All language subtitles for Building Star Trek

Captains log.

Star date 11601.29.

Assignment birth.

A mysterious object from
a class M planet in the

Alpha Quadrant is being
transported by shuttlecraft.

An intergalactic time tracker.

It brings a message of
hope to all humanoid species.

What's inside this crate has
altered all our yesterday's.

It is taking us where no man
or woman has gone before.

Because this is Captain
Kirk's command chair.

On Star Trek's 50th
anniversary, two museums

are in a race to restore
its iconic artifacts.

This entire whole session
can just split open like an egg.

Scientists are making the
vision of Star Trek a reality.

Our playbook is basically
the first season of Star Trek.

It's a pop culture phenomenon
that changed history.

It was just a kissing scene.

Space is undone.

Star Trek is part of our cultural DNA.

And after 50 years, Star
Trek is still inventing the future.

Fascinating.

The Starship Enterprise began its first
five-year mission on September 8, 1966.

50 years later, it's still going.

With the third feature film of
the rebooted Star Trek franchise.

I really want to head back out there, huh?

Carl Urban is Bones McCoy.

God.

Part of what was so
appealing about Star

Trek back then is what
is appealing about it.

It today.

It has lame display of logic.

It didn't think I had it.

It just might.

That's it.

It's about this family,
this dysfunctional family in

space that don't always get
on, but have to work together.

I like so.

Better than I like you.

Simon Peig is co-writer of
Star Trek Beyond and Scotty.

Star Trek is the one
shining light which says

no, we're not going
to destroy ourselves.

We're going to continue.

I'm going to move out into the
galaxy and be really handsome.

Today, scientists are making
real the vision of Star Trek.

Unwalking the secrets of
War of Space and teleportation,

revealing the mysteries
of the invisibility

cloak and solving the riddle
of the phaser and tricord.

All of these futuristic
technologies were

invented by a low-budget
sci-fi show, the creation

of Gene Rottenberry, which was
cancelled after just three seasons.

The 11-foot studio
model of the Starship

Enterprise, which was
used to film shots like these

in the days before CGI, was donated to the
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum,

where it's been on and
off display ever since.

The museum's main
entrance, the iconic Boeing

milestones of Flight
Hall, is being revamped.

Smithsonian Curator Margaret
Whiteacamp wants the model of

the Enterprise to be a
centerpiece of this landmark exhibit.

I'm a fan.

I love Star Trek.

If we could have one object that
tells the story of imagination and

inspiration that's so important
to spaceflight to real spaceflight,

it's got to be the Starship Enterprise.

The Enterprise should be
there because it's with the dream.

The lander is there
because it's the reality, but we

wouldn't have gotten the
reality without the dream.

To help with the conservation, Margaret has
recruited her own Star Trek Brain Trust,

a team of technical
wizards who have worked on

dozens of Star Trek
feature films in series.

Their challenge is to
conserve the model for future

generations without
compromising its authenticity.

It's just the wrong shape.

It's amazing, it's close to it.

As soon as we walk into the room, I could
see that this was going to come together.

And the excitement in the
group was really just electric.

Adam Schneider is a specialist
model collector and restore.

You see this model there,
he's like, oh my gosh, it's

beautiful because remember
its function is to be beautiful.

His function is not the fly, its function
is to be attractive in the movie contact.

But Margaret's worried it
could fall apart at any moment.

The strength of these
joints is something that I'm

concerned about because
the model is 50 years old.

So we've had a huge light
paint that just squeezed off.

With the haul opening
in just four months,

it's now a race to get
the model ready in time.

So we've got four months to
get this project done and so it's

really important that we get
cracking on this thing immediately.

For conservator Malcolm Collum,
the Enterprise is an historic artifact.

For physics professor David Greer, it
provides a scientific blueprint of the future.

In his laboratory at New
York University, David is on a

quest to make the galaxy's
first working tractor bead.

We've seen it on TV.

But can you imagine doing it for real?

It's a star trek stable.

With just the flick of a button,
an invisible beam of energy called

a tractor beam grabs hold of any
passing object and pulls it aboard.

And everybody was saying, well what will we
do in the 23rd century? How will it look?

And so they were having this
great time inventing the 23rd century.

We love tractor beams,
although you never saw a beam in

the original show because it
couldn't afford to put a beam.

Turn on the tractor beam and then
the thing would somehow follow along.

I beat on the camera but it looks like
we're not going to set fire to anything.

Okay good.

A 50-year-old TV series
makes it look effortless.

But turning science fiction into
science fact isn't quite so easy.

David has discovered that a
tractor beam is really a beam of light.

In my lab we're working
with light waves and that turns

out to be actually important
if you want to work in space.

What we realized there was
something we didn't understand.

So we went back to the equations.

We went back to figuring out
how it is light interact with matter.

It turns out the equation for a tractor
beam is as impressive as this man's beard.

The 19th century Scottish
mathematician James Clark Maxwell.

His light bulb moment came
with the discovery of light

waves and the fact that
light waves can push matter.

Hidden within his equations was another
mathematical prediction discovered by David.

It's really cool what's new and special
and surprising is that those equations

have buried within them the prediction
that you can create a wave that pulls.

Okay so here's the wave.

What we showed is that you
can re-express this as two terms.

One term if as the equations predict
light waves can both push and pull.

Then you come out with
just a very simple result

that proving Star Trek
is gutted right after all.

Then you have a tractor beam.

Yeah that was one of
those special moments when

you say it's really
good to be a scientist.

That's the theory.

Back to the tractor beam
lab to see it in action.

So this is what it takes
to make a tractor beam.

We start with an ordinary laser.

The beam from the laser is then relayed
off of this mirror to this device here.

What you're saying
right here is going on in

the optical table right
now it's happening live.

We are actually
manipulating objects, removing

them around with the
force exerted by light.

David's beam still isn't ready to move
something the size of a shuttle craft.

To give you a sense of the
scale this TV screen here

is about one quarter of
the size of a human hair.

So it's a microscopic particle
that can be pushed and pulled.

These small things moving in here
are under Enrique's complete control.

Now we're going to
turn it into a tractor beam.

Go for it.

And here you go.

You can see the pattern
is squeezing down as the

object moves toward
us that's a tractor beam.

So they work.

You can have them today in the lab.

With practice David's tractor
beams could not only pull and push.

They can make particles
dance in three dimensions.

It's just amazing that it works.

From the equations to the TV screen.

In ten years time David plans to take
his tractor beam from the lab into space.

The idea is to use tractor
beams to sample dust, ice crystals,

microscopic matter from space by gathering
in that material and analyzing it.

You can learn where we came
from and perhaps where we're going.

It's not only scientists who
have been inspired by Star Trek.

Generations of fans have grown up
with its vision of hope and optimism.

It's really a wonderful and
inspiring vision of the future.

It's how we should be.

Brooks Peck is a fan and also
a curator at the EMP Museum

in Seattle, North America's
leading pop culture museum.

Which looks like it came
straight out of science fiction.

For the first time in nearly fifty years,

Brooks wants to bring together authentic
props from the original series of Star Trek

and recreate the bridge
of the Starship Enterprise.

It's a plan as bold as Captain Kirk's.

So about here is where the center
of the exhibition is going to be.

This will be where we put
Captain Kirk's command chair.

This is our bridge and we're going
to build it out right around the chair.

Throughout the exhibit, there are
going to be over 100 objects on display.

Everything authentic,
everything from Star Trek.

Actual costumes were an
actual props, the real thing.

It'll all be here.

It's a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition.

And Brooks has got just the next
four months to make it happen.

He's going to need one of these.

They're going to run.

