the 1960s. I'd wager that some viewers expressed more surprise at a Black woman on screen than they did an alien since he's clearly a white man wearing makeup.
Nancy Crater's entrance unveils the true conundrum of \"The Man Trap.\" McCoy gushes that she hasn't \"aged a day\" as the two lock eyes and hold hands. When she meets Captain Kirk, however, he (and we) see her with gray hairs that weren't there a moment earlier. The third man\u2014Crewman Darnell\u2014sees another woman entirely, one he claims to recognize from Wrigley's Pleasure Planet. Nancy pulls this trick more than once, changing her appearance based on which actors share the scene with her. After she steps outside to get her husband, she actively coaxes Darnell to follow her, and he obliges. It's the last decision he ever makes.
As Kirk and McCoy have a brief, brusque meeting with Professor Robert Crater, Nancy screams from outside, drawing attention to Darnell's dead body. She says he nibbled on dangerous local flora, some of which remains in his mouth. The info produced by McCoy's preliminary examination of Darnell only raises more questions: The doctor insists that poison didn't kill this man despite Nancy's eyewitness testimony and circumstantial evidence.
In fact, McCoy cannot determine any cause of death at all. \"According to all the tests he should just get up and walk away from here,\" says the doctor whilst waving his hands in frustration. The only clue thus far about Darnell's demise are the circular red marks on his face, a symptom not normally associated with alkaloid toxins.
Having established the broad strokes of Star Trek's general premise, \"The Man Trap\" switches gears into capturing and holding viewers' attention by focusing on human drama. McCoy's anxiety regarding his ex. Professor Crater's standoffish nature. A sudden death that looks accidental but quickly proves otherwise. Take away the starship in orbit and Mister Spock's pointed ears and this could be the plot of any number of purely terrestrial crime procedurals.
The only element of \"The Man Trap\" that remains fantastical is Nancy Crater, a woman who no two men view the same way. We soon learn that she has total control over her appearance when she assumes the form of another dead man, Crewman Green. What's more, the way she stands over his body, we can safely assume he died at her hands, even if we don't yet know how or why. We do get a second clue in that Professor Crater and Nancy keep asking for more salt tablets and McCoy found Darnell's body utterly drained of that compound.
Unfortunately, \"The Man Trap\" squanders the tension built up over its first 20 minutes by spinning its wheels for the next 20 minutes. As Kirk, Spock, and McCoy try to make sense of the situation, the audience gets to watch faux-Green return to the Enterprise and wander around the ship. They scheme on stealing salt from a lunchtray, change shape again to flirt with Lieutenant Uhura, then turn back into Nancy to plead with McCoy for shelter.
Even when a salt-free red-faced corpse turns up aboard the Enterprise, Kirk and Spock remain focused on tracking down and interrogating Professor Crater on the planet below, the one place we the viewers know the killer isn't. We do get a crash course in futuristic firepower as Crater tries to ward off his pursuers with a raygun, but Kirk successfully stuns Crater with a beam from his sidearm. Finally cornered and unable to hide or lie any longer, Crater admits that M-113's last indigenous life form killed Nancy and took her place.
For all its narrative failings, the final minutes of \"The Man Trap\" leave a lasting impression. In the doctor's quarters, Kirk confronts McCoy and \"Nancy\" with salt tablets in one hand and a weapon in the other. McCoy refuses to believe Kirk's allegations that Nancy isn't Nancy and as they argue, he disarms the captain. The creature uses this opportunity to lock onto Kirk telepathically, rendering him immobile.
As the creature positions its fingers on Kirk's face, Spock arrives and begs McCoy to shoot the creature. McCoy, still staring at the spitting image of his lost love, refuses to fire. Spock runs between the alien and Kirk and repeatedly strikes \"Nancy\" in the face with two-fisted blows, all while yelling to the doctor \"This is not Nancy! If she were Nancy, could she take this?\"
Not-Nancy backhands Spock across the room and moves in on Kirk for the kill. McCoy, at last realizing that his former paramour does not have the strength of a dozen men, sees through her disguise. He (and we) finally get a look at M-113's sole surviving native life form: A wrinkled humanoid with gray fur, green skin, a circular maw, and fingers covered in suction cups. The creature tries to feast on Kirk's salts, he screams, and McCoy pulls the trigger.
