Star Trek: Why The Future Is Bright
by Sam Atkins
NOTE: Tap or hover over images for captions and credits.
Spock (Leonard Nemoy) and Captian Kirk (Willima Shatner) stand in front of a model of the USS Enterprise. Image credit: Public domain
Today marks the 60th anniversary of the first episode of Star Trek to air in the United States. Gene Roddenberry’s franchise has since become one of the most influential pieces of science fiction in modern history. It offered a vision of humanity’s future that is quite different from what we see in a lot of science fiction today. Star Trek predicts that we will outgrow the divisions and hardships that defined our ancient origins. We will choose to unite as one people to share knowledge, look outward and explore the stars in peace and prosperity.
What makes Star Trek’s optimism feel so remarkable today is how unusual that kind of faith in the future can seem. Almost radical. We live in a time of extraordinary change and uncertainty. People are guarded and insulated. Trust feels fleeting and fragile. The frontiers of space seem distant and inconsequential when there are so many seemingly insurmountable problems here on Earth demanding our attention. You can just feel it out there, can’t you? The fear and hopelessness. We certainly have no shortage of things online to tell us what to be afraid of. But there are reasons not to lose hope. This moment is but only one moment in time. As all moments before, this too shall pass. If there is one thing that defines our era, it is how rapidly the world is changing. Before we barely have time to comprehend something new, it changes again. As we try to keep pace and adapt, we make decisions that will define our future.
That is why Star Trek’s optimism is important.
We are flawed beings. We misstep, we misinterpret, we miscalculate, we misjudge. But those flaws provide opportunities for us to learn and grow. Even when the original Star Trek series first aired in 1966, America was in the midst of all kinds of social unrest and political quagmires. It seems that in our darkest hours we reach for the best versions of ourselves. The beginnings of Star Trek’s universe didn’t begin with utopia either. In the 21st century, humanity was tearing each other apart in an apocalyptic world war. It was the majesty of scientific discovery that pulled us back from brink and showed us a new possibility. Warp drives were born from the very weapons of mass destruction that threatened our existence and now brought the stars directly into our reach. Matter replicators ushered in a post-scarcity society, no longer requiring the pursuit of money. The adoption of the Prime Directive, mandating non-interference in the development of other civilizations, was a self-aware acknowledgment of our flaws. It was a reminder to remain humble in our prosperity. We too once struggled to find our place in the universe. Hard lessons are not as soon forgotten.
For all our faults, humanity has proven time after time that we are capable of extraordinary things when we put our minds to it. Again and again, we have crossed barriers we once believed were impossible. We eradicated smallpox, we sequenced the human genome, we split the atom, we put people on the Moon. However, progress isn’t inevitable. It is a choice. As President Kennedy said in 1962, we chose to put people on the Moon. Then, for a while, we chose not to. The capability did not disappear. Our priorities changed. We choose what to prioritize every day and it’s never too late to find a better path. Even at the institutional level: we collectively have great power to steer our civilization in the right direction, whichever we decide that to be. It requires courage, conviction and wisdom, but we have all of the tools at our disposal. Perhaps we can go much further than the Moon. We can do more than just look at the stars. We can explore them. And if that seems impossible now, remember what Spock said: “We will do what we have always done, Jim. We will find hope in the impossible.”