One of these.

And at least one of these.

But Brooks' task isn't easy.

After the show was canceled, most
props were thrown in the dumpster.

Only a very few survive, jealously
guarded by collectors and trekkies.

It's an ambitious plan
and we don't at this

point have much time
to do it in museum terms.

So we have to work fast,
really fast to get this done.

The clock is now ticking
for Brooks to find all

the props he needs for
his landmark exhibition.

This is how we like to
remember the Starship Enterprise.

Ingrained in my mind as a, you know,
seven, eight, nine, ten-year-old boy

when the series was
airing, is the Starship

Enterprise was everything
great about humanity.

50 years later, it looks like it
may have reached its final frontier.

Malcolm Column, chief conservator
at the Smithsonian National

Air and Space Museum,
already knew it was in bad shape.

But now he's worried it
could fall apart at any moment.

So if you look here, you can see here's
an area where that glued seam is splitting

and it may be the result of the wooden
structure having shifted or something.

So the fact that the glue that's
in here is 50 years old now,

we obviously have concerns.

I'm very concerned, I'm actually surprised
that this crack hasn't propagated further.

We've got cracking up
here in this section here.

If you see this area here, you've
got some more of this flaking paint.

The paint through here is just literally
cleaving off in these large chips.

And you can see the load from the weight
of the engine they sell dropping down

has caused the wooden
glue joint here to separate.

So the fact that this
crack is running across

here is the biggest
fear that I have is that,

you know, this entire whole section
could just split open like an egg.

It's a national icon that's just one
dab of 50 year old glue from disaster.

Yes, yeah, I'm having a pangs of anxiety.

Go to warp 6.

The Enterprise is destined to take center
stage at the National Air and Space Museum,

alongside other icons
such as the Spirit of St.

Louis, Sputnik, and
the Apollo Lunar Module.

It's a very big deal.

This is the iconic
space in the downtown

building of the National
Air and Space Museum.

It is our introduction
to the premier collection

of aviation and space
artifacts in the world.

It will go right here so that as
visitors come in, they're going to

be greeted by the iconic saucer
with the NCC 1701 of the Enterprise.

In its full glory restored to what it would
look like at the end of production in 1967.

Next to the Enterprise, in the
Boeing milestones of Flight Hall,

will be two intermediate-range
nuclear missiles from the Cold War,

which is the kind
of real-life issue the

scriptwriters of Star Trek
have never shied away from.

While the original premise
of the show may have been,

let's just have some
adventures with a spaceship,

very quickly, it became
social commentary as well.

This is a time when
we were all very worried

that we were going
to die in a nuclear fire.

I think we told stories that made
people go look for other answers.

Look at their world a different way.

Look at their neighbors a different way.

I think we got people thinking.

The challenge with Star Trek
was to rattle the bars of the cage,

was to push the limit,
you know, to be ambitious.

In the episode "A Balance
of Terror," the Enterprise finds

itself in Star Trek's version
of a Cold War standoff.

Without a post-4, give anything at
all on the attacking vessel without it.

No identification, sir.

Just as the West distrusted
the Soviet Union, at the far

end of the galaxy, the Romulans
were acting suspiciously.

All the villains in Star
Trek were proxies for

our villains, the real
enemies at the time.

The Romulans were sort of sneaking around
and did everything sort of undercover,

were duplicitous and
untrustworthy, and all that was a

reflection of how they were feeling
about communism at the time.

The Blackbird SR-71 is
one example of that distrust.

Today, it's on display of the Smithsonian
National Air and Space Museum.

In the 1960s, it was one of the
United States top-secret black projects,

and one of the first military
aircraft designed using

stealth technology to avoid
detection by enemy radar.

But the Romulan bird
of prey went one better.

It wasn't just stealthy, it could disappear
altogether using an invisibility cloak.

It was something that
was used by the enemy,

and maybe because it
was a little underhand,

a little less than
valiant to kind of hide.

I don't see anything.

The visibility is theoretically
possible, Captain,

selected bending of light with
the power costs as enormous.

Inspired by Star Trek,
scientists have been

trying to make an
invisibility cloak ever since.

Obviously, Star Trek
is fiction, so we don't, it

didn't actually specify
how their cloak operated,

otherwise we would have
built one a long time ago.

So, Professor John
Howell at his team at the

University of Rochester
have made their own version.

They call it the Rochester Cloak.

Is there a simple way to
achieve cloaking without going

into great expense or great
difficulty in making the setup?

The answer turns out to be, yes.

And it all comes down to classic physics.

Invisibility is taking a light ray
and bending it around an object

so that it gets to the observer
as if the object weren't there.

Imagine a Romulan who's up to no good.

We can see he's up to no
good because light waves

travel in a straight
line and bounce off him.

But what if he could bend light waves?

According to Einstein,
one way of doing this is

to warp space, using
something like a black hole.

John doesn't have a black hole in his
lab, but he does have quite a lot of these.

We have the Rochester Cloak,
which is four lenses, and they're set

apart so that the light that comes
in focuses, diverges, comes through.

Focus is diverges and comes through.

The Rochester Cloak can hide
an object but also make it look

transparent so that the whole
thing appears as if it's not there.

Physics is not magic.

It's only magic if you don't
understand what's going on.

It would be absolutely incredible to an
18th century person to see an iPhone.

It would be totally magical.

The math required to
get the position of the

lenses just right is
complex, but it's not new.

This technique is using
old physics to do a simple

imaging problem that maybe
hadn't really been thought of.

Old sci-fi plus classic
physics equals invisibility.

Meanwhile in Seattle,
Brooks Pack has still got

5,000 square feet of
empty exhibition space to fill.

And 50-year-old Star
Trek props are proving

to be as elusive as the
Romulan bird of prey.

After the show was canceled, it's hard to
say exactly what happened to everything.

A lot of the stuff was tossed out.

The steps were taken
apart, put in dumpsters.

The only things that were saved
was saved by actual people in the

studio who said, "Oh, I want
one of those. I'll take it home.

" The model of the Enterprise
was donated to the Smithsonian.

But the film set was trashed.

Back in 1969, Bill Ward
was a grad student at UCLA.

Well, here we are
at the back lot of the

School of Theatre Film
and Television at UCLA.

And I'm retracing the final
voyage of the Starship Enterprise.

This is where flatbed trucks deposited all
of the sets from the original Star Trek.

I remember the two sliding doors.

They were quite magical in that they
seemed automatically open and closed.

When I looked at my found that
there was a handle on each one,

so the stagehand could pull
it open and close it manually.

Captain, we're getting a
signal from the spacecraft.

I remember Lieutenant O'Hurra's
Communication Center was a sheet of

quarter-inch plywood, also painted
gray, with some little things glued to it.

It didn't really do
anything, but she pretended

like it did and did
quite a job with that.

I think if they had known how valuable
this would have become, they would

have fell onto it because it would
be worth a tremendous amount today.

Instead of which, the entire structure of
quarter-inch plywood flats was taken apart,

piece by piece, and over the following
decades, cannibalized for student productions.

Well, here we are in the School of
Theatre Film and Television scene shop.

This is where the Enterprise
was finally dismantled.

It took several years to do it.
It was used in student film production.

There might be some pieces
of it still here, who knows.

But at least one item escaped the
dumpster, manless student productions.

And for Brooks, it's the first piece to
his 50th anniversary Star Trek Puzzle.

Star Trek was a cheap show with cheap
prompts, and for all that utterly believable.

When you watched it, as a fan, you
never questioned that you bought it.

It was your suspension of disbelief
was complete. You were like, "Yeah, fine.

" So this, he's a communicator.
This is one of the actual props.

