Tag: Star Trek

Categories
GeekWire

TMZ says Star Trek’s William Shatner will go to space

William Shatner and New Shepard
Will Star Trek captain William Shatner fly on Blue Origin’s New Shepard spaceship? (Photos: Paramount and Blue Origin)

The next crewed suborbital spaceflight planned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture — which could launch as early as next month — is due to carry Star Trek captain William Shatner, according to the TMZ celebrity news site.

If the report based on unnamed sources is true, that would make Shatner the oldest person to fly in space at the age of 90, besting the record set by 82-year-old aviation pioneer Wally Funk during July’s first crewed flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital spacecraft.

Shatner played Captain James T. Kirk in the original “Star Trek” series and in a series of movies. That gives him at least one thing in common with Bezos. The world’s richest individual also played a part in a Star Trek production: a cameo as an alien Starfleet officer that lasted several seconds in the movie “Star Trek Beyond.”

Get the full story on GeekWire
Categories
GeekWire

Space Force’s new seal sparks Star Trek snark

Starfleet Command and Space Force seals
The seal for Star Trek’s fictional Starfleet Command has some design elements in common with the seal for the U.S. Space Force. (CBS / Space Force Images via Twitter)

We don’t know whether Mr. Spock would have cocked an eyebrow over the Starfleet-like U.S. Space Force seal that was revealed by President Donald Trump today, but we’ve found out what Star Trek’s Mr. Sulu would do.

Get the news brief on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Alexa, who’s your favorite Star Trek captain?

When the actor who plays the boss’ favorite Star Trek captain drops in at the office, it’s best to agree with the boss. Even though Amazon’s Alexa is just a computerized voice assistant, she clearly understands that much.

That’s basically how things went down today when Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos dropped in at the Seattle office where comedy writers come up with bon mots for Alexa … with Patrick Stewart, who plays Captain Jean-Luc Picard, at his side.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Bill Gates connects ‘Star Trek’ to fighting malaria

Mosquito
Anopheles mosquitoes are carriers for the malaria parasite. (CDC Photo / James Gathany)

It’s Mosquito Week at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a time to focus on the global campaign to eradicate malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases. And if delving into the nuts and bolts of developing an effective malaria vaccine doesn’t grab you, how about adding a “Star Trek” angle?

That’s exactly what Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is doing in today’s Gates Notes posting to kick off Mosquito Week.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
Uncategorized

Scientists spot planet orbiting Spock’s home star

Planet at HD 26965
An artist’s conception shows a super-Earth in orbit around HD 26965, which is Mr. Spock’s home star in “Star Trek” lore. (University of Florida Illustration)

Has the planet Vulcan been found? Vulcan’s most famous fictional inhabitant, Mr. Spock of “Star Trek” fame, would certainly raise an eyebrow if he heard that astronomers have detected a potentially habitable super-Earth orbiting the star that’s associated with him.

The world orbits a sunlike star that’s a mere 16 light-years away, known as HD 26965 or 40 Eridani A, according to the team behind the Dharma Planet Survey.

In the current Star Trek canon, 40 Eridani A is the star that harbors Spock’s home planet. Some early references pointed to a different star, known as Epsilon Eridani(which is also thought to host at least one exoplanet). But in a 1991 essay, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and a group of astronomers argued that 40 Eridani A, the brightest star in a triple-star system, was a better fit because its 4 billion years of existence provided a wider window for pointy-eared intelligent life to evolve.

The latest findings suggest Roddenberry made the right choice: The planet found at 40 Eridani A is roughly twice Earth’s size, completes an orbit around its parent star every 42 Earth days, and lies just inside the star’s optimal habitable zone, said University of Florida astronomer Jian Ge.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

‘Star Trek’ vet George Takei beams up to TraceMe

George Takei
George Takei, who played Sulu on the original “Star Trek” TV series, flashes a Vulcan salute along with the kitchen staff at the Los Angeles restaurant where he celebrated his 81st birthday. (@GeorgeTakei via Twitter)

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson may be the founder of the TraceMe fan networking platform, but to hear George Takei tell it, the inspiration could have come from “Star Trek.”

