“These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: To explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!” Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise recited those words before each of episode of the original Star Trek of the 1960s. Set three hundred years in the future, the television series lived up to the declaration, introducing viewers to a multitude of aliens living on far-off planets as the human race explored the galaxy, searching for its place in a strange new world.
In 2016, the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle – known as the EMP Museum at the time – created a special exhibit in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the original Star Trek. Entitled Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds, the exhibition was filled with over one hundred props and artifacts from not only the original series but later Star Trek endeavors for both the small and large screen. After spending two years in Seattle, the exhibit itself set out on a five-year mission, traveling to the Henry Ford Museum near Detroit in 2019 and the Los Angeles-based Skirball Cultural Center in 2021.
“With this exhibition, we’re looking towards the future,” Managing Curator Laura Mart at the Skirball told Space.com when the exhibit arrived in L.A. “It’s a hopeful, optimistic future where humankind unites with other interstellar societies on a peaceful mission of exploration and diplomacy That spirit feels appropriate for the time we’re in now, with the great challenges we face.”
Brooks Peck from the Museum of Pop Culture agreed, noting that the original intentions of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry still resonate over fifty years later. “Roddenberry believed not that we would get past our differences, but that we would, in fact, embrace our differences, in the sense of diversity,” he said. “Sadly, this is a rough time in this nation. We’re seeing a lot of division again. So I’m pleased that we can take some time to look at Star Trek, and its idea of inclusion and working together to build a better and just society, and to hold that up in a fun, artistic form. What Star Trek brings is this optimistic vision of the future that is really inspiring to people.”
Gene Roddenberry’s beliefs and their influence on all things Star Trek likewise transformed Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds into something more than an exploration of a science fiction franchise. The “new worlds” featured prominently in its title are not necessarily the ones that James T. Kirk visited during the 1960s but visions of our own planet from both the past, present, and future. Starting with the original series, Star Trek has often acted as a reflection of its times. The crew of the USS Enterprise encountered planets that contained racial strife similar to the United States during the civil rights era of the Sixties, while the relationship between the United Federation of Planets and Klingon Empire was in essence a Cold War that paralleled the real-world clashes between the United States and Soviet Union.
Within the world of the original Star Trek, both of those factual conflicts had been resolved. An African American woman – Lieutenant Uhura – was the communications officer of the USS Enterprise, while further racial inclusion extended to Japanese American Hikaru Sulu serving as helmsman. Sulu’s navigator counterpart, meanwhile, was the Russian Pavel Chekov, demonstrating that humans had been able to put aside their conflicts of the past and become a united planet that embraced its diversity rather than struggled against it.
The series itself was born from the Space Race that erupted between the United States and Soviet Union as part of the Cold War. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy challenged the nation to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade – a challenge that was embraced and united the country as a result. Star Trek tapped into that fascination with space exploration during the decade, as well as raised the question of humanity’s place within the larger cosmos. The series likewise inspired a generation of future scientists and engineers, as well as everyday Americans who yearned for a better world.
“When Star Trek first aired over fifty years ago, the United States was deeply marked by racial inequity and the Civil Rights Movement growing in response to those inequities,” Jessie Kornberg, president of the Skirball Cultural Center, explained in October 2021. “Star Trek imagined a future in which people of all backgrounds worked together peacefully as equals. In the decades since, Star Trek’s popularity has spanned continents and generations. Its vision has had real positive impacts on our world.”
It is that world that Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds ultimately explored, while boldly charting a path towards a better future as a result.
Anthony Letizia