It was probably used by everyone
on the show at one point or another.

Enterprise to cut and cut, come in, please.

Kirk, what is it on the run?

This sort of speaker
grille piece that's actually

a piece of paper there
that's been printed on.

There's groovy lines.

Kirk, here.

Back in the 60s, these guys are
using little communicated devices.

And, you know, you have
a look at today, and most

of us are walking around
with these smart phones.

That can do all of that.

Kirk, you're going to run.

Enterprise.

I saw it on Star Trek,
and so I could imagine

that in my lifetime,
we would have that.

Would these things have happened as
quickly as they have without Star Trek?

I think science and science fiction
have this symbiotic relationship.

Science fiction inspires scientists to
invent what they see in science fiction.

But one communicator doesn't make
a 50th anniversary Star Trek exhibition.

Time for Brooks to hit that warp drive.

I found out from another Star Trek collector
that there's a gentleman named Gerald,

who has a really, really important piece,
apparently he has an original phaser.

This is really mind-blowing,
because as far as we know,

there are only two
phasers in existence, and I

did not expect I'd be
able to track one down.

Okay, Brooks, how are you?

It turns out there are Star Trek
collectors, and there's Gerald.

This is the start part to the sway.

Look at this. This is fantastic.

Oh, thank you so much.

You can examine it in a way.

Oh, okay.

Hang on.

I can't.

Just a second.

Very cool.

It's a light.

Yes.

You know, it's his head.

You always imagine it's got this weight.

It's hollow, fiberglass.

Wow.

Well, you've taken great care of this.

It's something I wanted
to do since I was 10.

You know, it was like all the phaser.

That was really hard to like keep it cool.

And be all professional.

You know, like, yeah, yeah,
when I was just there's this

nine-year-old kid of me going,
"Oh, my goodness, the phaser.

" So, Gerald, what do you think?

I'm glad you're coming.

I'm learning it to us for a little
while to display in the exhibition.

I will seriously consider.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I promise you to take excellent care of it.

Fire all faces.

At heart, Star Trek has always
been a good old-fashioned adventure

that appeals to the kid and all of us.

I love Kirk as a
swashbuckler and a gun

slinger in the old
American Western tradition.

Terrow we find Terrow we're choosing.

That's part of the hallmark.

Yeah.

Pick up a phaser
and it goes -- Ta-da!

But what happens if
you forgotten your phaser

and you find you're being
slowly hugged to death

by a seven-foot angry
green lizard called the "Gorn.

" Erina is a great episode.

It's a mono-amano kind of fight.

Looking back at it now,
it's ridiculous because it's

obviously a man in a suit
moving incredibly slowly.

He does this.

And he cut ducks and he does this.

And if you don't have a phaser, then
you have to make the next best thing.

First, potassium nitrate.

And now if you can find some
software and a charcoal deposit.

Mix it all together and what do you get?

Recall you're a basic chemistry doctor.

Gunpowder.

When he lends to my gunpowder
and creates a gun and it's awesome.

He has a reason to doubt.

But is it more than goofy fun?

Can Star Trek really point us
towards the weapons of the future?

The answer is yes.

According to laser scientists
and Trekfan, Dr. Rob Epssel.

We're at the Lockheed
Martin facility in Bothell,

Washington where we
develop high-power lasers.

And I'm going to take you into one
of the typical laser development labs

that we have here where
we turn ideas into reality.

This is where we would try stuff out.

We have tools, test equipment.

It's early thinking.

This is where those initial
ideas we begin to think them out.

See how they can actually
be turned into experiments,

measure the experiments,
and see if those ideas are real.

Once that's proven out, we can then
begin to engineer them into a solution.

Engineer them into a device.

By combining laser
beams using fiber optics,

Rob can now increase their
power output exponentially.

A laser that we would develop
for defensive purposes would be

1,000 to 100,000 times
more powerful than this one.

Rob's goal is to create a defensive
weapon as powerful as Star Trek's phaser.

So how could we actually make a phaser?

Well, when I look
at a device like this,

the first thing I think
about is the energy,

the power that's required
to get the phaser effect.

The next breakthrough would come
from being able to store enough energy

in a device like this so that you could
project that beam and get your effect.

And how close is Rob to achieving this?

Well, take a look at this.

You see the rocket launch?

At this point, the laser weapon
system has to acquire the rocket,

track it, put the high
energy laser beam onto it.

And that white spot there is a natural
reflection of the high energy laser beam

on the rocket, overheating the
warhead, causing it to explode.

Tested on the firing range, Lockheed
Martin's prototype laser defense system

is undergoing further development in the
lab before deployment on the battlefield.

Before Rob came along,
the energy required to do this,

required a generator
the size of this, or even

this, making it as mobile
as your average gore.

But Rob's lasers are now small enough
to be deployed on the battlefield for real.

And as you can see, the
complete laser weapon system

is able to be carried on
the back of a flatbed truck.

Okay, so still not phaser size.

But Rob's not one to argue with.

And of course, it's very
difficult to predict the

future, but I would
never bet against science.

Back in Seattle, Brooks has found a friend.

Hello, Gorn.

Look at that.

Captain.

In the lab, it's time for this
serious conservation work to begin.

The Star Trek Enterprise
model is receiving the same

standards of care that we would give to
any artifact in the museum's collection.

And we are taking what we
know about historic artifacts

and really bringing that
to this cultural artifact.

At the Star Trek Convention in Las
Vegas, the fans want to know what exactly

Margaret and her team
are doing to their Starship.

They love the show and
they just can't get enough.

I'm thrilled to be here
and because there's so

much knowledge in this
room, and there's so much.

So I think the whole
restoration team knows that

there are millions of fans
who are watching this.

I'm curious who is going to
actually do the paint restoration.

Did you guys find any to
use the Star Trek term?

Micro fractures on the hull.

Give a back-up plant
to compensate for that.

We are concerned you definitely
see cracking the engineering.

I feel the responsibility to
the fans because I'm a fan.

While Margaret lays out
her plan of action to the fans,

back of the Smithsonian,
the moment of truth has

arrived for Chief
Conservator Malcolm Column.

To save the Enterprise for the fans,
he's going to have to take her apart.

At the EMP Museum in Seattle,

curator Brooks Peck is taking delivery
of the most iconic crop of them all.

And the centerpiece of his
50th anniversary exhibition,

we creating the bridge
of the Starship Enterprise.

This is Captain Kirk's command chair.

This is Captain James
Kirk of the USS Enterprise.

This is the heart of it all.

This is where Kirk sits
and guides his ship, guides

his crew, staying with
us, faces down evil aliens.

It's a deuce's prevenon.

His relationship with women
was something that I wouldn't

always expect to be what
happens with the Captain.

This superbrash, superconfident cocky.

I want some answers to all this.

Rebel, who everyone just loves
because he's just a little bit naughty.

Swab brilliant.

Not only do we have your psychokinetic
ability, but it twice your power level.

Go with his gut.

That settles that.

Great leader.

You won't get it through torture.

Driven beyond belief.

I want that third alternative.

He was the glue that held that show
together because you admired Captain Kirk

and you had to love Captain
Kirk but the show doesn't work.

Most people who want to play Star Trek

when they're 10 years
old want to be Captain Kirk.

It just seems like the best job.

Better even than a museum curator.

Of course, that 11-year-old Brooks
that watched Star Trek as a kid.

I would love to see what it
feels like to really sit in that chair.

Tempting, isn't it?

I never, ever will.

It's an object that we have to protect.

We are the stewards of this chair.

And so, no sitting.

He's got no time for
sitting on his laurels either.

