Do you think Star Trek has hurt manned exploration efforts?

X · 2007-04-08 21:07:58

Not sure where to put this so I'll put it here. Maybe it isn't all Star Trek's fault but it is a good example I think of what I'm wondering about. Star Trek shows a utopian future where no one goes hungry, crime no longer exists, no one cares about money, or even has to work. Meanwhile there seems to be no real solution o any of these problems. Is it any wonder folks demand a perfect world before any money goes to manned space exploration?

C M Edwards · 2007-04-09 10:10:42

No, I have to defend Star Trek on this one.

Is it any wonder folks demand a perfect world before any money goes to manned space exploration?

Star Trek is not responsible for that part of the problem. As a group, people tend to be more focused on problems that are right in front of them. When asked to devote resources to something else, they will automatically ask, “Why not help with my problem first?” When they just don’t want convincing, “This is more important” or “We’re too busy” is a typical response. People got wrapped up in their own issues long before Star Trek, and they’ll get wrapped in their own issues up long after it’s gone.

However…

Star Trek shows a utopian future where no one goes hungry, crime no longer exists, no one cares about money, or even has to work. Meanwhile there seems to be no real solution o any of these problems.

It may surprise you to find that a lot of people disagree.

I’ll leave it to that series’s fans to set you straight about your claims regarding the absence of crime, money and deadbeats in the fictional Star Trek universe. (When not even Star Trek claims we can overcome a social problem, it’s time to resign ourselves and adapt.)

As for hunger and poverty, there is growing recognition that while the poor will always be with us, we do have a realistic chance to effectively eliminate starvation and squalor from the Earth with current resources.

The economics of tackling the problem are already fairly well laid out, and not all of it is theoretical. The World Bank, for example, is already implementing some very promising programs, including a lot of the necessary research that is still needed. The percent of international GDP necessary to implement the majority of these programs is from 1% to 3% of the national budgets of every participating developed nation, if we can only get a majority of the G8 onboard. That’s going to be difficult to arrange (the budgetary equivalent of trying to gear up an Apollo-Era NASA), but it’s within reach.

I know that many people remain convinced that eliminating squalor is too hard, but that is precisely why we should choose to do it. It presents just as great a challenge – technical and political – as space exploration, at an equivalent cost. It is just as much within our reach as the Moon was in 1961. No Star Trek necessary.

X · 2007-04-09 22:00:57

I know folks disagree with me, but I disagree with them. I think hunger is the only one of those that could really be solved, and even then the cost of feeding the last few folks would be much more than the value of the food.

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-04-12 14:07:56

I know folks disagree with me, but I disagree with them. I think hunger is the only one of those that could really be solved, and even then the cost of feeding the last few folks would be much more than the value of the food.

The reason people in the Third World starve is that the governments there are set up to plunder the public and enrich those in charge with public money while giving nothing back to society. Third World countries often lack social mobility, the laws are set up to protect the priviledged, not based on their value to the economy or what they can contribute to society but on their political relationships. The people in power don't want others rising from their station to compete with them, so its in their interests to see to it that other people don't have the opportunity to better themselves. The system is set up to reward people for who they are, not what they do. The particulars of each system often differ, sometimes they favor a particular religion, sometimes an artificially defined class, or it is a patronidge system base on loyalty to those in government by the enforcers as was communism. Governments are often overbearing and squetch individual initiative, and sometimes it is rule by the gun - if someone doesn't do something for the government, he ends up dead.

Capitalism basically takes the government off your back and changes societies problems into individual problems. The question gets turned from why are so many people poor to why am I poor, and how do I pull myself out of poverty. You can feed the poor, but they'll starve when you stop feeding them. The problem is not one of their being not enough food, but there being some people who cannot afford the food. Look any any third world country and you'll find an overbearing government that meddles where it shouldn't. Capitalism can grow a third world country out of poverty, but it takes time to do so. What ruins it is when government meddles and redistributes, this discourages investment and job creation.

I'm not terribly alarmed by predictions that global warming will cause drought, I think people are starving now, and the problem lies in the lack of ability to afford food due to inability to earn a living, a drought won't change this, but if people's incomes rise, they'll be able to afford to irrigate where necessary. Thye solution to global warming is often cited as more socialism, but more socialism will make more people poor and unable to afford food regardless of any beneficial effects it may have on precipitation rates. The amount of water on Earth remains constant.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-10-09 14:46:06

William Shatner: My Trip to Space Filled Me With ‘Overwhelming Sadness’ (EXCLUSIVE)

https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/willia … 235395113/

Everything I had thought was wrong. Everything I had expected to see was wrong.
I had thought that going into space would be the ultimate catharsis of that connection I had been looking for between all living things—that being up there would be the next beautiful step to understanding the harmony of the universe. In the film “Contact,” when Jodie Foster’s character goes to space and looks out into the heavens, she lets out an astonished whisper, “They should’ve sent a poet.” I had a different experience, because I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound.
It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna . . . things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.
I learned later that I was not alone in this feeling. It is called the “Overview Effect” and is not uncommon among astronauts, including Yuri Gagarin, Michael Collins, Sally Ride, and many others. Essentially, when someone travels to space and views Earth from orbit, a sense of the planet’s fragility takes hold in an ineffable, instinctive manner. Author Frank White first coined the term in 1987: “There are no borders or boundaries on our planet except those that we create in our minds or through human behaviors. All the ideas and concepts that divide us when we are on the surface begin to fade from orbit and the moon. The result is a shift in worldview, and in identity.”

