Engineering and Star Trek
1st December 2010
We’ve been hearing about the science of Star Trek for years, but what about the engineering of Star Trek? Star Trek’s writers may pay precious little attention to scientific accuracy, but sadly, they pay even less attention to engineering. Science and engineering are two different, albeit related concepts, and Star Trek has successfully butchered them both, while claiming to champion them.
Every Federation starship has a chief engineer, right? And the chief engineer’s job is to keep everything running and solve problems, right? Right, but unfortunately, that’s about the only thing they get right.
Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.
If I had a dollar for every time the Enterprise nearly blew up, I’d be a rich man.