With decades of hindsight it's easy to point a finger and chuckle at network executives choosing \"The Man Trap\" as Star Trek's series premiere. Yet as first tastes go, it gets a lot of things right. There's no cumbersome lore dumps or complex terminology, the conflict is easy to understand, and the ultimate appearance of the Salt Vampire both shocks and entices viewers to tune in again next week.
\"The Man Trap\" is a Monster of the Week episode, one that pits our series regulars against a one-off threat that they resolve before flying away as the credits roll. Star Trek had plenty of such outings, but usually managed to slip in a moral quandary that vindicates our heroes for upholding their values. There's no such subtext here: Professor Crater argues that the creature simply seeks to feed and sustain itself but at no point does Kirk or even Spock seriously put forth a non-fatal solution for stopping the intruder. Crater's pleas that this intelligent being faces extinction fall on deaf ears.
Contrast this with \"The Devil in the Dark,\" another Star Trek Monster of the Week episode that aired six months later. When a non-humanoid lifeform starts killing miners at an underground facility, the Enterprise arrives to repair the damage and stop the attacks. For every cry to kill the alien, Spock protests on the basis that it would mean the end of its species, something he calls \"a crime against science\" which never comes up in \"The Man Trap.\"
These moral parables that disguise commentary on present-day social issues with far-out visions of green-skinned aliens are Star Trek's bread and butter. I won't pretend that every episode has a teachable moment; plenty of the Enterprise's adventures offer escapism and little else. Yet even bad Star Trek commits to telling stories about humanity regardless of how many non-humans appear on screen.
Consider the plight of Professor Crater in \"The Man Trap.\" He lives in isolation with his wife far from civilization. An extra-terrestrial\u2014alien to us but not on its own homeworld\u2014consumes Nancy's salts and kills her. Crater mourns his loss but also cognizes the creature as a sentient being that needs companionship just as much as it does sustenance. The two forge a new relationship and end up spending the rest of their lives together, till death do us part.
Star Trek quickly found its footing with multiple message episodes in its first season alone. \"The Evil Within\" and \"This Side of Paradise\" contend that even the best of us have a dark side and that struggle drives us to improve ourselves. \"Arena\" and \"A Taste of Armageddon\" decry the recklessness of warfare when peaceful relations should be every society's goal. \"Space Seed\" cautions against eugenics, a practice that still has its defenders in the present day despite over a century of rebuttals.
The Cold War and America's ongoing military operations in Vietnam fueled much of Star Trek's worldbuilding and advocacy for pacifism. \"Errand of Mercy\" introduced the Klingon Empire, a Soviet Union analog to rival the Enterprise and its United Federation of Planets. Like the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., Kirk and the Klingons seldom engage in direct combat, instead maneuvering against one another to gain allies and expand their influence across the galaxy. In \"A Private Little War,\" the two superpowers arm opposite factions on a primitive planet, a direct reference to our actions in Southeast Asia.
Star Trek frequently tackled bigotry and discrimination head-on, all while America's civil rights movement pushed for more legal protections from racism. \"Balance of Power\" has a bridge officer doubt Spock's loyalties when his physical similarities to the enemy Romulans becomes apparent. \"Patterns of Force\" features an entire planet modeled after Nazi Germany led by a well-meaning Earth historian; the populace embraces fascism and starts rounding up minorities just like their German counterparts. \"Let That Be Your Last Battlefield\" ditches subtlety for a pair of black-and-white aliens who hate one another because their pigments are reversed.
Star Trek had likeable characters, ambitious stories of mankind's future, and millions of fans. What it didn't have was good ratings; the show drew far fewer viewers than its contemporaries. A third-season shift to Friday nights at 10pm signaled the series' demise. The audience evaporated and NBC pulled the plug.
Yet unlike Daktari, The Felony Squad, Eye Guess, or a dozen other programs that left the airwaves in 1969, a series finale did not end Star Trek. Its 79-episode run flourished in syndication where old fans got to rewatch every outing and new fans discovered the joys of William Shatner's capital-A Acting. In January 1972 at least 3000 people turned up at \"Star Trek Lives!\" in New York City, the first of many conventions celebrating the show and the people who made it.
