Gene Roddenberry: The Nostradamus of our time!

  Long before I discovered the Force and became the Library Jedi I was a massive Trekkie and still am (it is possible to be a fan of both)!!!!  I was and still am fascinated by all the gadgets and technology used in the Star Trek universe and that these days we see a lot of these gadgets and technology in our everyday lives. In a way Gene Roddenberry was a visionary when it came to Star Trek.  The series featured the first interracial kiss on TV (Plato’s Stepchildren), people of all nations and species working together; interactive computers; advanced medical scanners; the ability to travel to other planets in no time at all; phaser weapons, and mini communicators.  Back in June NASA released a concept picture of their warp drive space ship, funny enough called the Enterprise.  Thou this is still in it infancy NASA hope that it will be possible for mankind to leave our solar system by the end of this century.  But for other technologies we don’t have to wait that long, as many are already with us.  Here’s a list of some that are about today.

Hand held communicators or mobile phones as we know them have now been with us since the 80’s.  The first one’s to appear were the size of a brick but now days they small, slim and even bendy.

Portable computers.  We first had the lap top portable computer but these days we have tablets the size of a hard back book and as slim as a pencil even your mobile phone can do a lot of the things you can do on a computer.

Phaser.  The US army and Navy have developed a laser gun.  Thou not small enough to holster to your belt the US navy are beginning to do field tests on board one of their ships.

Hypo Spray. MIT have just come up with a needle-less injector.  Based on the way a mosquito pierces the skin, MIT’s hypo spray injects the drug much faster and with no pain!

Teleporters.  Thou we are still unable to teleport humans and equipment from place to place those clever scientists have developed a quantum teleporter.  This wont teleport you to the other side of the world in mere seconds but the technology will help make communication faster and more secure as well as being used in computers to make them much faster.

Holodeck.  The technology is not quite there were we can just walk into a room and find our selves in another place or a fantasy world but virtual reality is making a come back what with the advancements in technology.

Tractor beam.  Those clever scientists have been at it again.  Two New York university scientists have created a light beam that can control microscopic particles.

Tricorder.  Peter Jansen from McMaster University has recently built a working prototype that scans for magnetic fields and other interferences.

So did these ideas come to Gene Roddenberry in dreams when he created Star Trek or is it just that all these very clever people out there have been watching Star Trek and saying to them selves “actually I’ve got an idea how to make that work!”  Either way hopefully it wont be long before we are boldly going where no man has been before.

Check out the libraries collection of Star Trek DVD’s.  We have everything from the original series, Next Generation; Deep Space Nine; Voyager and all the original films.

Live Long and Prosper!