SpaceNut · 2022-10-09 15:48:16

Rough ride going up and down in a matter of minutes rather than going fully to orbit...

Calliban · 2022-10-09 16:56:36

I don't think Star Trek has harmed manned spaceflight. But it did give the public some very unrealistic expectations.

The idea of using warp drive to zip around the galaxy at hundreds of times the speed of light, is quite impossible through any physics that we understand. It isn't just a case of it being difficult to build a ship that can do that. Physics is telling us that it isn't possible. In over a century of astronomy and experimentation, we have found litterally zero examples of any baryonic matter (or even the messenger particles of the forces between matter) exceeding C by even the tiniest fraction. There is not even the slightest hint that any kind of superluminal travel is in any way possible. Even gravity waves travel at the speed of light. This tells us that even spatial distortions cannot exceed C. When you find absolutely no natural examples of a phenomena, it is a very good indication that it is physically impossible.

There are plenty of other absurdities that were written into Star Trek as plot tools, that are quite impossible in real life. Teleporters, known in Star Trek as transporters. These supposedly work by converting a human being into energy and then turning them back into matter on the surface of a planet. This is absolutely impossible, for the same reason that we cannot reconstitute a tree from the ash and smoke that result from burning it. It is impossible to measure the state of all of the constituent atoms without destroying the original. And impossible to reconstitute it even if we had the data.

Finding humanoids in other star systems, who evolved independantly of homosapiens, is highly unlikely. We cannot even be sure that other life shares our exact biochemistry. There may be evolutionary pressures that just happen to favour certain outcomes. So it is possible that we may find aliens with a head, two eyes, a mouth, two arms, two legs, etc. But our early discoveries of exoplanets, are not encouraging from the viewpoint of finding intellugent extraterrestrial life. Our solar system appears to be relatively unusual.

Manned space travel for at least the next few centuries, will be confined to our solar system. The Expanse series probably provides a reasonably realistic picture of where humanity might be by 2300AD. Mars will be colonised and will by then have a population of at least 1 billion. It will be an independant power and I have no doubt that Earth and Mars will compete for control of the solar system. The moon will have a population of its own, but most activity there will be mining. Earth orbit will be home to billions of humans in O'Neill type colonies. The asteroids will support smaller and more isolated populations of humans. By 2300, the outer planet moons will probably boast colonies as well. Fusion will have been mastered by 2300. Mars will be partially terraformed with a thick but not breathable atmosphere. Some of the outer planet moons may have partial terraforming programnes as well.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-10-09 17:11:27)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-10-31 11:14:25

I think StarTrek ruined aliens, it could have done with more science and less magical fantasy technobabble and it made most aliens look human but with pointy ears or green or blue faces.

How Star Trek: Prodigy Is The Purest Trek Of The Modern Era, And Not Just ‘For Kids’
https://www.themovieblog.com/2023/10/ho … -for-kids/

The Relationship Between Science Fiction And Dystopia
https://www.jamiefosterscience.com/what … -dystopia/

“Your utopia is my dystopia." —Gordon Jack
A few weeks ago, we asked you to think about the best utopian science fiction books and series.
Now we're asking: Does such a thing even exist?
https://discoverscifi.com/top-10-best-utopian-sci-fi/

I agree Star Trek is mostly Utopia and I think I mostly disagree with the above article, Ecotopian might add elments of Solarpunk or retro Atompunk like Jetsons.

The Utopia idea is an imagined perfect or ideal society while Dystopia is dark, brooding, heavy on the individual freedoms, the direct opposite of utopia and refers to an imagined oppressive or hostile, more anti-utopia, gray and polluted, undesirable or frightening, horror stories or thrillers or Dystopian happen to sell better, Swiss Family Robinson Crusoe's cousins seem to be upbeat in our modern entertainment of gritty, bleak and dark.

William Shatner picks the 10 best sci-fi movies ever
https://www.thedigitalfix.com/william-s … ovies-ever

but how much can we complain about Star Trek aliens
not that we can agree on what is out there or on UFOs or Aliens

Skeptic Check: NASA UFO Study
https://www.seti.org/podcast/skeptic-ch … -ufo-study

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-10-31 11:15:14)

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#1 2007-04-08 21:07:58

Re: Do you think Star Trek has hurt manned exploration efforts?

#2 2007-04-09 10:10:42

Re: Do you think Star Trek has hurt manned exploration efforts?

#3 2007-04-09 22:00:57

Re: Do you think Star Trek has hurt manned exploration efforts?

#4 2007-04-12 14:07:56

Re: Do you think Star Trek has hurt manned exploration efforts?

#5 2022-10-09 14:46:06

Re: Do you think Star Trek has hurt manned exploration efforts?

#6 2022-10-09 15:48:16

Re: Do you think Star Trek has hurt manned exploration efforts?

#7 2022-10-09 16:56:36

Re: Do you think Star Trek has hurt manned exploration efforts?

#8 2023-10-31 11:14:25

Re: Do you think Star Trek has hurt manned exploration efforts?

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