On September 8, 1966, families across America turned on their televisions at 8:30 p.m. and saw something completely new: a spaceship gliding silently across the stars while a deep voice promised them five-year mission, to explore strange new worlds. The first episode of Star Trek had begun. Captain Kirk, the pointy-eared Mr. Spock, and the crew of the USS Enterprise were ready for blast off.
The show's creator, a former pilot named Gene Roddenberry, sneakily used outer space to talk about real problems on Earth. At a time when many American TV shows had almost no characters of color, the Enterprise bridge had a Black communications officer named Uhura, an Asian helmsman named Sulu, and later a Russian navigator named Chekov, all working together as friends. The special effects looked silly by today's standards, with shaky cameras and aliens wearing rubber masks, but the stories about courage, friendship, and curiosity were powerful. Even so, the show was almost canceled after two seasons until fans sent in bags of letters to save it.
Star Trek lasted only three seasons originally, but it never really ended. It came back as cartoons, movies, and more than a dozen new shows. Real astronauts grew up watching it, and NASA actually named its first space shuttle Enterprise after the ship. Flip phones, tablets, voice assistants, and video calls all look suspiciously like gadgets the crew used in 1966, because engineers who watched Star Trek as kids grew up and built them for real.
