NASA scientists have reported that they’ve successfully tested an engine called the electromagnetic propulsion drive, or the EM Drive, in a vacuum that replicates space. The EM Drive experimental system could take humans to Mars in just 70 days without the need for rocket fuel, and it’s no exaggeration to say that this could change everything.
But before we get too excited (who are we kidding, we’re already freaking out), it’s important to note that these results haven’t been replicated or verified by peer review, so there’s a chance there’s been some kind of error. But so far, despite a thorough attempt to poke holes in the results, the engine seems to hold up.
LITERALLY one of my favorite parts of this is that it’s called an EM drive, but all the scientists who talk about it are very stubborn about calling it a warp drive. I guarantee you their lab door has a sign taped to it to that effect.
my headcanon for startrek is that humans look, to vulcans, like a dog frathouse. like signing on to a human ship is exactly that thrillingly loud and frustrating and fast and stupid and fun. the humans are going to dash off to a new sector to see if there are friends there and then they will jump up and down with delight and stuff their faces up against their new friends’ genital array. the humans are going to bark for ten minutes at a rock. the humans want to chase things they can’t possibly catch just because they like running around. the humans are madly passionate about their arbitrary group identities. the humans can be divided into new arbitrary group identities which they will then be passionate about. the humans want to stick their heads out of the window of their starship and go ‘wheee!’. if you step on a human’s paw they will act like you just killed them for about thirty seconds and then want more headpats. the humans can be immediately distracted from crucial duties by the appearance of a small animal. if you howl all the humans in earshot will howl louder just to show off. a human just humped your leg. ‘don’t make it weird bro’ the human says. later the human will dig a weird bug out of the ground and eat it.
i’m sure everyone is already doing this, but here is the star trek series that i had been building in my head for probably 10 years:
the captain is the 1st romulan in star fleet. she’s a really solid captain, and she’s kind of everything you wouldn’t expect from a romulan - she’s personable and close with her crew. most of the time she’s able to keep her romulan temper under control, but she deals with a lot of racism, so sometimes she flips her shit and it is terrifying.
the chief engineer is a changeling, and they’re agender and very happy to be a changeling, thank you. they’re really into experimenting with different forms, and (thanks to improved cgi) they utilize their gelatinous form to get all up in the workings of the ship
the first officer is the token human. he is indian, obsessed with rare alien artworks, and aromantic pansexual. he basically is interested in sleeping with any being with two legs (and some with fewer or more than two legs), but not interested in dating.
chief medical officer is klingon. (KLINGONS HAVE TO HAVE MEDICS, TOO, OKAY.) she is very aggressive in her treatments but is totally a giant softie underneath. she was actually super-talented in battle and won a bunch of prizes growing up, but she has always hated fighting (she tries to keep this under wraps, though, and has a tendency to threaten to chop people’s heads off with bat’leths).
those are all the characters i’ve come up with so far, lemme know if you’ve any ideas
the crew isn’t very well-respected in star fleet, in fact, they were given a not-so-great ship (that the lovely changeling chief engineer has upgraded leik wo), and are usually handed all the mucky jobs, especially ones that tiptoe the line of federation ethics (well, there’s a romulan captain. she’s probably okay with that, right? says star fleet brass, with their heads up their asses). despite inadequate support (and often inadequate supplies), this crew tends to scrape through incredibly difficult situations and generally kick ass in unorthodox ways.
Ferengi helmsman. “Not Quartermaster?” You ask. “No, but I bet you 500 bars of gold pressed latinum I can outfly that trash hauler you call a corvette.” And when he wins, he jettisons the money into a star out of spite.
omg i love it
Perfect headcanon is perfect
SO I SORTA CAN’T STOP THINKING WHAT A GOOD IDEA THIS IS.
(And considering the general Klingon attitude towards medicine is “get better on your own, die or commit hegh’bat”, Chief Medical Officer there probably has a lot more impetus to be the Absolute Best also.)
OMFG I AM DYING THAT IS BEAUTIFUL
A+++++++ CUTIES ALL AROUND
SOMEONE PLEASE CAUSE THIS SHOW TO EXIST. I WILL BE YOUR NUMBER ONE FAN.
Random Headcanon: That Federation vessels in Star Trek seem to experience bizarre malfunctions with such overwhelming frequency isn’t just an artefact of the television serial format. Rather, it’s because the Federation as a culture are a bunch of deranged hyper-neophiles,
tooling around in ships packed full of beyond-cutting-edge tech they
don’t really understand. Endlessly frustrating if you have to fight
them, because they can pull an effectively unlimited number of bullshit
space-magic countermeasures out of their arses - but they’re as likely
as not to give themselves a lethal five-dimensional wedgie in the
process. All those rampant holograms and warp core malfunctions and
accidentally-traveling-back-in-time incidents? That doesn’t actually
happen to anyone else; it’s literally just Federation vessels that go off the rails like that. And they do so on a fairly regular basis.