He's got as many original props to find

as there are triples
in the ventilation ducts.

As for Malcolm Callum, it doesn't
get any more nerve wracking than this.

I certainly feel that
we do feel for the ship.

The more time that you spend with these
characters, the more you care for them.

I remember as a boy
watching the first time I saw the

Enterprise destroyed in a
movie and it had an impact.

And then they destroyed
it in quite a few movies.

If Malcolm thinks his
model is in bad shape,

he should take a look at this one.

This was the Galileo.

The Star Trek shuttlecraft
discovered in a parking lot

by Trek fan and model
collector Adam Schneider,

who took it upon
himself to restore it.

I think every now and then someone
has to take a bullet for the team.

Galileo was a master.

It was raccoon debris in the back.

A few dead animals in the back.

So it was in terrible shape,
absolutely terrible shape.

Now it's on display at
Space Center Houston,

the official visitor center for
NASA's Johnson Space Center.

This thing came along
as absolutely a labor law.

There is many thousands of
dollars expended to get it fixed up

and no financial benefit whatsoever.

As any Star Trek fan will tell you, there
was more than one kind of space shuttle.

While NASA's engineers were
developing a real space shuttle,

this guy was building
the model of the Galileo,

adding eight no rocket scientists neither.

My name is Gene Winfield,

and I've been building custom cars
and movie cars for over 70 years.

I love to do things that are
different things that are just unusual.

I love it.

The interesting thing about it is that it
sparked a lot of energy and attention,

because at that time, this is
19 built in 66 air beginning in 67.

We didn't have a space shuttle.

Both space shuttles, real and imagined,

are designed to tackle the
same technical challenge.

How to get astronauts to or from the
surface of a planet and back again?

One, and liftoff of space shuttle flight.

Think of something that's
about the size of a small bus,

and nothing that you
would ever think would fly.

It looked like it was futuristic
because you didn't see classical wings.

I love Star Trek from day one, you know,

and I just love all kinds
of modern things that are

happening and futuristic
things. I just love it.

But just as the real shuttle was an expensive
way of getting astronauts into space,

the special effects
needed for Jean's model

also proved too much
for a low-fi, sci-fi show.

There just was no budget available on a TV
show in the '60s to show a shuttle craft,

leaving the ship and flying down
to a planet and landing every week.

They just didn't have that kind of
money to shoot that many shots.

Energy.

Which is the origin of the mother of all
futuristic plot devices, the transporter.

As a narrative device, it's
brilliant because you can

go from one place to the
next, very, very quickly.

And it's a genius piece
of inventive writing,

and also feels very science fiction,
you know, the gamma transfer.

But in Star Trek, you
buy it because it's the

future and things like
that exist in the future.

We were making it up as we went along.

That transporter beam, I don't believe it.

And he was the one writing this stuff.

But this guy believes it.

And he's one of NASA's
top research engineers.

At the Jet Propulsion Lab
in Pasadena, California,

Francesco Marceiling has created the
world's most sensitive photon detector.

But this is a fridge.

This is not just any old fridge, but
part of NASA's very own teleporter.

The filament, you can see a
dark spot at the center of the chip.

And that is the active
area of the detector.

That's where the photons are absorbed
and turns fuse into electrical pulses.

NASA's teleporter
operates at the scale of the

subatomic quantum world
where strange things can happen.

We teleported the state of a photon,
which is a very, very small particle.

Imagine Francesco is a photon,
a fundamental particle of light.

In other words, he's small.

There is not. There's more.
It's one millionth of a meter.

Now imagine lots of
mini-sized Francesco photons.

And this is where it
starts to get really weird.

At the level of the quantum universe,
any two particles can become entangled.

Two entangled particles
are so intimately linked

that if you change
the state of a particle,

the state of the other
entangled particle changes

too, even though two
particles are a very far apart.

Even if it's kilometers away, my thought.

Quantum is very weird.

Einstein called it spooky action at a
distance, which is what he actually is.

Okay, so much for photons.

But teleporting real
people is more problematic.

A little scary. When you think
about it, having all your molecules

turned into energy and shot down
this ray to millions of miles away,

you've got to trust that
that's going to work.

I mean, we put our trust in
something, which basically menses you.

It's one of the great
mysteries of science fiction.

What does happen to the original Kirk?

Does he still exist?

Or is the new Kirk a clone?

You don't have to explain it.
In fact, it's very easy.

When you think about it as a
concept, you're in one place.

This force field kind
of takes you apart, puts

you back together again,
and pops your uncle.

We are not teleporting
Captain Kirk because the

teleportation, shown in
Star Trek, transfers matter.

And what we actually did was to
just teleport the state of a photon,

meaning you can think about
it as the caller, a property of

a photon, the caller of a
photon from point A to point B.

But there was no transfer of
matter in between the two points.

We've achieved quantum teleportation.

And yes, Francesco does have a
little scientific crush on you know who.

Spock, have a blip on
the motion sensor, Captain.

The reason why I like
him is because of the

Vulcans, they are advanced,
they're a logical mind.

It's like the perfect scientist.

This is Spock's turnip.

I'm traveling a little.

So you can see what the caller up here.

It's a little bit frayed,
looks like it's been repaired.

But really, it's an excellent shape.

This, like all the original
series uniforms, it's

so important and it's so
emblematic at Star Trek.

And it's really, really precious.

Steady on 111 Mark 14, back
on the original course, Captain.

Spock, obviously logical, a science geek.

They all is against you and I
both being killed are 2,228.721.

But also someone who you
would want at your right hand.

And it's insane torture chamber.

Fans of Star Trek have a
great affection for Spock

because I think he's
a wonderfully noble

version of the nerd
that we all secretly are.

Beneath after there is a raging
human in Spock, absolutely.

And hidden in these boxes, at
a little-known Star Trek archive,

is the secret of Mr. Spock,
the man, not the Vulcan.

In the UCLA Library's
special collections department,

Peggy Alexander is keeper of some of the
original fan letters sent to Leonard Nimoy,

the actor who played Spock,
and passed away in 2015.

Leonard Nimoy started
getting much more fan mail

than the other stars of the
show, including William Shatner.

Fascinating.

The first week we got a bag of mail, okay?

Second week we got several bags of mail.

Third and fourth week it
got coming in so fast and

so much we had to hire
a mail service to handle it.

Dear Mr. Roddenberry,

I would like to say that I enjoy that
wonderful program of yours, Star Trek.

That is one of my favorite shows.

And I don't mean to try to tell
you how to run the program,

but speaking for many
teenage girls here in Virginia,

please let Leonard Nimoy,
Mr. Spock, do more leading parts.

He's sexy.

Is Spock sexy? Absolutely.

A whole lot of young women thought so.

I love Mr. Spock.

He's the greatest thing to hit TV.

When you can't guess something,
there's an attraction there.

Please don't change Mr. Spock.

He's simultaneously
compelling and unavailable.

You wouldn't change his personality.

Would you? I probably die if you did.

Don't go for the unavailable guys.

They're going to break your heart.

Spock is always breaking hearts.

At the EMP Museum, Brooks
Peck now has less than two months

to recreate the original bridge of
the Starship Enterprise from scratch.

Kirk's command chair, check.

Phaser on loan, check.

Communicated, check.

And hipster earpiece, check.

Captain, we're getting a
signal from the spacecraft.

He belonged to the most
groundbreaking fictional

character of the 23rd, or
indeed any other century.

Lieutenant Oohura.

The symbol repeat.

This is one of the funkier
pieces of Star Trek design.

It has a real 60s look about it.

Unlike so many TV props,
which when you look up

close, you say, oh, I
can tell this is a prop.

