We have boldly gone where no one has gone before. The original Star Trek series promised that we'd have certain technologies by the late 2200s. Well, not only is the technology better looking, it's here today.
Who can forget staying up late at night and watching Star Trek: The Original Series reruns? Some of us remember the show airing in prime time. Some viewers were inspired by the enlightenment of the human race in the future, or our ability to move beyond our differences and embrace our diversity to solve the problems of the world, like famine or disease.
And some of us just loved the gadgets.
Here are some of the technology that the original Star Trek series promised us for the late 2200s:
- Palm-sized, wireless communication devices
- Video phones
- Wall-mounted flat-panel video screens
- Flat screen, thin computer monitors
- Access to vast amounts of information at the touch of a button
- Universal Translators
- Needle-free injections
- Blade-free surgery
- Non-intrusive scanning devices
- Light-speed travel
- Teleportation devices
Guess what? This stuff is here today. Ok, we don't teleport humans, but we have teleported other stuff! Below is a synopsis of some ST:TOS technology that's here today.
In the late 1960s, when ST:TOS was first aired, the only existing computers were owned by governments and large companies. They were never thought to be a tool used at home.
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ST:TOS - Crew gathers for
a briefing.
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In the Star Trek show, the ship computers were able to access all the information Starfleet had in its database. This encompassed vast amounts of information. The captain even had a computer terminal that consisted of a flat one-inch thick monitor. Televisions during the late 1960s were huge, sometimes occupying a depth of three feet, depending on the size of the television -- forget about any computers of the age having a monitor that size. Computers of that time took up entire rooms and did not have half the processing power the slowest Pentium computer has today. Monitor and computer technology of the series was very much science fiction.
Today, it is not uncommon to see flat screen computer monitors in homes with a depth of only one-inch. There are even portable notebook computers whose monitors are less than half an inch thick. That's even smaller than the computer monitors shown in ST:TOS.
A vast amount of information is available today to anyone with an Internet connection. Americans of the late 60s never thought that they'd be able to access information from India or Russia at the touch of a key from home.
Every so often, the ship would communicate with a Starfleet official via a large, thin widescreen monitor, either in their conference area or the bridge. No cords or phones were needed. Today, you cannot go to any electronics or department store without seeing televisions of this size and dimension for sale. Many companies have been conducting video conferencing for over 10 years now.
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The Phraselator from Voctec.
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On every planetary mission, Starfleet officers would walk around with palm-sized communicators. They were able to communicate with their ship and each other. The late 1960s did not have any small communication devices, even in the military. However, today it would be hard to walk through a mall without seeing a little 12 year-old child paging their mother on a palm-sized communicator.
Whenever a new alien race was discovered, a device built-in to the ship's computer and their personal communicators, called a universal translator, would allow them to communicate with species that would undoubtedly have a difference vocabulary. This was an important plot device, since the majority of any one episode would revolve around understanding how to communicate with the new alien species. However, today our own military uses translation devices in Afghanistan and Iraq, called the Phraselator from Voctec. Various dialects are programmed into the device, and when an Afghan speaks into it, a computer voice translates their speech into English and vice versa.
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Needle-free vaccination.
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ST:TOS also had Dr. McCoy giving people needle-free injections in almost every episode. Today, needle-free injections are common vaccination tools.
Dr. McCoy was also able to perform surgeries without cutting into someone's body. He termed 20th century medicine in one movie as "...the Spanish inquisition..." Blade-free surgery is now possible with equipment like the "CyberKnife", developed at Sanford University. We also have non-invasive laser surgeries for treating kidney stones or prostate inflammations.
McCoy was also able to diagnose an ailment and/or disease by scanning a patient's body. We still do not have tools that can diagnose every disease known to mankind, rather then undergo exploratory surgery, patients can lay on a bed while an automated scanner produces diagnostic images of the body's interior. Although we had X-Ray technology in the late 1960s, more advance imaging systems, like PET and MRI scans, were later developed that had less invasive procedures, i.e. radiation.
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Star Trek teleporters.
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Teleportation devices, called teleporters, transport Starfleet officers to and from remote locations. The devices "break down" every molecule on your body, including your clothes, and it re-assembles them in the same likeness in another location. Think about how painful this process would be. We are currently not anywhere close to being able to teleport individuals to remote locations.
However, Australian physicist, Dr, Lam and fellow Australian National University colleague Warwick Bowen have been able to transport light particles from one point to another, at the quantum level. They, in essence, destroyed a beam of light and successfully put it back together a meter away.
We can't travel the galaxy or beam people across the globe, but look at what we considered to be science fiction only 40 years ago. Perhaps the gadgets we see in movies today will become a reality tomorrow.
Does art imitate life, or does life imitate art?
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