So to everyone else in the galaxy, all humans are basically Doc Brown.
Aliens who have seen the Back to the Future movies literally don’t realise that Doc Brown is meant to be funny. They’re just like “yes, that is exactly what all human scientists are like in my experience”.
THE ONLY REASON SCOTTY IS CHIEF ENGINEER INSTEAD OF SOMEONE FROM A SPECIES WITH A HIGHER TECHNOLOGICAL APTITUDE IS BECAUSE EVERYONE FROM THOSE SPECIES TOOK ONE LOOK AT THE ENTERPRISE’S ENGINE ROOM AND RAN AWAY SCREAMING
vulcan science academy: why do you need another warp core
humans: we’re going to plug two of them together and see if we go twice as fast
vsa: last time we gave you a warp core you threw it into a sun to see if the sun would go twice as fast
humans: hahaha yeah
humans: it did tho
vsa: IT EXPLODED
humans: it exploded twice as fast
I love this. Especially because of how well it plays with my headcanon that the Federation does so much better against the Borg than anyone else because beating the Borg with military tactics is nigh-impossible, but beating them with wacky superscience shenanigans works as long as they’re unique wacky superscience shenanigans.
I love how they respond to him, as if he is actually a captain, even more.
Nasa confirmed for huge fucking nerds
This is awesome and priceless and people that work on space stuff are the best people of all time.
Honestly this just about brings me to tears.
Roddenberry, Shatner, Nimoy, Nichols and all the rest of the original Star Trek cast and crew had no small role in making the moon landing as important as it was. A few years before they set that lunar module down, this little TV show came along and fanned the dream into wildfire with an image of what humanity in space could actually look like—not only peaceful on our own world, endlessly curious, and prosperous enough to pursue it, but an active force for good in the greater universe. Carrying not what’s most toxic about us, but what’s best about us out to the stars.
Everybody who has worked at NASA or any other space agency for the past 50 years is waiting for the day when that unmanned probe doing a flyby on a comet can be controlled from the bridge of a space-faring vessel. When we’re not just looking at that comet through a color-coded sonar map, but we can look out a porthole and see it tumbling by with our own eyes. When as a species we can finally outgrow hate and fear and violence, and turn our faces with joy toward all the beauties and wonders that lie waiting to be discovered.
And every time he does this, Shatner is reminding them of what that hope feels like.
Am I the only one that’s a just a tiny bit pissed off that this is still an issue?
The Original Series wasn’t even in the general VICINITY of fucking around yo
How many shows these days would do this, and do it this way? These days, it would be all, “Ohh, we have to be sensitive and show the nuances of each side” and try not to make either side seem wrong. It wouldn’t be clearly spelled out, “pro-choice is right, if you’re against it you’re the bad guys.”
Jim Kirk is not here for your anti-birth-control, anti-choice, pro-death-penalty BS
James Tiberius Kirk was written and portrayed as a feminist and I will fight anyone who says otherwise.
Yep. That episode is exactly what you think it is: pro-birth control, pro-population control, pro-choice, and pro-women’s right to choose. And yes, Kirk, the supposed playboy of the spaceways, is in favor of all of the above.
It was written and aired in 1969.
It probably couldn’t air today.
THINK ABOUT THAT.
Also LMAO at all the sad whiny geek boys who are like “I miss the GOOD OLD DAYS of SCI-FI when it wasn’t all about SOCIAL ISSUES and instead it was just about MEN HAVING FUN IN SPACE. Like Star Trek! Star Trek wouldn’t put up with all this SOCIAL JUSTICE FEMINISM IN SCI FI bullshit!” And meanwhile I’m just over here like “…did you actually watch the show?”
I love how they respond to him, as if he is actually a captain, even more.
Nasa confirmed for huge fucking nerds
This is awesome and priceless and people that work on space stuff are the best people of all time.
Honestly this just about brings me to tears.
Roddenberry, Shatner, Nimoy, Nichols and all the rest of the original Star Trek cast and crew had no small role in making the moon landing as important as it was. A few years before they set that lunar module down, this little TV show came along and fanned the dream into wildfire with an image of what humanity in space could actually look like—not only peaceful on our own world, endlessly curious, and prosperous enough to pursue it, but an active force for good in the greater universe. Carrying not what’s most toxic about us, but what’s best about us out to the stars.
Everybody who has worked at NASA or any other space agency for the past 50 years is waiting for the day when that unmanned probe doing a flyby on a comet can be controlled from the bridge of a space-faring vessel. When we’re not just looking at that comet through a color-coded sonar map, but we can look out a porthole and see it tumbling by with our own eyes. When as a species we can finally outgrow hate and fear and violence, and turn our faces with joy toward all the beauties and wonders that lie waiting to be discovered.
And every time he does this, Shatner is reminding them of what that hope feels like.