This is cool technology all the way down.

It never stops looking completely
real and completely convincing.

Alien frequencies open, sir.

Hailing frequency is open, Captain.

I'm the shell knuckles, and I played
Lieutenant Oohura in Star Trek.

Contact a staff.

Enterprise, Kirk here.

Seeing someone like
Lieutenant Oohura on that stage,

you know, he's right behind the
Captain's shoulder was a big thing.

You know, I felt I could
probably do that, too.

Well, she's the most
important person on the bridge.

When Lieutenant Oohura says Captain,

everybody turns around to look.

You cannot help but fall in love with her.

Starfleet Command extends greetings
to Commissioner Beale of the planet.

And remember, this wasn't
really the 23rd century.

It was the 1960s at the
height of the Civil Rights

Movement and the
struggle for racially quality.

Security sweeps of all
decks are negative, Mr. Spock.

Just the vision of her on the
bridge as a member of the crew

was such a powerful
message to African

Americans at the time
of what might be possible.

Now it's a sector. I didn't see any
other women playing roles like that

when I was growing up. You know,
they had either some domestic job.

They might have been
an actress or a dancer.

African Americans saw
the show and went, "What?"

You know, like, we're on TV.

She presented a totally
out of the box opportunity

for us to think, "Hey,
that might be possible.

" There were southern
stations that told NBC,

"Well, we're not
going to run the show.

" Because you have a
black woman on the bridge,

and Gene Roddenberry told
NBC, "Tell them to go to hell.

" Hard in my language, but
that's exactly what he said.

There is a place for you
on the Starship Enterprise.

We're all going to the stars, not
some of us, not just white men.

We're all going.

There were many little girls, black,
white, yellow, brown, red, green.

Wanted to be a who are loved who were.

But thanks to Nichelle, and the
work she subsequently did with NASA,

the door was now firmly
open for "made" Jemison

to become NASA's first African
American female astronaut.

Dr. Mae Jemison, of course,
is a hero, Shero, for me.

I recruited the first woman in minority
astronauts for the Space Shuttle program.

I really am proud of
them, because at that time,

people were saying, "It'll
never happen," you know?

And I said, "Well,
it'll already happen.

" I'm getting no
signal from it, sir.

It turns out that for the
Chief Communications Officer

of the Starship Enterprise,
there's communicating,

and then there's communicating.

I was here so, Missy, a gentleman.

This is a very important
episode in both Starship history

and television history,
because in it, Captain Kirk,

William Shatner, kisses
Lieutenant Hora, and this is

one of the first, most famous
interracial kisses on TV.

And at the time in the '60s,
this is considered a very big deal.

It was just a kissing scene.

And today, this was an incredibly
controversial thing, show on television.

After it aired, everyone
waited to see what

was reaction B, or
the reading complaints.

There were none, none whatsoever.

I said, "Well, it's just two people,
like my grandmother and grandfather.

" He said, "What do you mean,
your grandmother and grandfather?"

And I said, "Well, Grandpa was
white and Grandma was black.

" We are on a peaceful
mission in this part of the galaxy.

We have no hostile intentions.

Resolving conflict through communication
was at the heart of the Star Trek vision.

And scientists have been
following Star Trek's lead ever since.

In the Smithsonian National Air and Space
Museum, there was a muck up of Voyager 1.

Launched in 1977, it's one of the first
space probes to leave our solar system.

And in case it's ever
found by intelligent

aliens, scientists
attached a golden record,

with greetings recorded in
55 different human languages.

And it was a very simple
message to whoever might find this,

a message in a bottle, if
you will, of who humanity is.

In the 23rd century,

the Galactic Harmony was achieved
by breaking out the Universal Translator,

a handy device, especially if
you don't like reading subtitles.

"We wish to talk to you.

" He said, "You can speak to anybody
in the galaxy because you have this thing.

" And you don't have
any question how it works,

and it's not your positional
place to know how it works.

You're not a scientist,
you're a television watcher.

Or maybe you're a museum curator
desperate to turn up missing prompts.

That's the Universal Translator.

And this is the one episode in Star
Trek where we actually see the device.

No one knows where that prop is.

I really wish that prop would survive, and
we could display it, but that one's gone.

Star Trek's version of
a Universal Translator

might look like a toilet roll
wrapped up in aluminum foil.

But behind the shiny plate
blast windows of Google HQ,

the computers are an overdrive in a race to
create a Universal Translator of their own.

In order to translate this,

"Coffee this sugar
but no meal please.

" Google's computers
have been scanning the web

for every document
that has been translated,

learning over a hundred languages so you
can order a skinny shot latte in Russian.

Companion, try to understand.

Our goal is to just stick freely, and the
mobile phone will translate identifiers,

automatically identifies
the language to speak.

But Google wants to do more than its
own version of the Universal Translator.

It wants to boldly go or not
even Star Trek ever went.

It's four strange new worlds.

At Google HQ, their
mission is to seek out new

translations like you've
never seen them before.

What I really want to
do is I want to make a

window into a world
that's in your language,

so you can take your
phone, you can hold it up,

and just wherever you point it,
everything is in your language.

So what I have here is a camera
hooked up to my computer.

It tries to find little blobs
that are generally the

same color, and these
little blobs tend to be letters.

And there's a lot of
different kinds of blobs.

It finds a lot of stuff in my zipper
here, and I think there's letters there.

Things there's letters in my hair.

And so now we've got to
do a process of refining this

and trying to eliminate what's
actually a letter and what's not a letter.

Yeah, yeah, I have fun on my job.

This is the truth.

It's kind of a weird-looking
filter as my angry face.

This is what Octavial can now do with it.

She's rushing to English, click
the camera, and see what this says.

Five-year mission.

And he makes it look effortless.

Explore strange new worlds.

A lot of hard work just
sitting on my couch.

I don't know if that maybe
doesn't sound like hard work,

but just sitting on my couch trying to
figure out how to make this thing work.

And it's faster than the blink of an eye.

That takes a couple milliseconds.

But not as fast as warp speed.

Oh, look, I think it is a cassette.

To boldly to wear before
was not a single person.

Apparently, whether
you're on Alpha Centauri or

Planet Earth, there is
one universal language.

Across all languages, the top three
translated phrases are, "Thank you.

How are you and I love you?"

We can speak the same
language or a different language

with one another for human
beings, and we're proud of it.

And who I am.

For all its serious intent,
Star Trek was also great fun.

Star Trek can be wonderfully campy.

There's a strain of humor
that comes along with

taking some of the science,
taking some of the politics seriously

that makes it fun to television
and not just, you know,

eating your vegetables
or watching the news.

The renovated Boeing milestones of
Flight Hall is just weeks from completion.

And the race is on to get the
model of the Enterprise ready in time.

The Enterprise deserves
to be in the same space

and in conversation
with these other artifacts.

But in the space dock of the conservation
lab, the model is still in pieces.

Conservators Malcolm
Callum and Ariel O'Connor

are going to have to give her all
she's got to make her structurally sound.

They're discovering
old wiring and electrics,

which could pose real
long-term problems.

It's a TV problem.

It's made out of an old autumn
of beel, a light stew in the lighting.

The Christmas tree
lights doing the boiki thing.

The reality is very different than
the beautiful thing you saw on TV.

The plan is to replace the old
incandescence with modern LEDs.

People really want a beautiful
Enterprise that lights up on those great.

We've been tasked with
this model not catching

on fire, so that's an
important thing, I think.

We're utilizing a bore scope to get
into the far reaches of the saucer,

primarily because we
can't take the saucer apart.

Originally it was composed of two large
sections, which were then glued together.