Star Trek revolutionized science fiction through its depiction of a united Earth that put aside their differences in order to explore the universe. That the show came about during the Space Race and signed off just six weeks before America landed on the moon stands as one of history's great ironies. However, fans who believed in the future that Star Trek envisioned remained steadfast, continuing to gather in the name of their favorite show and even leveraging their passion towards impacting actual space travel.
When NASA began construction of the first Space Shuttle, they received \"hundreds of thousands of letters\" requesting that they name the vessel Enterprise. NASA not only obliged, they invited the cast and show creator Gene Roddenberry to the vehicle's official rollout ceremony in 1976. NASA also hired Nichelle Nichols\u2014who portrayed Lt. Uhura\u2014to record a promotional film aimed at recruiting more diverse personnel. Astronaut Mae Jemison cited Star Trek and Lt. Uhura as motivating her to join NASA; she later made a cameo appearance on Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1993.
By the time I was born, Star Trek already existed in the past-tense. I fell in love with the show through reruns and from watching the original cast reunite on the big screen. I never fancied myself as an astronaut but my interest in science-fiction coupled with the real-life space shuttle convinced me people would live on the moon before I turned 50.
My big takeaway from the show was my admiration for Mister Spock and his commitment to logic. Even as the other characters occasionally teased him for favoring reason over emotion, I saw his behavior as aspirational. That might say a lot more about my personal struggles as a child but even today, I still like to think I approach most dilemmas rationally.
In the sixty years since the genesis of Star Trek, much has changed. Those 79 episodes spawned a franchise, one that celebrated its 20th anniversary with a laid-back movie about saving whales. On its 30th anniversary, both current Star Trek programs paid tribute to the original series with special crossovers. Yet on its 40th anniversary, nothing happened, because there was no Star Trek in production.
As Star Trek turns 60, all recent revivals have either run their course or announced their finales so there's more than a little uncertainty about what comes next. For all the floods and famines we've had over the past six decades, I do wonder what a Star Trek in our current nightmare society would even look like. How can a television show embrace optimism and diversity when our leaders hold those values in contempt?
On the other hand that might be the entire point of Star Trek: Anticipating a better future even when our present appears cooked. After all, if Gene Roddenberry saw law enforcement terrorizing citizens in the streets, civilians dying in a pointless war, and rampant discrimination against minorities and still thought humanity could survive, so can I.
Writer/podcaster/performer Diamond Feit has written professionally since 2009 and contributed to Retronauts since 2018. Look up feitclub on social media or visit Diamond's lofi website.
", "contentSnippet": "STARDATE 1513.1: An Ongoing Mission\nby Diamond Feit\nStar Trek needs no introduction. Whether you've gorged yourself on its many incarnations or viewed the entire Trekkie phenomenon as unsettling, you're already familiar with Star Trek. You can probably name at least three Star Trek characters. You know they travel the cosmos in a spaceship and you have an image of that ship in your head right now.\nYet if we turn the clock back far enough, even Star Trek had a beginning. Speak to your elders and let them explain that for decades, Americans associated the name Enterprise with the U.S. Navy or renting a car. Show them a headshot of young Canadian actor William Shatner and they might recall his guest spot on Dr. Kildare or that Twilight Zone with the gremlin on the plane.\nSixty years ago on September 8, 1966, the National Broadcasting Company added a new program to their Friday night lineup. Helmed by an experienced TV writer/producer but starring a largely unknown cast, the premiere episode of Star Trek is hardly one of the series' best. However, it certainly delivers a decent overview of the show's potential and ends by revealing a most memorable alien creature.\nThe initial minute of \"The Man Trap\" welcomes viewers to Star Trek's vision of our future and introduces the show's most basic elements. We see a large spacecraft called the Enterprise approach a strange planet which an unseen man identifies as M-113 via a Captain's Log. We see three individuals observing said planet from the ship's bridge but the voice makes it clear that the man sitting in command\u2014Mister Spock\u2014is not the captain. Indeed, at first glance, he isn't even human.