Interview: Steve Dean, Trekkie

Steve Dean is a former astronautical engineer, and a long-time Star Trek fan. I interviewed him on Star Trek and physics in science fiction shows.

When did you first get into Star Trek?

It would have been when I was in uni, back in the sixties, when The Original Series came out. The effects were pretty amazing back then, but now when I watch them I can almost see the wires holding the ships up.

What is it you like about Star Trek?

Being an engineer, I always dreamed about being an engineer on the Enterprise. I think I was born about 300 years too early, I feel like I almost belong there. My wife thinks I belong in the garden!

I guess I like the values the show upholds, winning against all odds, fighting for freedom. The technology is also really interesting to imagine.

Do you think we can ever travel faster than light speed?

Einstein said it was impossible to accelerate to the speed of light. I guess that that doesn’t necessarily mean that we can’t travel faster than the speed of light. If we could somehow reach light speed without accelerating, then maybe it would possible.

I also think that wormholes could be a viable way of traveling over long distances.

What about time travel?

In Star Trek, it’s postulated that if you could reach Warp 10, which is very, very fast, then one could travel through time. In reality, I don’t really think it’s possible to travel through time.

Star Trek always had sound in space. Is that possible?

Sound needs something to travel through. Sound, as we hear it, is just like ripples on a pond, except through the air. Sound waves always need something to travel through, that’s called propagation. In space, there’s no air, so the sound has nothing to travel through. So no, it’s not possible. But it’s not very dramatic if you have no sound to go with big space battles, so you can’t win.

Are you planning to see the new film?

For sure, I’ve seen them all many times, and I don’t plan to make the new film an exception. I think it will be different, though, not sure if I’ll like it or not.

Live long and prosper!

Peace and long life!

Battlestar Galactica finale showing tonight

The long-awaited finale to the television series Battlestar Galactica will be aired tonight, ending the fourth season of the award-winning series.

Ronald D. Moore, the creator of the re-imagined series, says that his incentive for bringing the series to a close after four seasons came from his experiences working on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

“By our last season, we were creatively exhausted and pulling cockamamy stories out of thin air,” he says. “We wound up ending a great series in a dispiriting way. I didn’t want that to happen to Battlestar.”

You can watch the finale tonight on the SciFi channel.

Science is golden. Science fiction is even better.

Many people I know say that they “just don’t get science fiction”. They can’t understand why someone would want to watch something that’s not real, and has nothing to do with the real world.

I would agree – these people really don’t get science fiction at all. There is something inherently wondrous about the genre – you can travel to places you can scarcely imagine, or meet people you would never dream of meeting.

I grew up with science fiction – my father was a great fan of the sci-fi epic Dune. He got me wondering about what it was all about, so I decided to borrow some Star Trek: The Next Generation DVDs from my local library.

Seven seasons and 182 episodes later, I was hooked. Science fiction, in my humble opinion, is so much more immersive than, say, drama. The same lack of reality that some people find boring is where science fiction’s strength lies. The harsh reality of CSI or Underbelly is what prevents these shows from being truly imaginative.

This is what causes science fiction television shows (Star Trek) or movies (Bladerunner) to have such extensive cult followings – and is also what causes the genre to be an “either you love it or you hate it” kind of thing. I fall squarely into the “love it” category.