All right, so you're
on the starboard light.

And I'm following this hidden
channel that we can't get our hands into

and using a bore scope
to reach down to the far

outer edge and see
where this light fixture is.

Reaching it is one thing.

Removing it is another.

So we're trying to
figure out how to carefully

remove that light fixture
without damaging anything.

The fate of the most
iconic starship of them all

now rests with Malcolm and his Boris scope.

But the Enterprise isn't the only
spaceship the Smithsonian is conserving.

Ariel O'Connor is also working
on the Apollo Lunar Module.

Many people don't realize that the Star
Trek Starship Enterprise filming model

and the Apollo Lunar Module
are contemporary space craft.

So they were both built in the
1960s during a period of time

where fictional space
exploration is becoming reality.

The Enterprise model and
the Lunar Module don't look

like each other, but they're
more similar to each other

than anything else that's in
this milestone of flight gathering.

They're both engineering
marvels of their time.

They were built without precedent.

They were both designed
without the need for aerodynamics.

The Enterprise is a very different design
than the undifferentiated flying saucers

or pointy rockets that you would
have seen in the 1950s science fiction.

And the Lunar Module is a
really innovative bit of engineering

thinking about what exactly did
they need to get human beings safely

to the lunar surface and get
them back safely and no more.

So not one ounce more
of cladding on the outside.

No streamlining because it wasn't needed.

No seats because it saved them weight
and allowed them to have smaller windows.

And there was a ladder that
would have, the hatches there,

they would have extended
and climbed down on a ladder.

So Neil Armstrong would have taken
his first step on the moon right here.

It's one small step for man,
one giant leap for mankind.

There is a moment around the actual space
landing, the first landing on the moon,

when the whole world does turn and pay
attention to this singular human achievement.

The first moon landing happened just about
six weeks after the original series ended.

So I see that it's like
this culmination of three

years of Star Trek
and all this vision of the

future and then boom,
people go to the moon.

I mean, how could people
at the time have not been

thinking, "Yeah, it's
happening. Star Trek is coming.

" Star Trek was the dream, but
the Apollo mission was the reality.

And when Neil Armstrong landed
on the moon, I mean, I wasn't

the only one that were a
lot of us, the interiors of joy.

It wasn't extraordinary
time. We had fans among the

Apollo astronauts. If Star
Trek can do it, we can do it.

It seemed almost like an inevitable future.
Yes, we're going to keep going out there.

We're going to head
into space, we're going to

explore, there will be ships
that we hear us like this.

Meet one of today's heroes, Terry Verz.

A NASA astronaut, who's
notched up over 200 days in

space, but he can barely
remember the moon landings.

It has been a long time
since we've been to the moon.

I've been an astronaut for
a while already, and when

I was a kid, even then
Apollo was already history.

Apollo's mission control,
which in 1969 guided

Neil Armstrong onto
the surface of the moon,

is today carefully preserved that the
Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas,

a relic of the space race.

In some ways, we can say that we have been
to the moon, but we, meaning the current

crowd of engineers and technicians
and astronauts have not been to the moon.

That was a long time ago.

Within the next two decades, NASA's
ambition is to send astronauts to Mars.

Three, two, one, fire.

We have ignition of NASA's
space launch system.

To get there, NASA is
testing the next generation of

prototype rockets, the
Space Launch System, or SLS.

The SLS will be the most powerful
rocket ever launched in the space.

I have a feeling that seeing SLS will be
the most awesome rocket launch ever.

Even using boosters this big, it will still
take us around eight months to reach Mars.

And if we were to
keep on going, another

80,000 years to reach
our nearest star system.

Of course, the Enterprise
didn't rely on any rockets.

Warp technology allows the
Starship to go faster than light.

And that is essential if you're going to
explore and travel interstellar distances

and not have it take hundreds
and hundreds or thousands of years.

You can get somewhere in minutes or hours
or even days or weeks, you can do a lot.

And so propulsion is
really the one thing that can

make really exotic space
travel possible in the future.

We didn't know what seven
was, or what warp was,

but we didn't know that
it was faster than five.

And that was kind of
enough of an explanation.

Oh, seven is really fast.

It's like when you put your car
into sport mode, drive really fast.

I don't really understand it, and I'm in
charge of the engine room in the moment.

It just means you go fast,
and that's all you need to know.

Warp factory.

Of all the imagined
technologies of Star Trek, warp

speed is the one that
is still out of our reach.

At present speed, our HDA
is three hours for me, sir.

Is it even scientifically possible?

The answer to that one is a resounding no.

But also a possible maybe.

Unfortunately, physics
limits us to the speed of light,

and our current technology limits us to
weigh much less than the speed of light.

According to Einstein, nothing can
travel faster than the speed of light.

But if you could warp
space-time, you could get from

here to there, not just
fast, but instantaneously.

And a tool for warping
space may actually exist.

Gravitational waves.

A hundred years after
Einstein predicted their

existence, at the LEGO
Observatory in Louisiana,

they're now being detected
for the very first time.

It's a worldwide collaboration of
more than a thousand scientists

and engineers, including
operations manager Richard Orham.

Who, when he's not making
the scientific discovery

of the century, likes to
watch reruns of Star Trek.

I've watched all of them multiple
times, at least four or five times.

But I've never considered
myself to be a Trekkie,

but I'm beginning to realize,
but perhaps I might be.

Richard is LEGO's answer to the
Enterprise's chief engineer, Scotty.

The ship's not structured to take
that speed for an early light and time.

He's the guy who you can depend
on in a bad time to get the job done.

Well, I don't know about that.
It's going to take this long one really.

He can probably do
it in a bit shorter, but

he's giving himself the
room to make mistakes.

A brilliant engineer, a
man who, if he could, would

bend the laws of physics
to fulfill your needs.

God, we can't maintain
what makes it much longer.

Pestures are approaching
the critical point, right?

Richard's job is to keep his laser
interferometer running smoothly.

This is the largest volume ultra
high vacuum system in the world.

It goes two and a half miles all
the way down to the XN station.

It's an incredible feat of engineering.

This giant space observatory has detected
the collision of two massive black holes,

an event that occurred
halfway across the universe

and created a gravitational
wave, a ripple in space-time,

that was detected by
Richard's interferometer.

We're only really at the very starting
point of understanding gravitational waves,

but it's not too far-fetched to,
you know, from that starting point,

I think, well, if we can understand them,
we can maybe learn how to use them.

If we can detect gravitational waves,

could be one day harness them
and warp space-time ourselves

to reach the furthest
corners of the galaxy.

In theory, warp drive is just not possible.

The theoreticians can say that it
breaks the physics that we know today.

I guess as an engineer, I can
view that as a challenge, I suppose.

It's the deepest check-up.
We're moving at warp 8.

In Star Trek, all Mr. Chekhov had
to do with the navigation console

was press a button to put
Enterprise into warp speed.

And inside this crate is that same console.

One of the setter pieces of Brooks
Peck's 50th anniversary exhibition

at the EMP Museum of Pop Culture.

He was like a sort of pop star Russian

to see this character who
was extremely attractive

and loyal and not at all
a bushy-eyed communist.

Mr. Chekhov.

He was a part of the team.

The console hasn't been on
public display for nearly 25 years.

So, for the first time in a generation,
get ready to see something...

Not that special.

I was really surprised how much was missing

and I thought, "Oh no,
what have we got here?"

I mean, what's left?

Wow.

And it was a bad way.
I didn't know it was quite this bad.

Analyze all satellites.

Affirmity.

Wow, is it ever
scratched off? Yeah.

Now give us warp speed.

You know, when I first
saw it, I felt this dread.

