Jeff Bezos celebrates after his Blue Origin spaceflight in 2021, at left, and plays it cool as a Starfleet officer in the 2016 film Star Trek Beyond. (Photos: Blue Origin / Paramount via Justin Lin)

Over the course of five decades, advances in space science and exploration have changed the Star Trek saga but its obvious that the sci-fi TV show has changed the course of space exploration as well.

You need look no further than Amazons billionaire founder Jeff Bezos, who took inspiration from Star Trek to green-lighttalking computersand his very ownBlue Origin space effort. The same goes for SpaceX founder Elon Musk, whosmentioned in the same breath as the Wright Brothersin a Star Trek: Discovery episode.

I cant imagine a version of the world where Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos exist, for better or worse, however you feel about them, without Star Trek, says Ryan Britt, the author ofPhasers on Stun,a new book chronicling the history of the Star Trek sci-fi franchise.

Im not saying that those guys embody all of Star Treks ideals, because they may not, Britt says in the latest episode of theFiction Science podcast. But there is an audacity to space travel, whether it is from a government like NASA or another nations government thats putting people in space, or if its from the private sector.

In his book, and in the podcast, Britt traces the ups and downs of Star Treks evolution from a relatively short-lived TV show that creator Gene Roddenberry envisioned as aWagon Train to the Starsto a fan phenomenon that has engendered two dozen spin-offs. The latest Trek incarnation,Strange New Worlds,wraps up its first season on the Paramount+ streaming service this week.

Some of the concepts that Star Trek popularized palm-sized communicators, quantum teleportation, holodecks and medical tricorders have made the leap from fiction to fact well in advance of the 23rd century. But theres another side to the equation: Real-life science and technology have changed Star Trek as well.

Take black holes, for instance. Gravitational singularities and their time-warping effects have been a Trek standby since 1967 (when anencounter with a black starthrew the Enterprise into the 60s). But Britt says Star Trek has upped its black hole game, thanks to science consultantErin McDonald.

The way that theyve depicted the black holes in the contemporary Star Treks, starting in Discovery season two, is very close to how contemporary science thinks that they would look and behave, Britt says. In the original series, sometimes Kirk would throw out what a quasar is, and it wasnt quite right. But now, its very close in terms of the way the spatial phenomena look. In the new shows, its very cutting-edge.

The same goes for communicating with aliens. Star Treks crew members leaned heavily onGoogle Translate er, I mean theiruniversal translator to decipher alien languages. But theres never been any guarantee that the aliens will look like prosthetic-wearing humanoids who communicate through speech. (Seattle-area sci-fi author Ted Chiangexplored an alternate scenarioin ashort storythat was adapted into a screenplay for the 2016 movieArrival.)

Britt says Star Treks writers addressed the issue in a Star Trek: Discovery episode focusing on analien species that the crew couldnt figure out how to communicate with. It ends up being pheromones it communicates through these sorts of feelings and these emotions, Britt says. They can translate that back into math, and then they can go from there and create a bridge language.

In retrospect, it shouldnt be so surprising that Star Trek anticipated technologies such as communicators, translators and tricorders. Britt points out that Roddenberryworked with a researcher at the Rand Corporationto figure out which sorts of way-out innovations would lend authenticity as well as a gee-whiz vibe to his sci-fi show.

Arguably, Star Treks most valuable contribution to science and exploration came in the form of inspiration: Britt recountsthe story of how Martin Luther King Jr. persuaded Nichelle Nichols to stick with the showbecause her Uhura character provided a rare opportunity to inspire fellow African-Americans. Nichols, in turn, took on acampaign to inspire women and minorities to apply for spots in NASAs growing astronaut corps.

When Nichelle started her campaign, NASA had very few Black or female applicants, Britt quotes documentary filmmakerTodd Thompsonas saying in the book. Im not saying zero. ButSally RideandRon McNair; yes, they were there as a direct result of her campaign with NASA.

More recent Trek shows have continued to widen diversity on the final frontier: Star Trek: Discovery, for instance, featureda romance between a non-binary human character and a trans alien character played, respectively, by a non-binary actor and a trans actor.

One of the worlds most prominent Trekkie techies is Jeff Bezos: He was just 2 years old when the original Star Trek premiered, but the show inspired one of his favorite childhood games. Wed fight over whod get to be Captain Kirk, or Spock, and somebody used to play the computer, too,Bezos told The Washington Post in 2016. Wed have little cardboard phasers and cardboard tricorders.

Decades later, Bezos acquired a more expensive prop: a model of the Starship Enterprise that was used in the early Star Trek movies and is now on display at Blue Origins headquarters in Kent, Wash. And in 2016, Bezos played Star Trek for real: He talked his way intoa cameo as an alien Starfleet officialin Star Trek Beyond.

It was super-fun for me, Bezos said. It was a bucket-list item.

Five years later, Bezos made a different sort of bucket-list item come true for Star Trek actor William Shatner. The guy who played Captain Kirkfinally got his chance to fly into space for real, courtesy of Bezos and Blue Origin. What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine, Shatner told Bezos afterward.

Elon Musk has his own set of Star Trek ties. In April, when Musk declared his intention to buy Twitter,Shatner jokedthat the billionaire should dump the bird and hire him as the face of Twitter.

You will always be my Captain,Musk tweeted in reply.

Like Bezos, Musk was given a moment of Star Trek immortality: On an episode of Star Trek: Discovery, a character named Captain Gabriel Lorca (played by Jason Isaacs) upbraids a fellow officer by asking him if he wants to be remembered as a pioneer like the Wright Brothers and Elon Musk or as a failed fungus expert.

Spoiler alert: Theres a bit of irony to the reference, in that later episodes reveal Captain Lorca to be more nefarious than he seems.

Britt says he doesnt mind that Star Treks accolades for Elon Musk come from a controversial character like Lorca. In fact, he thinks the controversies in which Musk is currently enmeshed fit right in with one of Star Treks major themes: that we humans may be flawed, but that we are nevertheless capable of doing great things.

These things that happen when humanity leaps forward are not always going to be without their drawbacks, Britt says.

I always thought that was also a secret commentary on Gene Roddenberry himself, oddly, Britt adds. I thought that was like a way of saying the person that created this will be sort of deified, but here they are when theyre actually in the trenches building it, and theres messiness. I like that Star Trek is willing to do that.

Will Star Trek continue to live long and prosper? Britt, whos in his early 40s, says theres a chance hell still be writing about the Star Trek saga when the franchise turns 100 years old in 2066.

It will have to do a couple more radical reinventions, though, to stay relevant, Britt says. And I think that some of that might be a true reboot, right? Where you just completely throw it all out and you just start over, and you say, Well do Starfleet,the Prime Directiveand the Enterprise, but thats all. And then everything else can bereinvented.

Check out the original version of this item on Cosmic Log to find out how close Star Trek came to predicting the course of early 21st-century history, and to look back at 20 years of Trek tech talk. Stay tuned for future episodes of theFiction Science podcast via Anchor, Apple, Google, Overcast, Spotify, Breaker, Pocket Casts, Radio Public and Reason.

Alan Boyles for the Fiction Science podcast is Dominica Phetteplace, an award-winning writerwho lives in Berkeley, Calif. To learn more about Phetteplace, check out her website,DominicaPhetteplace.com.

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How the Star Trek saga blazed new trails for space exploration with a hand from superfan Jeff Bezos - GeekWire