It was a show that ran three seasons and launched a narrative that is still expanding. It premiered today, September 8, 1966.
I was born during the original series run and truly discovered it by watching reruns in syndication with my dad. Star Trek had a startling impact on me and generations of others, too. We were born into it.
The real promise of Star Trek lies not in the technology, or the intergalactic travel, although those are great, but that’s not it. No - the real promise that Star Trek presents is a world where people have learned to live together and constructively move into the future united...as one. It is a future that is there to be explored and understood for the good of all peoples - whether they hail from Earth or not, whether they are human or not.
So many of the technological predictions have come to pass as reality - communicators to cell phones, tricorders to iPads, high capacity computers that run starships to laptops at home. BUT the real promise of the future is a sociological one. A promise that has yet to become a reality. That promise is our capacity, as a species, to work together, unselfishly, for the good of all. A world where all races and creeds are all part of a human family, united. A future where the needs of the many are more important than the needs of the one. A future that has learned from our successes and from our failures. That is the real promise of Star Trek. The promise of a future worth having.
I hope that we boldly go towards such a future …someday.
Happy 54th Birthday, Star Trek. May you live long and prosper.
