LOUISVILLE — The most incredible thing about the Star Trek science-fiction franchise is how much of it no longer seems incredible since the original television series debuted in 1966.
Regrettably, we can't teleport yet. But man has walked on the moon and sent robotic probes to the farthest edges of the solar system. We talk to friends on wireless, hand-held communicators. Doctors use beams of radiation to eradicate tumors inside our bodies without cutting us.
Star Trek predicted these advancements more than four decades ago, said Geoffrey Curley, curator of the Louisville Science Center's Star Trek: The Exhibition, which runs through May 22.
"When you're using a device like a cell phone or an iPad, that's right out of Star Trek," Curley said. "What's really crazy and cool is how even our recent science-fiction is being surpassed by the reality of today."
The center chose Star Trek for this year's temporary exhibit because of its worthy themes of exploration, scientific progress and tolerance for different cultures, Curley said.
Also, he said, an exhibition full of props, uniforms, starship models and sets from the various Star Trek television shows and movies is guaranteed to draw the franchise's devoted fans.
"Oh, the Trekkies will come," he said.
Last year in the same slot, the center featured an extremely popular exhibit on the doomed steamship Titanic, the subject of a blockbuster movie, spokeswoman Danielle Waller said. The exhibit after Star Trek will focus on The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis' popular series of novels that has spawned a film franchise.
On a recent weekday before the exhibit opened, Curley toured the hall as workers unpacked the many items on loan from CBS and Paramount Studios.
There is a transporter room from the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) and Captain Jean-Luc Picard's personal quarters; Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy's medical equipment; and Seven of Nine's skin-tight body stocking — a particular favorite among male Trekkies. There are outfits for Starfleet officers, Vulcans, Bajorans, Klingons and Romulans.
And then there is the holy grail of Star Trek relics — the chair.
"The nicest thing about Paramount loaning us these exhibits is that it lets people actually touch some of them, including the chair, even though you can see how it's getting worn a bit," Curley said, standing next to the command chair of Capt, James T. Kirk from the original series.
The chair has a black vinyl seat, slim walnut arms and a plywood frame painted gray to resemble metal. Candy-colored buttons and lights line the sides. The center lets visitors sit in it, convinced that no true nerd could resist the temptation, anyway. (It's quite comfortable.)
Elsewhere in the hall, interactive displays allow visitors to compare real science to the as-yet-fake science of Star Trek.
How are Newton's and Einstein's theories relevant to the Enterprise's warp speed and inertial dampeners? How did Dr. McCoy's painless Hypo Spray forecast the invention of today's medical jet injector, a syringe that uses a narrow, high-pressure jet of injection liquid instead of a hypodermic needle?
The scholarly attention is all the more impressive given Star Trek's humble origin as a prime-time series with a meager budget that barely survived for three seasons. The cheap, threadbare quality to some of the original costumes and props on display in Louisville tell the story there.
But the show proved enormously popular in syndication. By the 1980s, the original cast had reunited for movies, and fresh actors were recruited for follow-up series. The 2009 film rebooting the franchise earned a reported worldwide gross of $385 million.
The sprawling Star Trek story line — now encompassing 11 movies, five television series and scores of characters — is explained in a colorful graphic display that stretches along an entire wall at the center.
"You need something like this," Curley said, standing before the display. "It can all get confusing and intimidating to people if they're not longtime fans."
Among the casual Star Trek viewers were Mark Sieckman, an executive assistant at the center, and some of his colleagues. They underwent a half-day Trek trivia retreat to learn how to talk with visitors and with devotees who can speak fluent Klingon.
"We all had to learn about the Prime Directive," Sieckman said, referring to Starfleet's rule against mucking about in the affairs of less-developed worlds, a rule that seemed to get broken in every third episode as Kirk bedded space-alien princesses.
"They also told us that the doctors on the show originally were just waving salt and pepper shakers over their patients to check for broken bones," Sieckman said. "That's what their medical scanners were. They went out and bought these futuristic-looking salt and pepper shakers."
