I grew up with Star Trek. My favorites were The Next Generation and Deep Space 9.
Without going into detail, the main thrust of Star Trek, as envisioned by its creator Gene Roddenberry and his successors, is that Earth becomes politically unified after the Eugenics War and the Third World War (seven hundred million dead was the casualty toll mentioned in Star Trek: First Contact) and then forms an alliance with the Vulcans, which eventually evolves into the United Federation of Planets. Starfleet serves as the Federation’s exploration and defense force. All is well, at least within Federation territory, most of the time.
To put it mildly, this is unlikely. Set aside the technological miracles, such as warp drive and transporters, which were addressed in The Physics of Star Trek. Politically speaking, a United Nations (or League of Nations, or some other name) with real political sovereignty -- not the current United Nations which is not a world government, but rather a forum for speechifying and obfuscation by national governments that are not interested in giving away their independence, preachy non-governmental organizations (NGOs), self-serving globalists, and the occasional virtue-signaling celebrity – is impossible. Robert Heinlein noted in his speech to the 1973 graduating class of the U.S. Naval Academy that “the seeds of war are everywhere; the conflicts of interest are real and deep and will not be abolished by pious platitudes.” It’s safe to say that this hasn’t changed. And no, it’s not all the fault of the United States, or of President Trump. The European nations have, to some extent, given up some sovereignty to the European Union – but note that the European Union excludes non-European countries. The members of the European Union are not about to give up their sovereignty to China or Russia or Turkey.
The United States started as a federation of sovereign states. Now, sovereignty is vested in the U.S. government. The states are allowed some autonomy, but that autonomy has decreased. The current sharp-edged political conflict in the United States might be reduced if federalism was embraced again. In other words, the federal government should be limited to national defense, foreign affairs, immigration, monetary policy, and interstate infrastructure. Everything else should be left to state and municipal governments. Each state and municipal government would find its own way to run its own affairs – which is the point. Instead, many on the left, and some on the right, want the federal government to impose their vision on everyone else. That is one reason why the political debate in the U.S. is so angry – each camp regards the other as a threat to its freedom and ideology.
If people in the United States can’t understand and accept federalism, even though it is designed into the U.S. Constitution, how could there be a world government, whether called the United Nations or something else? A world government would include countries which do not have a tradition of limited government, individual rights, and federalism – in other words, most countries. The only real way of making a world government work would be if a) one country was able to totally subjugate all the others – a tough task, to say the least – or b), to have a federal republic in which national governments would be stripped of their armed forces but be allowed to order their own affairs within their own borders as much as possible. Again, the problem of whose vision would rule would be paramount. Will it be the Western version – individual liberty, limited government, a mostly free market with some government oversight? Or will it be a theocracy, as would be wanted by many people of various religions? Or will it be Communism, the current governing ideology of China and North Korea?
Star Trek and other science fiction has influenced and inspired real space travel – but not as much as might be hoped. Carl Sagan once noted that a senator (he did not say which one) told him that despite Star Trek and Star Wars, there was no significant public lobbying for major NASA projects. This might be because Star Trek and Star Wars show technology that is way too far ahead to be something that the public would lobby for. Most people will justifiably dismiss what is portrayed by both series as nothing that is likely to happen in their lifetimes, and will see little justification in NASA’s various space probes. A TV series or movie which depicts something that is within human technical capacity now might lead to more public support for NASA. For example, one could create a sitcom about colonial life on the Moon or Mars – or a show about a crew mining the Asteroid Belt. Instead of Star Trek: Deep Space 9, there could be a show about a space station in Earth orbit, with the crew members discussing stuff like the Van Allen belts, space or lunar mining, comets or asteroids that are coming close to Earth, or many other possibilities. Or emphasize relationships – what if lovers break up on a confined environment such as a space station or domed colony? I’m well aware that many good books, fiction and non-fiction alike, have been written about these topics, but the fact remains that many people prefer to watch rather than to read.
There is a lot out there – resources, energy, room for colonies great and small. A few examples of good fiction describing this are Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy, or Robert Heinlein’s Red Planet and The Rolling Stones. It’s time to start turning that fiction into reality. It will take lots of money and effort; this money can be found through less intervention abroad, ending the war on drugs, streamlining the military procurement process so that we have more good-quality weapons systems instead of fewer gold-plated weapons systems that take too long to develop and produce, and having the federal government, as well as state and municipal governments, get out of the way and let people make their own economic decisions. One of the great disappointments of modern times is that of the West turning inwards – focusing on cancel culture, political Itchy-and-Scratchy fights, foreign interventions – instead of turning outwards and getting back to the can-do spirit of the Apollo missions. A nation that is currently living in fear of the coronavirus and is engaged in political witch hunts over not wearing masks in public or for having too many Thanksgiving guests is not a can-do nation. If the United States does not make the most of space, China might – and the results would be dangerous to the United States and the West.
