Star Trek's Influence in Real life

[VaBeachGuy 12]

I'm coming to the end of one of the books I've been reading little by little and there's a couple of paragraphs I wanted to share.

 

To set it up let me explain a little about the book. It's "Chariots For Apollo: The Making of the Lunar Module". It tells the stories of the moon landings from the perspective of Grumman, the manufacturer of the Lunar Module. It begins in 1961 and follows all the way into the early 1980's when the book was written. It's written by Charles B. Pellegrino and Joshua Stoff.

 

Here are the paragraphs I want to share, they're from the final chapter entitled "Emergence":

 

More then two thousand people had gathered in the Mojave Desert.

 

An Air Force drummer began a long, unwavering roll. Something was about to happen.

 

When the ship nosed around the corner of Plant 42, with the word "Enterprise" painted on it's side, the drum roll came to an abrupt stop and the band struck up Alexander Courage's Star Trek theme. It caught two thousand by surprise. They jumped up as one and yelled, and more then a few stern-faced politicians were seen to laugh. A dozen of them, more, were seen weeping.  The Shuttle orbiter Enterprise and the starship Enterprise had trigered a rare and beautiful mental twist. Something had dropped away. Fact and fiction touched, and even the most pragmatic minds probably saw into the future.

 

Was it just a space connection between the two? (Jesseco) von Puttkamer wondered. Or was it a deeper chord struck? Is it that Star Trek reflects the hopes of people for a brighter, open future for humankind, and that the space program, with its inhaerent potential to bring out man's greatestqualities, holds up the promise of upward, outward growth, both physical and mental - of  a true humanization of the world we live in, of space?

[B4_ 0]

I have a book written by a United States Navy veteran,detailing his two tours in Vietnam as the skipper of a riverine patrol craft.One of the funniest parts of that book concern a confrontation between his boat and a group of Vietcong firing at them from a riverbank.If I remember correctly,this man got on the loudspeaker and in his best impression of James Kirk,ordered the Vietcong to immediately cease fire and leave the area.He then very loudly ordered Mister Sulu to fire photon torpedos.He saud that after a moment of silence,during which the firing stopped :o ,he could hear a lot of excited talking in Vietnamese,followed by the sounds of men moving through the bush and then silence.the VC had gotten the hell out of there.

Apparently,he said,the VC had watched Star Trek,which had by 1972,began airing in south vietnam on tv,and were convinced that Starfleet was a branch of the United States military.