\nWhen we do finally get to meet the ship's captain, he's materializing on the surface of M-113 out of thin air. Continuing his voiceover, the captain tells us that he's arrived on this desolate planet with \"ship's surgeon Doctor McCoy.\" A third man in their party goes unidentified. They're here to make contact with a lone archaeologist who lives and works alongside his wife; the captain tells us she's \"that one woman in Doctor McCoy's past\" to give us some additional stakes to this first scene.\nIn less than 60 seconds Star Trek tosses a ton of new information at the audience but softens the blow by delivering this exposition through cordial, easy-to-parse sentences. William Shatner's narration as the captain does most of the heavy lifting, naming the Enterprise, the planet, and multiple characters. He doesn't bother with any scientific jargon nor does he explain how he transports from his vessel to the planet; later scenes will handle that. For the moment, the shimmering special effects communicate that these people have access to incredible technology.\nThe colorful costumes on display supplement the captain's words as only he wears a golden uniform shirt; the others on screen sport either blue or red tops. Crucially, no one dresses in bulky astronaut gear nor does gravity present any problems. Everyone we see on board or on the planet carries themselves comfortably with nary a respirator or helmet in sight.\nThe glimpse we get of the staff on board the Enterprise tells us that they hail from a variety of backgrounds. The presence of a Black woman demonstrates that not only does the Enterprise feature a co-ed crew but an integrated one as well, a bold statement to make on American television in the 1960s. I'd wager that some viewers expressed more surprise at a Black woman on screen than they did an alien since he's clearly a white man wearing makeup.\nNancy Crater's entrance unveils the true conundrum of \"The Man Trap.\" McCoy gushes that she hasn't \"aged a day\" as the two lock eyes and hold hands. When she meets Captain Kirk, however, he (and we) see her with gray hairs that weren't there a moment earlier. The third man\u2014Crewman Darnell\u2014sees another woman entirely, one he claims to recognize from Wrigley's Pleasure Planet. Nancy pulls this trick more than once, changing her appearance based on which actors share the scene with her. After she steps outside to get her husband, she actively coaxes Darnell to follow her, and he obliges. It's the last decision he ever makes.\nAs Kirk and McCoy have a brief, brusque meeting with Professor Robert Crater, Nancy screams from outside, drawing attention to Darnell's dead body. She says he nibbled on dangerous local flora, some of which remains in his mouth. The info produced by McCoy's preliminary examination of Darnell only raises more questions: The doctor insists that poison didn't kill this man despite Nancy's eyewitness testimony and circumstantial evidence.\nIn fact, McCoy cannot determine any cause of death at all. \"According to all the tests he should just get up and walk away from here,\" says the doctor whilst waving his hands in frustration. The only clue thus far about Darnell's demise are the circular red marks on his face, a symptom not normally associated with alkaloid toxins.\nHaving established the broad strokes of Star Trek's general premise, \"The Man Trap\" switches gears into capturing and holding viewers' attention by focusing on human drama. McCoy's anxiety regarding his ex. Professor Crater's standoffish nature. A sudden death that looks accidental but quickly proves otherwise. Take away the starship in orbit and Mister Spock's pointed ears and this could be the plot of any number of purely terrestrial crime procedurals.\nThe only element of \"The Man Trap\" that remains fantastical is Nancy Crater, a woman who no two men view the same way. We soon learn that she has total control over her appearance when she assumes the form of another dead man, Crewman Green. What's more, the way she stands over his body, we can safely assume he died at her hands, even if we don't yet know how or why. We do get a second clue in that Professor Crater and Nancy keep asking for more salt tablets and McCoy found Darnell's body utterly drained of that compound.\nUnfortunately, \"The Man Trap\" squanders the tension built up over its first 20 minutes by spinning its wheels for the next 20 minutes. As Kirk, Spock, and McCoy try to make sense of the situation, the audience gets to watch faux-Green return to the Enterprise and wander around the ship. They scheme on stealing salt from a lunchtray, change shape again to flirt with Lieutenant Uhura, then turn back into Nancy to plead with McCoy for shelter.