Ideas From Star Trek And Babylon 5 It seems like everything which appeared in Star Trek is being invented or experimented with. Gene Roddenberry, was the principal writer for the show and died in 1991. I have to wonder what he would think of all this. It wasn’t long before the cell phone was invented and it had an uncanny resemblance to those early flip phones on Star Trek. Scientists looked at the concept of warp drive and many think it could become a possibility in the future. An announcement was made that scientists are working on of all things a tractor beam. That was the beam in Star Trek would could move incredible things in space or prevent them from moving. The one being worked on is for a different purpose. It is said to be for moving space junk out of orbit. It has been named the Electrostatic Tractor. Hopefully it will be capable enough to move dead satellites out of orbit into deep space. For several year scientists have been talking about creating 3D holographic displays. They want people to be able to walk around the display and see them from every angle. Another group of scientists are working on a way to be able to touch them as if they were real. When you add up these two things what do you get? You get the Holodeck on the Enterprise. This idea would certainly change the way we entertain ourselves, and make for some really great simulations. Think what it could do for the medical profession. Surgeons could practice on very realistic looking people. The military could be in simulations which are the next best think to being real. Imagine a fighter plane simulation which almost felt like flying the real thing. Another area scientists and engineers have been working on is laser weapons. Who can forget that beam of light launched by the Enterprise which can blow up an enemy ship, or the handheld model they called a phaser? The United States Navy has installed some laser weapons on their ships. The idea is to use them to knock down drones and missiles. One of the great advantages of a laser weapon is you don’t need ammunition. This gives more room on a ship and makes it less prone to exploding if hit. If we could use all lasers ships wouldn’t have to carry any ammo. There has been talk suggesting we will soon equip some planes with laser cannons. There are also some vehicles which have different types of lasers mounted on them. The deck of the Enterprise was all digital, this was in 1966 while we were still in the analog age. Today these digital controls appear everywhere. They are in planes, ships and even on our computers. When we go to the hospital we are connected to devices which seem to mimic those on the Enterprise. When I was in the United States Army they had just gotten a system which injected shots through the skin without a needle using air pressure. Since it was new, the people injecting us were not proficient at adjusting the pressure and we all were bleeding after the injection. The reason I am talking about this is in Star Trek they had something similar called a hypo spray. This is one instance they may have gotten the idea from real life. When computers came out we started to work on translators and as most of us know we can translate websites and messages into almost any language. We don’t have the Star Trek universal translator yet but we are gaining on it. We can now even translate some of the dead human languages using Artificial Intelligence. I think we would need to have some extraterrestrial communication so we can study a few different alien languages to be able to even start on the universal translator. There are no equivalent machines out yet that can do as much, but they are being worked on. We would need a device which could detect every illness. Perhaps with the addition of Artificial Intelligence it won’t be long before we get one. We do have some bigger devices which can monitor and detect several different things at once. When the crew or the captain wanted to communicate they used a computer and could see their opposite on a screen while they spoke to them. All I have to say about this if anyone has used their cell phone or Messenger, they have done the same thing. The big difference is Kirk was doing instant communication across light years of space and we are yet to be capable of that. We do believe however it might be possible in the future using quantum physics. There was another scifi space show which was very popular and it was Babylon 5. It took the idea of a space station a lot further. The show started in 1994. It showed the attempts of the human race to create a gigantic space station and make it available as a place all races could meet and work in. In 1998 the International Space Station was launched. There are some who have suspected an extraterrestrial or two might have landed there. Much of this was brought on by NASA turning off their cameras anytime something strange was seen. Could we someday have a Babylon 5 type station? It is very possible. Worm holes were used in the show and these were created using star gates. Today all sorts of work is going on which tries to authenticate the existence of worm holes. If you watch the Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, the scientists there believe they may have discovered a worm hole and have shown it to us. All in all, we can learn a lot from science fiction shows. Some of the authors have some really great ideas and I believe many of these ideas are responsible for some of the devices and procedures we use today. Some of the very early movie serials show robots. I think most of us have seem the tremendous advances we are making in this area, not only with a metal likeness of a person, but with robots which look and are getting better at moving like people. I believe it is only a matter of time before we may not be able to tell the difference between a person and a machine. New skin has even been developed which not only looks real, but allows the robot to feel sensations when it comes into contact with anything. We are speeding into the future and it is going to be quite different than it is today.
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