Star Trek at 50 - Space Travel

I was born on the edge of the space age. The year of the first men in space and President Kennedy's historic speech, challenging the nation to land "a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth" before the end of the decade.

Space exploration defined my boyhood. Small scale models of various spacecraft filled the shelves in my bedroom, nestled among book titles such as Tom Swift and His Outpost in Space and a double sided Little Golden Book titled "Planet" and "Space Flight". While in grade school, I somehow convinced my parents to allow me to take our television to school on days when Saturn rockets would launch carrying men into space or when capsules carrying those men would plunge through the atmosphere and splash down on the blue waters of the Pacific.

And here we are, on what may be the brink of a new space race, looking to Mars and beyond. 

At its heart, Star Trek has always been about how humanity can progress. It started with a simple casting decision -- having a Scottish man, a black woman, an Asian man, an alien, and later a Russian man, all working alongside the two white American men, a radical notion in 1966. It proceeded to give us a show where the day wasn’t always saved by having the bigger gun, but by being smart and by being compassionate. Star Trek has always been about hope, first and foremost, starting with that very casting decision showing that humans of different nations had put those hostilities aside, and now were one united Earth.

This week, a look at space travel and the hope of a better future.
 
TTFN, Fred.

Quote of the week: "Just beyond the next planet, just beyond the next star..." - Captain Jonathan Archer, Star Trek: Enterprise, “These Are The Voyages..."

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Star Trek at 50 - Automatic Doors

Automation, as it turns out, is not a new concept. A Greek inventor named Heron contemplated the notion some 2,000 years ago. He describes not one, but two different automatic door applications. The first application used heat from a fire lit by the city's temple priest.  After, a few hours atmospheric pressure built up in a brass vessel causing it to pump water into adjacent holding containers. These holding containers acted as weights, that through a series of ropes and pulleys would open the temple's doors, at just about the time people were to arrive for prayer.  Heron used a similar application to open the gates to the city.

This week, a look at automatic doors.

TTFN, Fred.

Quote of the week: "Feelings aren't positive or negative Data, it's what you do with those feelings that becomes good or bad."  - Counselor Deanna Troi , Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Descent Part 1" 

   ST50 - Automatic Doors by fredwine on Scribd