\nEven when a salt-free red-faced corpse turns up aboard the Enterprise, Kirk and Spock remain focused on tracking down and interrogating Professor Crater on the planet below, the one place we the viewers know the killer isn't. We do get a crash course in futuristic firepower as Crater tries to ward off his pursuers with a raygun, but Kirk successfully stuns Crater with a beam from his sidearm. Finally cornered and unable to hide or lie any longer, Crater admits that M-113's last indigenous life form killed Nancy and took her place.\nFor all its narrative failings, the final minutes of \"The Man Trap\" leave a lasting impression. In the doctor's quarters, Kirk confronts McCoy and \"Nancy\" with salt tablets in one hand and a weapon in the other. McCoy refuses to believe Kirk's allegations that Nancy isn't Nancy and as they argue, he disarms the captain. The creature uses this opportunity to lock onto Kirk telepathically, rendering him immobile.\nAs the creature positions its fingers on Kirk's face, Spock arrives and begs McCoy to shoot the creature. McCoy, still staring at the spitting image of his lost love, refuses to fire. Spock runs between the alien and Kirk and repeatedly strikes \"Nancy\" in the face with two-fisted blows, all while yelling to the doctor \"This is not Nancy! If she were Nancy, could she take this?\"\nNot-Nancy backhands Spock across the room and moves in on Kirk for the kill. McCoy, at last realizing that his former paramour does not have the strength of a dozen men, sees through her disguise. He (and we) finally get a look at M-113's sole surviving native life form: A wrinkled humanoid with gray fur, green skin, a circular maw, and fingers covered in suction cups. The creature tries to feast on Kirk's salts, he screams, and McCoy pulls the trigger.\nWith decades of hindsight it's easy to point a finger and chuckle at network executives choosing \"The Man Trap\" as Star Trek's series premiere. Yet as first tastes go, it gets a lot of things right. There's no cumbersome lore dumps or complex terminology, the conflict is easy to understand, and the ultimate appearance of the Salt Vampire both shocks and entices viewers to tune in again next week.\n\"The Man Trap\" is a Monster of the Week episode, one that pits our series regulars against a one-off threat that they resolve before flying away as the credits roll. Star Trek had plenty of such outings, but usually managed to slip in a moral quandary that vindicates our heroes for upholding their values. There's no such subtext here: Professor Crater argues that the creature simply seeks to feed and sustain itself but at no point does Kirk or even Spock seriously put forth a non-fatal solution for stopping the intruder. Crater's pleas that this intelligent being faces extinction fall on deaf ears.\nContrast this with \"The Devil in the Dark,\" another Star Trek Monster of the Week episode that aired six months later. When a non-humanoid lifeform starts killing miners at an underground facility, the Enterprise arrives to repair the damage and stop the attacks. For every cry to kill the alien, Spock protests on the basis that it would mean the end of its species, something he calls \"a crime against science\" which never comes up in \"The Man Trap.\"\nThese moral parables that disguise commentary on present-day social issues with far-out visions of green-skinned aliens are Star Trek's bread and butter. I won't pretend that every episode has a teachable moment; plenty of the Enterprise's adventures offer escapism and little else. Yet even bad Star Trek commits to telling stories about humanity regardless of how many non-humans appear on screen.\nConsider the plight of Professor Crater in \"The Man Trap.\" He lives in isolation with his wife far from civilization. An extra-terrestrial\u2014alien to us but not on its own homeworld\u2014consumes Nancy's salts and kills her. Crater mourns his loss but also cognizes the creature as a sentient being that needs companionship just as much as it does sustenance. The two forge a new relationship and end up spending the rest of their lives together, till death do us part.\nStar Trek quickly found its footing with multiple message episodes in its first season alone. \"The Evil Within\" and \"This Side of Paradise\" contend that even the best of us have a dark side and that struggle drives us to improve ourselves. \"Arena\" and \"A Taste of Armageddon\" decry the recklessness of warfare when peaceful relations should be every society's goal. \"Space Seed\" cautions against eugenics, a practice that still has its defenders in the present day despite over a century of rebuttals.\nThe Cold War and America's ongoing military operations in Vietnam fueled much of Star Trek's worldbuilding and advocacy for pacifism. \"Errand of Mercy\" introduced the Klingon Empire, a Soviet Union analog to rival the Enterprise and its United Federation of Planets. Like the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., Kirk and the Klingons seldom engage in direct combat, instead maneuvering against one another to gain allies and expand their influence across the galaxy. In \"A Private Little War,\" the two superpowers arm opposite factions on a primitive planet, a direct reference to our actions in Southeast Asia.