Inspiring Star Trek and NASAby Dwayne Day
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| Although some Star Trek fans may vaguely be aware of the show’s connections to NASA in the 1970s, Swanson notes that the connections ran deeper and started far earlier. |
Swanson, the former chief historian at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, has written Inspired Enterprise: How NASA, the Smithsonian, and the Aerospace Community Helped Launch Star Trek. In the book, Swanson recounts the ties between Star Trek, NASA, the Smithsonian Institution, and the aerospace community, and how these ties “helped craft, legitimize, and popularize the beloved television show Star Trek.” He has done a tremendous amount of archival research in multiple untapped archives as well as conducted many interviews, exploring how creator Gene Roddenberry sought to craft a show that was a believable depiction of future spaceflight by researching space travel and technology, but also how Roddenberry used these connections to publicize and promote the show.
Roddenberry was a former World War II combat pilot and understood airplanes and the military. He created Star Trek at a time when the country was launching humans into space on national television and the Space Race was part of everyday conversation. He made connections within the aerospace community and hired people who provided scientific and technical advice, some of whom also had military and aviation experience. The bridge of the starship Enterprise frequently featured display screens with astronomical photos and diagrams, and the show used scientifically inspired terminology. Several episodes referred to then-current space themes, including one that featured a Saturn V rocket.
Although some Star Trek fans may vaguely be aware of the show’s connections to NASA in the 1970s, such as how the first space shuttle was named Enterprise after Trekkies lobbied for it, or how Nichelle Nichols, who played Lieutenant Uhura, served as a spokesperson for NASA, recruiting some of the first African American astronauts, Swanson notes that the connections ran deeper and started far earlier. The first pilot was filmed in 1964 and the show ultimately ran on the NBC network from 1966 to 1969, and NASA and aerospace were part of it from the beginning. Roddenberry even tried, unsuccessfully, to get a current NASA astronaut to appear on the show. One episode was filmed on a brand-new aerospace campus in the Los Angeles area. Roddenberry traveled to Vandenberg Air Force Base to watch a rocket launch, and took some of the cast to a NASA facility at Edwards Air Force Base to see NASA hardware.
| Star Trek endures in part because Gene Roddenberry had a philosophy, a humanitarian message, and Star Trek was his pulpit. |
Roddenberry was trying to depict a believable future by connecting it to an exciting present, while capitalizing on the enthusiasm about space that many people felt at the time. But he was also often a shameless promoter, using the connections he made to convince network executives that Star Trek was something special. In particular, he made connections with the Smithsonian Institution, donating an episode to the museum to enhance the show’s reputation and credibility. Later, those ties led to the large Enterprise filming model being donated to the museum, where it is on display today, 60 years after it was first crafted in a small building in the Los Angeles area that is still standing. The acquisition and display of the model was somewhat unusual because the museum’s focus was on actual flight artifacts, not TV props, but it proved to be a popular attraction and demonstrated the role that culture played in inspiring people to seek careers in aerospace. Swanson also tells the story of how Roddenberry used merchandising both to make money and to popularize the show.
Star Trek endures in part because Gene Roddenberry had a philosophy, a humanitarian message, and Star Trek was his pulpit. Star Trek was never trying to predict the future. It was trying to depict a future worth living in. As Roddenberry said in 1976:
“Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms. […] If we cannot learn to actually enjoy those small differences, to take a positive delight in those small differences between our own kind, here on this planet, then we do not deserve to go out into space and meet the diversity that is almost certainly out there.”
In that talk Roddenberry concluded:
“The much-maligned common man and common woman has an enormous hunger for brotherhood. They are ready for the twenty-third century now, and they are light years ahead of their petty governments and their visionless leaders.”
Unfortunately, those words hit even harder today, when the idea of diversity, and the ideals of NASA, are under active attack. Many people who grew up watching the show in the late 1960s and then in endless reruns in the following decade were inspired to go into space careers, some of them eventually working at NASA and JPL. Star Trek and NASA reinforced each other. Today, there are efforts to tear down the positive vision of the future that NASA has long stood for.
I’ll write more about Swanson’s important and impressive new book in the future, but you should read it yourself. You can order a signed copy through Glen’s Facebook page.
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