Ever since seeing the original series in the late 1960s I have always been a fan of Star Trek. I don't consider myself trekee since I don't go to conventions or have a huge collection of Star Trek memorabilia (okay I do have a small collection of Star Trek Christmas ornaments). I like the show because it provides an optimistic inclusive view of the future. They have a history of reflecting the current conflict of our society and providing thoughtful commentary. It also had some ground breaking moments. The first interracial kiss on TV was on Star Trek. The show with it many different series has been on TV for over 50 years so there is amazing depth of characters and stories to explore.
Then there is the cool technology like the warp drive, talking computers, communicators (which became reality with the flip phone) and of course the transporter (Beam me up Scotty).
Who won't want to be transported to their destination instead of have to deal with traffic.
Even though the original series only lasted three seasons it ignited the imagination of generations of fans and spawned 14 movies and 11 additional series. At this point Star Trek is a part of our culture that shows no sign of slowing down.
Even after 50+ years there are still enough fans to keep Star Trek going. There is even one super fan who decided to rebuild the sets of the original series up in Ticonderoga NY (because that is where he lives) and open it up to the public. It's called Star Trek Tours and my wife and I decided to take a trip to see it as part of a long weekend get away.
We stayed at a cabin on the northern part of Lake George about 10 miles south of Ticonderoga. It was a nice place to relax for a couple of days. It had great views of the lake and surrounding mountains which was damped a little by all the rain but it was a good place to hang out.
We spent Saturday morning touring the Star Trek sets. James Cawley who is the super fan who created the sets did an amazing job of reproducing the Enterprise sets. When he was 17 he befriended Bill Theiss the costume designer for Star Trek The Next Generation and he actually worked as a costume designer for the first season. James and Bill be came good friends and Bill eventually gave James the full blueprints for the Star Trek Enterprise and Star Trek The Next Generation sets.
We had an hour tour of the sets with a guide who explained a lot of interesting stories about the sets and the making of the series. It was unbelievable how accurate the sets were. After watching it on TV is was just so cool to be walking through the actual ship.
The different sets were connected by the hallway of the ship so once you entered the set you felt like you were on the actual ship.
The sick bay was the biggest set and had a few different rooms with a lot of the props used on the show.
The salt shaker looking things on the table above were used as laser scalpels.
I was able to get a close look at the monitor above the beds and what they are actually measuring makes no sense (e.g. one of the bar graphic on the monitor is just labeled brain). But hey it's TV it doesn't have to be that accurate.
The conference room
and the crew quarters were as accurate as the other sets
but my favorite was engineering and the bridge. I think the picture of the warp core is going to be my new Zoom background
Here is a panoramic picture of the bridge.
We were lucky in that there was just us and another couple on the tour so I was able to get some clear shots of the sets without a lot of people in the way. If you click the link at the top of this post you will get to the photo album that has all the photos that I took. These sets have been open to the public for 8 years. Before that they were actually used on some of the other Star Trek series and for some fan movies. I know that this was a totally geeky thing to do but it was a lot of fun and I'm not ashamed to show my geekyness.
Star Trek has been inspirational for a lot of engineers, scientist, writers, activists, and astronauts like Mae Jemison, the first black women in space, who credited Uhura's character into believing she could become and astronaut. It has a very passionate fan base so I hope they continue to produce new chapters to the story and keep inspiring people to believe in a more humanistic and optimistic version of the future.
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