\nStar Trek frequently tackled bigotry and discrimination head-on, all while America's civil rights movement pushed for more legal protections from racism. \"Balance of Power\" has a bridge officer doubt Spock's loyalties when his physical similarities to the enemy Romulans becomes apparent. \"Patterns of Force\" features an entire planet modeled after Nazi Germany led by a well-meaning Earth historian; the populace embraces fascism and starts rounding up minorities just like their German counterparts. \"Let That Be Your Last Battlefield\" ditches subtlety for a pair of black-and-white aliens who hate one another because their pigments are reversed.\nStar Trek had likeable characters, ambitious stories of mankind's future, and millions of fans. What it didn't have was good ratings; the show drew far fewer viewers than its contemporaries. A third-season shift to Friday nights at 10pm signaled the series' demise. The audience evaporated and NBC pulled the plug.\nYet unlike Daktari, The Felony Squad, Eye Guess, or a dozen other programs that left the airwaves in 1969, a series finale did not end Star Trek. Its 79-episode run flourished in syndication where old fans got to rewatch every outing and new fans discovered the joys of William Shatner's capital-A Acting. In January 1972 at least 3000 people turned up at \"Star Trek Lives!\" in New York City, the first of many conventions celebrating the show and the people who made it.\nStar Trek revolutionized science fiction through its depiction of a united Earth that put aside their differences in order to explore the universe. That the show came about during the Space Race and signed off just six weeks before America landed on the moon stands as one of history's great ironies. However, fans who believed in the future that Star Trek envisioned remained steadfast, continuing to gather in the name of their favorite show and even leveraging their passion towards impacting actual space travel.\nWhen NASA began construction of the first Space Shuttle, they received \"hundreds of thousands of letters\" requesting that they name the vessel Enterprise. NASA not only obliged, they invited the cast and show creator Gene Roddenberry to the vehicle's official rollout ceremony in 1976. NASA also hired Nichelle Nichols\u2014who portrayed Lt. Uhura\u2014to record a promotional film aimed at recruiting more diverse personnel. Astronaut Mae Jemison cited Star Trek and Lt. Uhura as motivating her to join NASA; she later made a cameo appearance on Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1993.\nBy the time I was born, Star Trek already existed in the past-tense. I fell in love with the show through reruns and from watching the original cast reunite on the big screen. I never fancied myself as an astronaut but my interest in science-fiction coupled with the real-life space shuttle convinced me people would live on the moon before I turned 50.\nMy big takeaway from the show was my admiration for Mister Spock and his commitment to logic. Even as the other characters occasionally teased him for favoring reason over emotion, I saw his behavior as aspirational. That might say a lot more about my personal struggles as a child but even today, I still like to think I approach most dilemmas rationally.\nIn the sixty years since the genesis of Star Trek, much has changed. Those 79 episodes spawned a franchise, one that celebrated its 20th anniversary with a laid-back movie about saving whales. On its 30th anniversary, both current Star Trek programs paid tribute to the original series with special crossovers. Yet on its 40th anniversary, nothing happened, because there was no Star Trek in production.\nAs Star Trek turns 60, all recent revivals have either run their course or announced their finales so there's more than a little uncertainty about what comes next. For all the floods and famines we've had over the past six decades, I do wonder what a Star Trek in our current nightmare society would even look like. How can a television show embrace optimism and diversity when our leaders hold those values in contempt?\nOn the other hand that might be the entire point of Star Trek: Anticipating a better future even when our present appears cooked. After all, if Gene Roddenberry saw law enforcement terrorizing citizens in the streets, civilians dying in a pointless war, and rampant discrimination against minorities and still thought humanity could survive, so can I.\nWriter/podcaster/performer Diamond Feit has written professionally since 2009 and contributed to Retronauts since 2018. 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