I thought, "Cryps, this
is not going to work out.

" That was like, "Wow.

" That needs a lot of work.

It was, "Ooh.

" It will take months.

It's not like you can just run out to the
hardware store and pick up these pieces.

How did it get some bang down?

That's about a good thing that I do.

It's like, what are people...
Yeah, but what does that mean?

What did someone
do? I don't know.

You never know how
it was stored before.

Yeah, there's a hole.

There's a lot missing.

There's missing switches,
missing lights, missing buttons.

Just weeks till opening.

And suddenly, Brooks has a
50-year-old console to conserve

and a lot of replacement
blinking lights to find.

This says, "I don't want to say
overwhelming, but it's pretty close.

" Before the model of the
Enterprise can be reassembled,

the Smithsonian's conservation
team is faced with a dilemma.

What color to paint it?

What color is the Enterprise?

It's a tricky question
because it's not one flat color.

The original paint had many
layers, base coats and top coats,

and then they added a
weathering effect during the series.

It's the kind of dilemma that gives us
Smithsonian Curator sleepless nights.

I've been working for months
to put all of this together.

It's exhausting because
you're just mentally

on every minute of the
day, making decisions.

What about this? What about that?

This is an object with such a complex
history and such a passionate fan base

who are so wonderful about
really paying attention to the details

that we really wanted to
make sure that we got this right.

Even though we're doing
spectroscopic analysis,

even though we're
doing paint analysis,

even though we've literally microscopically
poured in to get the right colors,

that we fans out there
who are watching and loving

and expecting it to
look like what they saw,

and they will be very
pleased and very happy.

And some fans will hate it.

At the EMP Museum of Pop Culture,

Kirk's command chair is
taking center stage once more,

and for the first time
in nearly half a century,

the props and costumes
that escape the dumpster

are being brought together for Brooks'
50th anniversary Star Trek exhibition.

The set is an ambitious one,

and in the workshop the design
crew are in a race to complete it in time.

The clock is ticking for Brooks.

This is a model we created
of the exhibition space.

So everything you see here, we're
actually going to carve out a styrofoam

and then plaster and paint is
making these gigantic rock formations.

In some ways, a lot like
they did in the original series,

and you saw a lot of styrofoam rocks
in Star Trek, and that will bring it back.

This is a lot of work.

Any one of these rock plants takes about
12 hours to construct, start to finish,

so we have a lot, a lot of pieces
to do, a lot of work to be done.

Captain Kirk's mission is not
only to explore strange new

worlds of styrofoam, but
to seek out new life as well.

And he's always bound by
Star Trek's prime directive,

the idealistic principle of
non-interference with alien civilizations.

Our prime directive specifically
prohibits us from any interference.

The characters you see on Star
Trek are wrestling with the same issues

that we wrestle with every day
in our life, but they do it better.

That very idealistic may be slightly
naive idea that we could just go out

and everyone would just
join in with us, and we'd all be

very come by our and sort of
hold hands around the galaxy.

At NASA HQ in downtown Washington, DC,
Dr. Cassie Conley hasn't met any aliens yet.

But if she does, it's her job to implement
NASA's own version of the prime directive.

As a potential protection officer,

I'm responsible for making sure
that missions NASA sends out

don't contaminate other
planets with Earth's life,

and that really is a form
of the prime directive.

If we detect life on another planet,

it will probably be here at NASA's mission
control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Squint your eyes a bit, and you could be
on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

We get to do what we all
grew up watching on TV,

you know, with Star Trek of course,
and I get to be the science officer.

Can't be anything better than that.

Ashwin is the project scientist for
NASA's Mars Curiosity rover mission,

which landed on the red
planet in August of 2012.

So we had this dramatic entry.

We came in screaming
through the atmosphere.

So much of your life is riding on it.

You've already put it, you know,
eight, nine years working on this mission,

designing it, building it, testing
it, falling in love with it really.

And it was over before you knew it,
and people were jumping up and down,

NASA just take a moment
to realize, "I can't believe

we actually, you know,
we're here. We did it.

" And now, Ashwin's
real work begins.

The search for life on Mars.

Looking for life goes way
beyond just science, you know.

It's a question of
humanity. It's a question of

knowing whether there's
anybody else like us out there.

And is there anybody out there?

I think it would be naive
and somewhat ignorant of us

to believe that we're the
only form of life to exist.

I'm quite positive there's life on Mars.

We know there's life on Mars,
but it's not like the aliens in search.

We know there's life on Mars because
it's on the spacecraft we brought with us.

So those spacecraft all had Earth organisms
somewhere embedded inside the spacecraft.

It's not very much, it's about as much
for spacecraft as is on one of your hands.

But there's some Earth's
life already on Mars.

We're spreading our dreams
across the universe like Tribbles.

I am. They're into the
machinery, all right? Not in the car.

One man who knows all about the
uncontrollable spread of alien life forms

is the writer of the trouble
with Tribbles, David Gerald.

Always before in science fiction,
the alien was something ugly,

so that was how we knew it
was a menace, it was ugly.

What if the alien
was so cute, we didn't

recognize it was a
menace until it was too late?

What was that door?

And in fact, there are organisms
that live on the cheese in your fridge.

They are in your mouth
right now that as long as

they were protected
from the ultraviolet light

and had a little bit of liquid
on the surface of Mars.

Mars pressure, Mars soil
conditions, they would grow on Mars.

So Earth life can grow on Mars and
it's got an umbrella and a cold drink.

Twelve months ago, the
Starship Enterprise looked like

an aging Hollywood actress
who had seen better days.

Now she's been taken apart,
probed, hated, and polished.

With only a week to go
before she's installed,

the team hopes she's
ready for her close-up.

At the Conservation Lab
at the Smithsonian National

Air and Space Museum,
it's taken months of work.

Now, every light fixture,
every brushstroke, every

moving part has been
lovingly and expertly conserved.

We know down to the
micron that we have the decals

and the right places, the
windows are exactly right.

All of the detailing that
makes the Enterprise

the Enterprise we
have in the right place.

The Enterprise model is a
genuine 1960s television star.

It shouldn't surprise me given that this
is a model that was built for television,

but it just shows up so
beautifully on camera.

And for Chief Conservator
Malcolm, it's a job well done.

It's not going to fall apart,
at least not in my lifetime.

Her final voyage will be to the Boeing
milestones of Flight Hall in downtown DC.

At the EMP Museum of Pop Culture,
Brooks's quest is also nearing completion.

This is the last prop that he needs.

This is a tricorder from Star Trek.

This is a original prop.

You'd have seen this used
by Spock, also Dr. McCoy.

The tricorder is a multifunction device.

It's a computer, it's a
scanner, it's an analyzer.

It's a sensor, it's used for science,
for medicine, all kinds of things.

It is like, and I've had on steroids.

It was another brilliant
plot device, which enabled

people to explain things
by looking at the radiators.

This is that.

And how does it work
exactly? No, I don't.

It is an incredibly futuristic idea.

I mean, this technology
is still way beyond us.

But maybe not for long.

Because this guy thinks the
future really is within our grasp.

When you have the target of where
you want to go, what you want to do.

Asking the world to say that over there,
that technology, that accomplishment.

Why hasn't someone done it?

The XPRISE Foundation, founded by
Peter, launched the private space industry

with its offer of a $10 million prize to
the first commercial craft to reach space.

It now hangs in the Boeing
milestones of flight hall.

Today's $10 million prize will be awarded
to the team that can invent one of these.

Not a prop.

But one that actually works.

I like to say the date before
something is truly a breakthrough.

It's a crazy idea.

