NASA Fact-Checks Star Trek's Starship Enterprise

Star Trek is such a sophisticated creation

of the world in the future.

I think everything they do

has a basis in some physics,

but there's always going to be discrepancies.

In today's terms, the Starship Enterprise

is the probably the largest spacecraft

that would have ever been built,

so with the constraints

of current launch vehicle technologies,

you would actually have to bring it up

in separate pieces.

In the previous versions, it was built in space

and that's the right place

to build something of that size and class.

The Starship Enterprise and other vehicles

rely on warp-drive which requires the distortion

of space-time in order to travel faster

than the speed of light.

[Anita] We don't have the ability to do that right now.

The theory behind the warp-drive is matter, anti-matter.

The concept of anti-matter and matter containment

does exist for us, so we do understand

a little of the physics associated with that.

However, we're not there yet.

We would have to develop this kind of technology

in order to be able to travel longer distances

across space like the Starship Enterprise does.

Well, the role of the deflector shield

is to protect the spacecraft.

This is like a force field.

That's not a technology that we have today.

But, what we do have is magnetic shields

to help protect us from radiation.

We just put the Juno spacecraft in orbit

around Jupiter where this radiation environment

is a real huge hazard to the spacecraft.

We put all of our sensitive electronics

inside a titanium vault,

and that allows the electronics

to survive this very hazardous radiation environment.

But, we would like to be able

to generate something like that

around one of our own spacecraft

to help protect astronauts from radiation.

And so, the holodeck is a technology

which allows people to simulate an environment around them.

The idea of the holodeck is evident today

in artificial reality, virtual reality.

I've worn a hololens in which I'm able

to walk on the surface of Mars.

What do you think the biggest risk

for humans traveling in deep space is?

It's not the radiation.

It's not the technology.

It's the psychology.

The holodeck is a great idea for that,

so I can imagine in a vehicle going to Mars,

we will have virtual reality.

The best we can do in terms of a holodeck-type environment,

but people will be able to experience life back on Earth

and help keep themselves healthy.

The transporter relies on knowing the specific pattern

of each individual so that you could recreate it

from one spot to the next

which is essentially transporting you

in the particle stream.

The way I would think of it

is that we can take like a picture

and we can digitize it and then we send

the digital image and then we reassemble the digital image.

So, if you could map out each atom's wave function

and then you could store it

and then create it somewhere else,

that, in a sense, would be like a transporter.

The tricky part, of course, is this living thing.

How do we take from a living thing,

a digital image of it, and recreate it as a living thing?

That's an interesting problem.

I think that the Star Trek has been

inspirational for technologists.

So, for example, flip phones, we have those nowadays.

Tricorders, we have those nowadays.

They're like our iPads.

One of the reasons why I became an engineer to begin with

is because of Star Trek.

When I would see the Enterprise,

I would think about the future

where human beings could travel and work in space

and it made me want to be a part

of the space program.

The science fiction writers and the filmmakers

really are a stimulation for us

that work in the field.

We are inspired by the future that they paint,

that we are working to achieve.