Posted on 04/19/2018 4:57:16 PM PDT by Twotone
Those who can remember a half century back will recall these words, spoken by Captain James Kirk of the starship Enterprise at the beginning of each episode of Star Trek:
“Space—the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission—to explore strange new worlds—to seek out new life and new civilizations—to boldly go where no man has gone before.”
Although the original series lasted only three years and 79 episodes, it spawned follow-on series and has become a cult classic.
But this essay is not about classic science fiction, the starship Enterprise, or Captain Kirk. Yet it is about science that has some of the elements of science fiction. It is about a starship going where no man has gone before. And it is about Captain Kirk, played by Canadian actor William Shatner. Yes, Shatner is still alive at almost 88 and promoting the latest NASA spacecraft mission to touch a star.
That star is our Sun and the mission is called the “Parker Solar Probe.” At the size of a small automobile, the unmanned probe is hardly a giant starship. But it will have to endure heat and radiation greater than any encountered by the Enterprise. Although hardly traveling at “warp speed,” it will reach almost half a million miles per hour as it swings around the Sun in flybys that get ever deeper into the solar corona. That is where the Sun accelerates the ‘solar wind’ to supersonic speed and embeds intense solar magnetic fields into a giant spiral that sweeps galactic cosmic rays out of the solar system.
(Excerpt) Read more at nw-connection.com ...
There’s no way the Federation would have let Sulu on board with a partner.
Just leave Joan Collins to us time travelers!
If you watch the newly syndicated versions, they have been digitally enhanced in certain scenes, like the Enterprise orbiting a planet, or certain computer displays.
They] technicians did add to it, and the story lines remain true. Basically, they improved on the ‘60s special effects.
I used to order episodes on DVD from Netflix. My Daughter regularly gave me free subscriptions.
On one disk they had a short interview with the props manager. He said their budget was low and they had to improvise a lot of things.
He said they did have one advantage. No one knew what a Star Ship really looked like. For instance in one scene, they simply stuck plastic cup holders on the wall for some effect.
He also said their favorite source of materials was the Paramount dumpsters.
Captain Kirk hit some Hotties!
I’ve got the ‘New Remastered’ set,
XLNT!
Andrea the android was the best.
Kirk got kissed a lot, but he didn't actually have sex with many women (that we know of). The entire list:
Drusilla ["Bread and Circuses"]
Deela ["Wink of an Eye"]
Elaan ["Elaan of Troyius"] - not 100% confirmed as sexual partner but very likely. Miramanee ["The Paradise Syndrome"]
Carol Marcus ("Star Trek II")
Have to agree with you there. Andrea was just plain hot.
I can’t recall her name but the girl who went with Kirk down to the penal colony was also up there with the elite.
Well, Spock only got laid once every seven years, so there’s that.
Basically, they improved on the ‘60s special effects.
I remember how the Trekkies were so mad when CBS had announced they were going to digitally enhance the special effects in TOS. This was shortly after George Lucas had bastardized the original Star Wars trilogy by slathering on a bunch of irrelevent extra CG imagery and changed scenes around (e.g., Grito shooting first).
Everybody was afraid that CBS was going to mess up TOS in a similar way. But it turned out that CBS was careful to make only minimal changes to the original 1960 material, with no changes in dialog or shot composition other than to improve on the limited and sometimes cheesy 60s special effects (and to clean up scratches and defects in the original film negatives).
Once people saw the result they were pretty happy and there were few complaints. The biggest changes were made to the special effects of the space-based episodes, for example The Doomsday Weapon (which I thought was particular well done).
I filled out one.
Thank you.
Except:
"This Side of Paradise" : Under the influence of those spores....maybe?
"The Enterprise Incident" : Again...maybe? For Vulcans, finger caressing probably counts as third base.
"All Our Yesterdays": Yeah, baby!
This is the maneuver they used to get back to the 1980s to save the whales in Star Trek IV, but the spacecraft is so small, they won't be able to fit.
The enlisted dudes all wore red shirts. Given the track record of red shirt wearing humans that beamed down to planets at the beginning of many episodes, it's a wonder even these 2 survived.
To boldly go ...
Split infinitive.
But it will have to endure heat and radiation greater than any encountered by the Enterprise.
Beverly Crusher hid the Enterprise in the corona of the Sun from the Borg. She defeated them after doing her hair and makeup.
Ensign Pavil Chekov was an enlisted crewmember who wore a yellow shirt.
Shirt colors indicate the functional area: operations [red], sciences [blue], or command [yellow]. Chekov was a navigator so he wore yellow.
The colors were orthoganal to rank, which was indicated by a braid on the sleeve: none (ensign), dashed (2nd lieutenant), solid (full lieutenant), solid-dashed (lt commander), solid-solid (commander), or solid-dashed-solid (captain).
James Tiberius Kirk was always “get’n” some.
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