Posts tagged star trek
Into Reality: Top Star Trek Warp Speed Concepts
J.J. Abrams’ second Star Trek outing “Into Darkness” will hit movie screens this week, no doubt packed with excitement, explosions, mind-melding Vulcans and phasers set to stun. But there will also be the USS Enterprise traveling faster than the speed of light, carving up the vast expanses of interstellar space as if it was a short jaunt to the shops.
Over the years, warping spacetime has become more than a sci-fi notion, however. Star Trek may have popularized the mode of space transportation with Captain Kirk at the helm in the 1960s original series, but today, there are some serious efforts underway to establish whether spacetime can be warped in a useful way. Could warpships really be the future of zippy space travel? Or should the very notion of warp speed be resigned to the darkness of interstellar space? Read more
Warp Speed: This Is What You’d Really See
What would you see if you approached the speed of light? If Star Trek and Star Wars are anything to go by, the stars in front of you will get bright and turn into streaks. There might even be some psychedelic fun with weird colors. And wormholes if you’re lucky. Forget the wormholes, we’ll talk about those later. Sadly, sci-fi is wrong. You’d actually see a bright blog surrounded by darkness. Don’t take my word for it, those spoilsport physicists have ruined our star trekking dreams again. Read more…
The Star Trek Crew (TNG), crocheted
WANT.
totally agree with Mr. W. Wheaton. want. also, it’s funny that worf is the only one not smiling.
Is Antimatter a Viable Starship Fuel?
Hope springs eternal for die-hard Star Trek fans that scientists will one day build an actual, working antimatter propulsion engine similar to the one that powers the fictional starship Enterprise.
A paper published earlier this year by a pair of enterprising (get it?) physicists should fan the flames of that fantasy even further. The results from their computer simulations indicate that at least one key component of realizing a working antimatter propulsion engine — highly efficient magnetic nozzles — should be far more efficient than previously thought. And such nozzles are feasible using today’s technologies.
Person 1: “That’s no moon, it’s a planet-vaporizing free satellite militarized carrier station.”
Person 2: “I think we’ll need a better name for it.”
Person 1: “How about the The Killer Komet! The Grey Glob! The Scheiße Satellite! The Planetary ANnihilating-Neutralizing Ball!”
Person 2: “Plan B?”
Person 1: “Yeah. PLAN B.”
Person 2: “No.”
Vaporizing Planets in the Name of Science
One sure-fire way to grab an audience’s attention is to vaporize a planet, amirite?
We saw the destruction of Vulcan in Star Trek, the end of Krypton in the Christopher Reeves-era Superman, and the Death Star vaporized Alderaan in Star Wars. Even in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams went all in, vaporizing the Earth right off the bat, all because an alien race known as the Vogons want to make way for a hyperspatial express route. All this destruction begs the question…
Star Trek Toys Boldly Go Into Stratosphere
Space. The final frontier. Lifelong Star Trek fan Logan Kugler might not have sent Enterprise captains Jean-Luc Picard and James Tiberius Kirk into space proper, but he did launch their action figure counterparts into the stratosphere last month as the culmination of a whimsical Kickstarter campaign.
Ian O’Neill on how Star Trek inspired him:
Through school, college and university, my life was rich in the sci-fi ideas of warp drives, photon torpedoes, the Prime Directive and Jean-Luc Picard’s famous line: “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.” The spirit of discovery and adventure inspired me to learn about what makes our Universe tick.
Unsurprisingly, on a daily basis I come across scientists who claim the same thing…
The Original U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701
In celebration of the 45th anniversary of the airing of the first episode of Star Trek: The Original Series aired in the U.S., we bring you a pic of the original Enterprise.
(By the way, that first episode was called the “Man Trap.”)
