First episode of Star Trek
SEP 08, 2015
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.031045
On this day in 1966 the first episode of the original series Star Trek was broadcast on NBC. In that episode, “The Man Trap,” the starship Enterprise visits planet M-113 for a routine medical inspection of a husband-wife archaeological team that is stationed there. As the plot unfolds, Captain James Kirk and his crew discover that the wife, Nancy Crater, has been replaced by a deadly shape-shifting creature. Threatening aliens aside, Star Trek’s vision of a harmonious high-tech future for humanity was inspiring to many scientists and engineers, me among them.
Date in History: 8 September 1966
© 2015 American Institute of Physics