Sunny Kohli isn't crazy.

He is an intensive care doctor.

But he did grow up in the '70s
watching reruns of Star Trek.

As I walk into the hospital,
the automatic door opens.

You know, it's a little back to Star Trek.

I'm walking up the stairs to the ICU.

I've been speaking with them
with my communicator device,

thinking to myself,
like, we're already here.

These guys saw it coming.

Sunny works at one of Canada's
biggest and most modern hospitals.

And his dream is to diagnose
all kinds of illnesses with

a little handheld device
like they did on Star Trek.

I was a very hard damage.

Signs of congestion in both lungs.

I remember watching
this as a kid, and I was

never thinking of via doctor at the
time, but it's just amazing entertainment.

Internal injuries.

Leading in the chest and abdomen.

Mr. Spock is using the tricorder device to
diagnose McCoy's current state of affairs,

and he's telling us
that it's hard to severely

damage, that his lungs
are filling up with fluid,

his internal organs are all damaged,
and that his blood pressure is dropping,

and he's going into the triculapse, which
is amazing for a little handheld device.

A signal captain.

So when Peter says that should be
possible, why don't we have a tricorder?

Guess Sunny's reaction.

And I was like, "Come again, does that
actually a tricorder X-rays competition?"

And I said, "Sure,
I'd love to sign up.

" Because who wouldn't want
to be the physician of the future?

I'll do everything I
can, John, to save him.

I think one of the things that
appeals to me the most about

him is that he has got the
most appalling bedside manner.

Well, I'm still chief medical
officer in the enterprise.

I'll tell you what you
need when you need it.

But underneath that, he's
one of the most altruistic

human beings that you can
find, and he loves all species.

There's nothing disgusting about it.

There's just another
life for him, that's all.

The fans got it about him instantly.

It was a close, John.
Both barely got back alive.

Unless the formula
works, we can't risk it again.

Dr. McCoy is a very
compassionate, emotional voice,

and he argues from the heart and
who wouldn't fall in love with that.

Sunny, the 21st century Dr. McCoy
now heads up a team competing with

others from around the world in a
race to invent a working tricorder.

The real passion for me is
taking this to the home or to places

in underdeveloped nations that
they don't have anything at all.

We're going to be short,
millions of doctors in the world.

You can't build enough medical
schools or hospitals or teach

enough doctors to meet
the needs of the rising

billion, but the tricorder
can meet those needs.

And this device needs to be
something that you can speak to.

It's got artificial intelligence on the
cloud, and in success, it can diagnose you.

Initially, in about 15
different diseases, as

good or better than a
board certified doctor.

This is how Sunny's
version of the tricorder works.

So just imagine you're at
home, you don't feel very well,

it's flu season, you're like,
"What's going on with me?"

So I put this on, and the
two things on the front here

help pick up your electrical
impulses from your heart.

This piece in your ear detects your temperature
and also detects an artery in the ear

and picks up the pulse from
that artery to help diagnose how

fast you're breathing, what the
oxygen levels are in your blood.

The first thing it made tell
me is that I have a fever, that

my breathing rate is high, then
my blood pressure is quite low,

that I'm starting to develop sepsis
or infection in my bloodstream.

All of those things are clues
to that you don't just have

the flu, you're actually progressing
to flow below pneumonia.

You need to be seen.

Like any medical diagnostic
device, each tricorder

must now undergo
rigorous clinical testing.

Before a winter can be
declared, and science

fiction can take one
step closer to reality.

I believe we're heading towards
a future in which we're going to

meet the basic needs of every
man, woman, and child in this planet.

We're making the Star Trek universe happen.

It's the most exciting
time ever to be alive.

At the EMP Museum of Pop Culture in
Seattle, it's an exciting time for the fans,

because Brooks' 50th anniversary
Star Trek exhibition is ready to open.

Oh my god!

For the last four months,
EMP Museum curator

Brooks Peck has been
on a hunt for props,

and authentic replacement
lights for check-offs console.

If we do our job right, and if
all goes well, this is going to

be an incredibly immersive
and a very exciting space to be in,

and the closest it could possibly
come to actually being in Star Trek.

Time for the fans verdict.

I'm really excited about
the Star Trek exhibit in a

fan since freshman year of
high school, and help them.

I saw the first episode back in 1966.

I'm 16 then. I'm 66 now, and I'm
really excited about the sixth exhibit.

This exhibit is really exciting for me.

It's really important to me that they
get the feeling of Star Trek, right?

These are the first
fans in nearly 50 years

to see the bridge of the Star Trek Enterprise
recreated with the authentic props.

Ready or not? Time for the big reveal.

Wow!

Oh my god!

Oh, this is fabulous!

This is amazing!

It's beautiful!

It's incredible. All the
buttons, all the surfaces,

everything, all the texture that
you've seen a thousand times.

It's incredible to see it in person.

Wow. Wow, look at that.

This is so cool. I can't believe I'm here.

It's just a remarkable feeling.

I'm shaking.

I'm just so in awe and so moved by this.

When I was a kid, all I
wanted was to lock the decks of

the Enterprise and to be a
part of Star Trek somehow.

It's bringing tears to my
eyes. This is so, so incredible

to see it and to see it
lit up and see it living.

That's the amazing part.

Fantastic!

Oh, I love it!

It's just incredible.

Just a little bit.

The fans like it, but does it
live up to the expectations

of the little boy who first
fell in love with the show?

Nine-year-old Brooks
would be flabbergasted on the

floor, the chance to get
this close to Star Trek.

'Cause I know Brooks would
want to climb over there and get in

and push the buttons and look
in the scope and do all that stuff.

I mean, I do too, but 49-year-old
Brooks is a professional, so.

One who's quite happy to
stay on this side of the glass.

At the Smithsonian
Boeing Milestones of Flight

Hall, the Enterprise
has made her entrance.

At the Smithsonian, I think we're always very
aware that we hold these objects, these pieces of

art, technology and history, on behalf of the
American people and behalf of the people of the world.

The model of the
Enterprise and the props

of Star Trek are more
than museum artifacts.

They represent the future
that Star Trek invented.

It was a vision of what humans could
accomplish in the future involving better

society, better people, space travel to see
other things in the galaxy and exploration.

And it was a really wide opening, positive
view of what mankind could accomplish.

Projecting things like the tricorder,
the faces, the transporter, there

was a basis in science already that
could say, you know, this might happen.

This could happen in the future.

With what we can do now,
with 50 years of technology

now, I want to know
the rest of the story.

All of that technology, which
was beyond, you couldn't

imagine how to make it at
the time, we have that now.

And when you realize that
the year that Star Trek was

supposed to be set in, you know,
we're way ahead of schedule.

That's pretty thrilling.

Explore Strange New Worlds.

It was never a matter of, would we do it?
It's just a matter of when we'll do it.

Space is not the final frontier.
Space is where we will meet the

challenge, what we're going to
learn about who we are in the universe.

What's our place in the universe?
Who we as a species are going to become.

So I think the final
frontier is the human soul.

I'm gonna play four meetings.

I am a lifelong Star Trek fan.
I had started when I was a little kid.

My mother actually suggested I watched
this show. It was on reruns every day.

And I watched it on
our little nine inch black

and white TV and it was
immediately captivated.

And I would try and make
phasers and communicators out of

Legos and run around the house,
pretending I was on a mission.

Star Trek and I turned
50 the very same year.

And so really I feel like
we're bonded that way.

These are the voyages
of the Starship Enterprise.

It's five-year mission to explore
strange new worlds, to seek out new life.

Enovate civilizations.

And new civilizations.

It's a boldly go.

Where no man or woman has gone before.