Boldly Go into The Future: Make it So!

Call me a geek, nerd or trekkie – I love Star Trek. In my younger years, I was afraid to mention that I thoroughly enjoyed the adventures of Picard, Riker, Data and crew, as well as Captain Janeway. I even thought that Enterprise was very good and was canceled too early. However, with the buzz about the move reboot of Star Trek this May by J. J. Abrams, I began watching the original Star Trek again. As I was watching I could not help but notice that the technology that James T. Kirk and his crew had was outdated by today’s standards. Further pondering this idea led me to realize the time in which Star Trek was conceived. During the 1960s the United States was at the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The Space Race was in full swing and both the Soviets and the Americans raced to the sky…or actually beyond it. Over the years leading up to 1966, both the Soviets and the Americans had made great advances in propulsion technology. Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek creator and visionary had thought that these leaps in propulsion technology would continue. He was dealing with 300 years into the future. Although propulsion has not advanced fairly quickly another technology has: communication. Did anyone think that communication technology would be the future in the 1960s?
With more than 250 years until society reaches “Kirk’s” time it seems odd that Kirk’s communicator looks like a pay-as-you-go-phone circa 1999. Sure maybe it has an incredible range and can communicate on a subspace frequency, but as far as design it seems very old. With technologies such as Bluetooth and touch screens it seems like 250 years from now there is going to be a regression in technology. Another issue is the computer. It would seem that the computer cannot perform many of the tasks that we take for granted today. I could go on and on, but let me get to the point.
It will be interesting to see if J.J. Abrams focuses on the advancement of touch screens, computers, and mobile technology in the 40 years since Gene Roddenberry’s vision. Because the series is a reboot he has the “authority” to make such changes. The big question is: What technology advancements will be depicted in the new movie? Perhaps more important, what technology will advance most in the next forty years? Will my grandkids look back on the 2009 Star Trek and laugh at how primitive some the technology looked as I did when I watched the original Star Trek series? Time will only tell.