Category: Star Trek

  • Alan N. Shapiro racconta “Star Trek” (RAI4 Italian TV interview)

    This is the transcript of an interview about Star Trek which I did on Italian TV (RAI4) in 2013. There exist also transcripts of interviews which I did on Italian TV about Lost and The Prisoner.

  • Reviews of Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance

    Here are excerpts from three reviews of my book “Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance,” beginning with the long review-essay in Science Fiction Studies, and some other quotations about the book.

  • Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance, by Alan N. Shapiro

    Does Star Trek’s worldview coincide with the unbridled high-tech enthusiasm of recent years? Or is there a tension between the show’s originality and the Borg-like assimilation of its creativity by the Star Trek industry? Focusing on the stories themselves, the author reveals the basic principles behind Star Trek that contest the ideology of mainstream technoscience.

  • Year of Hell (Star Trek: Voyager)

    Janeway and Voyager lock in a course correction to avoid a rogue comet, and accidentally enter a region of space rich in Class-M planets that is in dispute between the Zahl and the Krenim. Data from the newly upgraded Astrometrics Lab indicate that the Zahl are preeminent in this Delta Quadrant sector designated as Spatial Grid 005.

  • The Physics of Wormholes

    According to Lawrence M. Krauss in The Physics of Star Trek, “a surprising amount of modern theo- retical physics research,” clustered in the area of astrophysical wormhole studies, is directed towards establishing the scientific and mathematical prerequisites for timetravel.  “Wormhole time machines are easy to design,” explains Krauss.

  • The Physics of Warp Drive

    Although light from the moon reaches us in about two seconds, and light from Mars in a few minutes, light from Proxima Centauri or Alpha Centauri takes about four years to reach us. A spaceship traveling at current rocketry technology speed would take about ten thousand years to reach any possible Class-M planet.