Beyond energy, resources, and geopolitics, there is one more reason to revive the moribund space program of the United States – to answer the age-old question of whether there is another intelligent species somewhere out there. There has been a good deal of speculation about this, some of it sober, some of it ridiculous. I’ll try as much as possible to lean toward the sober side.
Let’s state the obvious – our galaxy is very large. There are many stars, most of which are likely to have planets. Some of these might harbor intelligent life. Where are they? Some say that aliens have visited Earth for a long time, and that aliens are responsible for helping or encouraging the building of various large ancient monuments. Why aliens should go to the trouble of flying across the galaxy to teach technical primitives how to build monuments that would do nothing for the aliens has not been adequately explained. No remnants of alien ground bases or satellites? Really? More recently, there is the intriguing gun-camera footage from some U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornets. There have been various other reports.
In The Demon Haunted World, Dr. Carl Sagan also explored this question. He wondered why there were no reports of flying saucers prior to 1947, the year of the incident at Roswell in New Mexico. (An episode of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 entitled “Little Green Men” offered its own explanation for what happened there.) The answer, just possibly, is that nuclear weapons were developed in 1945. It is possible to monitor a planet for nuclear weapons detonations – the United States has had such satellites since the 1960s. It might be possible for an alien culture to place such a probe sufficiently close to Earth to watch for nuclear weapons detonations, but far enough away so that the satellite would not be noticed by Earth-based radar or telescopes. We must then ask how the probe would notify the species that left it there in a timely manner? Radio waves move at the speed of light; sending a message to the nearest star system would take four years. The Roswell incident happened two years after the first nuclear weapons detonation in July 1945. That brings us back to science fiction – either the probe was able to report directly back to its creators, which implies a faster-than-light drive, or it was somehow able to send a message that moves faster than light. The Star Trek term is subspace radio.
But why these mysterious encounters, such as those reported by the U.S. Navy recently, and various others? If aliens want to send a message to Earth, why not simply contact the governments of Earth openly – say, by landing in front of the United Nations complex in New York City, or by taking over TV or radio broadcast frequencies? One frequently proffered answer for this is that the aliens don’t want to cause panic on Earth. (If people can be panicked by a coronavirus that is nowhere near as lethal as the bubonic plague, then maybe there’s something to this idea.) This sounds suspiciously like the Prime Directive of Star Trek. Why aliens that evolved in a completely different environment and in different directions than humanity can be expected to obey a notion that hasn’t been obeyed by humans with each other has never been properly explained. Some other answers are available here.
Another answer is that these objects are not alien, but something created by a hostile foreign government. There are two which might be capable of such a thing: Russia and China. So why aren’t they openly dictating terms to the United States? Why, given the tensions between Russia and China and the United States, aren’t these craft completely wrecking the ability of the United States to fight, such as destroying military bases, power plants, communication centers, etc? China and Russia certainly aren’t holding back out of any humanitarian consideration for the people of the United States. These countries, as well as many others, would like nothing better than to see the United States trashed, its cities turned to rubble, its citizens reduced to poverty. Yet it hasn’t happened.
The question of whether UFOs are a creation of a hostile foreign government on Earth or an alien species is worth pursuing, if for no other reason that the various reported intrusions into U.S. and allied nations represent an invasion into the sovereignty of these nations. So far, nothing major that cannot be ignored has happened, but these reported incidents point out both technical weaknesses (an inability to capture, shoot down, or otherwise determine the nature of these incidents), and an unwillingness by governments to discuss the matter openly for fear of appearing weak in front of their own citizens or other governments. For more, click here and here.
If there are aliens out there, they would certainly notice a serious attempt to exploit Earth’s solar system through mining and colonization of other worlds. Perhaps that would inspire them to contact our species. A real space program would give us opportunities for more monitoring of the galaxy – for example, a large radioastronomy array on the dark side of the moon (free from terrestrial radio interference), or the possibility of setting up a free-floating observatory on the edge of the Solar System to take advantage of gravitational lensing. All of these monitoring systems could be used to look for evidence of alien life.
The future won’t be Star Trek. But it could be better than what we have now. And there might really be someone out there. Let’s get off our duffs and find out!
For further reading:
Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot
Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World
Jerry Pournelle, A Step Farther Out