To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before
Few television series have left a mark on American culture than has been left by the original Star Trek series. The original series consisted of 80 episodes between 1966 and 1969. From it sprang numerous spinoff series and movies not to mention a cult like following of the franchise. Desilu Productions started producing Star Trek with a couple of pilots in 1964 and 1965, then started the series in 1966. Desilu was purchased by Paramount Television and the second season was under joint names of Desilu and Paramount. By the third season, Desilu was dropped and the season was produced by Paramount. CNBC has estimated the Star Trek franchise has been worth about $4 billion to Paramount, you would have to add the money all the private tailors have made making uniforms for Star Trek conventions to see what the series was actually worth.
Star Trek has obviously contributed ideas for toys and collectibles, and you can even by a book on leadership based on lessons learned from Star Trek: The Next Generation. What about real science? Maybe you've never noticed the similarity between the original communication device on the original series and the flip phone made by GTE in the 1970's. Beyond commercial science, however, a lot of real scientific research is going into some of the gadgets and phenomena made popular by the series.
Beam me up, Scotty!
A staple in the Star Trek series is the "transporter", a device capable of moving objects and people from one location to another by taking them apart at one location and reassembling them at another. This came about as a work around on the original series when members of the crew needed to get down to a planet but a "functional" shuttle craft had not been completed and it would take to much air time to physically land the Enterprise on the planet.
The real science behind the transporter is and has been investigated and is refered to technically as "quantum teleportation". American scientist, in conjunction with the University of Calgary and the city of Calgary itself, have been able to teleport individual particles of light, photons, from one part of the city to another. Chinese scientist took this a step further by transporting a photon from earth to a satellite orbiting in space.
Don't buy a ticket to transport to your next vacation destination however. It's doubtful this form of teleportation would ever be able to transport humans. One potential application of the technology however could be in making ultra-secure telecommunications systems. It turns out by merely observing the process, the process is changed. This would make it obvious if anyone even tried to hack into this form of telecommunication.
Government Involvement
Of course our government is in on this advanced research, probably along with several other governments some of which we consider allies and some we don't. Between 2007 and 2012 the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) spent $22 million on a research program called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. Funding for this research came from a request by then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Since it was funded by and intelligence agency this was kept secret until recently. A list of research efforts was released to Congress in January, 2018 and finally to the general public in January, 2019.
The research list includes 38 research programs. Several of these programs seem to have stepped right out of Star Trek science fiction. These include warp drive, traversable wormholes, cloaking (making something invisible), metallic glasses (Star Trek 4 - transparent aluminum), and high energy laser weapons (the equivalent of a phaser). Others involve research into gravity and anti-gravity. After all, to travel on extended missions gravity on a ship would be desirable and what better way to develop an understanding of how to make gravity in a no gravity environment than to create anti-gravity in a gravity environment.
We can only hope this type of research is real. Not only for the potential of deep space missions but also for the spinoffs that can make life better here on earth. For instance, some of the research on gravity involve using gravity waves for communications. Scientists don't really understand gravity but it is theorized gravity is similar to light in that it consist of particles, called gravitons, that act like a wave. If this worked it would make it possible for communications to occur through the planet instead of around the planet. Or maybe warp drive could be used as a great new replacement for fossil fuels.
The work on a spaceship able to utilize warp drive supposedly has reach the point a 3D rendition of what such a craft would look like has been developed.
The article NASA Reveals Latest Warp-Drive Ship Designs describes warp drive as
If a spaceship could be designed in such a way that it created a warp bubble, then the space in front of the ship would be compressed and the space behind would expand. This would result in space-time moving around the object, repositioning the ship without it actually moving.
This statement makes the universe sound like a giant treadmill where we walk or run without ever really going anywhere. My only question, what happens when two of these ships use warp drive in different directions? Does the universe get folded up on itself or ripped apart depending on which direction the two ships are traveling relative to each other. This explanation just seems a little far fetched for me.
Although a lot of this seems far fetched, basic research of this type needs to be ongoing. Not only in the case if it is actually successful but also for the failure that may be generated. Occasionally research failures have their own place in the world. Take for example 3M's research to make a super strong adhesive for the aerospace industry. One of the glue failures was a very weak glue that turned out to be reusable and left no residue when a glued on object was removed. Eventually, this glue became the basis for Post-it or sticky notes.