“It is almost ‘Star Trek’ coming true,” Takei, who played Mr. Sulu on the original sci-fi TV series, told GeekWire.

Takei may be a bit biased — not only because of his experience with the progressive, diversity-promoting space show of the ’60s and the original-cast movies that followed, but also because he’s the latest celebrity to join the TraceMe team.

As of today, Takei will be contributing to content channels on the TraceMe app, holding forth on favorite topics ranging from science fiction to immigration to LGTBQ equality to his trademark “Oh Myyyy” internet memes. There’s also a channel called “The Takei Files,” which will include videos paying tribute to people and ideas that Takei admires.

Takei promises “to offer original content to my devoted fans that they won’t find anywhere else, in a safe environment that ill encourage them to interact with each other and me.”

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Kirk or Picard? Trek fan Jeff Bezos reveals his pick

Stewarts and Bezoses
Patrick Stewart and his wife, Sunny Ozell, stand beside MacKenzie and Jeff Bezos at the Oscars. (Jeff Bezos via Twitter)

Kirk, Picard or Janeway?

That choice of Star Trek captains is a standard question on our Geek of the Weeklist, and now Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos has let all of us know where he stands.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Spoof touts Quentin Tarantino’s R-rated ‘Star Trek’

What would an R-rated “Star Trek” movie directed by Quentin Tarantino look like?

We may find out someday soon: The director of “Kill Bill,” “Pulp Fiction,” “Inglorious Basterds” and other violence-laced neo-noir films is reportedly working with “Revenant” screenwriter Mark L. Smith and producer J.J. Abrams on a harder-edged version of the Starship Enterprise’s saga.

Nerdist has already put together a must-see video trailer for a Tarantino-tinged Trek, titled “Quentin Tarantino’s Star Trek: Voyage to Vengeance.”

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

‘Star Trek’ rates Elon Musk with Wright Brothers

'Star Trek: Discovery'
The starship Discovery’s captain, Gabriel Lorca (played by Jason Isaacs), lists Elon Musk among the pioneers of propulsion in a 23rd-century scene from “Star Trek: Discovery.” (CBS via All Access)

SpaceX founder Elon Musk hasn’t yet scored a cameo on the Star Trek stage, as fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos did last year, but he won a high-level shout-out on this week’s episode of “Star Trek: Discovery.”

Apparently, Musk will be held in as much esteem as the Wright Brothers and the builder of Earth’s first warp drive, Zefram Cochrane, by the year 2256.

That’s the time frame for “Star Trek: Discovery,” the latest manifestation of the 51-year-old space saga on CBS All Access, the TV network’s streaming video service.

Musk, who celebrated this year’s 14th successful launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rockettoday, gets name-checked during a key scene in the Oct. 8 episode, during which the captain of the starship Discovery tells the science officer that his careful study of space mushrooms would have to be put aside for a high-risk activation of an experimental “spore drive.”

“How do you want to be remembered in history?” Captain Gabriel Lorca asks. “Alongside the Wright Brothers, Elon Musk, Zefram Cochrane? Or as a failed fungus expert? A selfish little man who put the survival of his own ego before the lives of others?”

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Amazon adds Star Trek skills to Alexa’s repertoire

Jeff Bezos photoillustration

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has said the Alexa voice-activated AI assistant was inspired by the talking computer on “Star Trek,” so it only makes sense that Alexa is saluting the latest incarnation of the Star Trek saga.

“Star Trek: Discovery” premieres Sept. 24 on CBS All Access, and in the show’s honor, Amazon has added a few tricks that Echo, Dot and other Alexa-enabled devices can show off.

Get the full story on GeekWire.