We’re Closer Than We Realized

Revisiting Star Trek and the Future That Quietly Arrived

I recently finished reading Treknology by Ethan Siegel. The book is about ten years old now, which makes it interesting for a different reason than originally intended.

It’s no longer just about the progress that had been made a decade ago.

It’s about what has happened since—and how much of it has quietly worked its way into everyday life.

A Familiar Future

I’ve been a Star Trek fan since it first came out—not a fanatic, never went to conventions or collected memorabilia, but the concept always resonated.

When it first aired, I was working on the Saturn V program. We were building real rockets, pushing toward the moon, and Star Trek showed something beyond that—a longer horizon. Not just getting there, but what came next.

At the time, much of our work was still centered around slide rules and early computing tools. The contrast was striking.

The tools and gadgets used on the show were imaginative, but they didn’t feel completely out of reach. They felt like extensions of where technology might go.

Some things clearly weren’t.

The warp engine and the transporter beam seemed beyond the bounds of physics then—and still do today.

But almost everything else?

That felt possible.

The only real question was how long it would take.

What the Book Saw Coming

Treknology does a good job of mapping Star Trek ideas to real-world science and engineering. It walks through concepts like:

• voice interaction with computers
• portable, multi-function devices
• advanced medical diagnostics
• artificial intelligence

At the time the book was written, many of these were just beginning to emerge.

Today, many of them are simply part of daily life.

The Devices We Carry

Star Trek had tricorders—handheld devices capable of scanning, analyzing, and reporting information in real time.

We don’t call them tricorders.

We call them phones. Or watches.

What we carry today includes:

• instant communication
• real-time navigation
• health tracking
• access to global information

And we carry it everywhere.

In many ways, we’ve already exceeded the early vision—not in form, but in function.

“The future doesn’t arrive all at once. It becomes normal.”

Talking to the Machine

One of the most recognizable elements of Star Trek was the ship’s computer.

“Computer…”

A question would follow.
An answer would come back.

It always worked.

That alone should have told us it was fiction.

But today, we’re closer than we might have expected.

Voice assistants, search, and now AI systems allow us to interact with machines in ways that are increasingly natural.

More importantly, those systems are beginning to do more than respond.

They are starting to:

• analyze
• summarize
• interpret
• and, in some cases, reason

That’s a step beyond what most of us imagined even a few years ago.

Medicine, Monitoring, and Quiet Progress

Star Trek imagined medical tools that could scan the body and provide immediate diagnostics.

We’re not there yet.

But we are moving in that direction.

Wearable devices now track:

• heart rate, blood pressure, and other health indicators
• sleep patterns
• activity levels

Imaging technologies continue to improve. Diagnostic tools are becoming more precise. AI is beginning to assist in identifying patterns that might otherwise be missed.

It’s not dramatic.

It doesn’t look like science fiction.

But it is steady progress in the same direction.

What Didn’t Happen (At Least Not Yet)

Some parts of the Star Trek vision remain firmly out of reach.

• Faster-than-light travel
• Transporters
• Subspace communication

These aren’t just engineering problems.

They challenge the underlying laws of physics as we understand them today.

And they may remain in the realm of imagination for a long time—if not permanently.

The Problems Star Trek Assumed Away

There’s another side to this that’s easy to overlook.

Star Trek didn’t just imagine new technology.

It quietly assumed that a number of very difficult problems had already been solved.

Artificial gravity is a good example.

On Star Trek, it simply exists. People walk normally, live normally, function normally. There’s very little discussion of how it works.

In reality, we don’t have it.

And that matters.

When we were working on Saturn V, gravity was never optional. Everything we designed had to operate within it—or fight against it for very short periods of time. Long-term weightlessness simply wasn’t part of the equation.

Today, it is.

Extended exposure to weightlessness has serious implications for human health—bone density loss, muscle degradation, and other long-term effects that we are still trying to understand.

For missions beyond the moon—places like Mars or further—this becomes a central issue, not a minor inconvenience.

And it’s not the only one.

Long-duration space travel raises questions that Star Trek largely set aside:

• Can we reliably recycle water and air for months—or years—at a time?
• Can food be produced or sustained for extended missions?
• What are the biological implications of long-term space habitation—including reproduction?
• Is some form of suspended animation or “stasis” even possible?

Science fiction often addresses these problems with convenient solutions.

Reality does not.

These are not incremental challenges. They are fundamental constraints.

In many ways, the most difficult parts of the Star Trek vision weren’t the technologies we could see.

They were the problems we didn’t.

What Changed in the Last Ten Years

This is where revisiting Treknology becomes especially interesting.

The last decade didn’t just bring incremental improvements.

It brought a shift.

AI Moved from Tool to Participant

Ten years ago, AI was mostly behind the scenes.

Today, it’s front and center.

It doesn’t just support systems—it interacts with us, generates content, analyzes data, and increasingly participates in problem-solving.

In some ways, it’s becoming the closest thing we have to the Star Trek computer.

Not perfect. Not always reliable. But undeniably powerful.

Everything Is Connected

Cloud computing, constant connectivity, and distributed systems have created an environment where information is always available.

We’ve stopped thinking about it because it’s just there.

But the idea that you can access almost anything, from anywhere, at any time would have fit comfortably on the bridge of the Enterprise.

Infrastructure Became the Story

One thing Star Trek didn’t emphasize—and we’re now starting to see more clearly—is the infrastructure behind all of this.

Most of the tools used in Star Trek required enormous amounts of energy—which somehow was always available.

We are just now beginning to understand how much power will be required to support emerging technologies.

Data centers. Networks. Energy consumption. Systems that support the systems.

The technology didn’t just arrive.

It required a foundation—and that foundation is becoming increasingly important.

The Deeper Insight

What stands out most in looking back isn’t that Star Trek got everything right.

It didn’t.

It’s that it got the direction right.

The details are different.
The timeline is different.

But the trajectory is surprisingly familiar.

We didn’t build tricorders.

We built something that serves a similar purpose.

We didn’t create the Enterprise computer.

But we’re getting closer to something that plays a similar role.

A Final Thought

What’s most interesting about revisiting Treknology isn’t how much we got right—or wrong.

It’s how normal many of these once-imagined technologies now feel.

When you first saw them, they were remarkable. Now, they’re routine.

The future doesn’t arrive all at once. It shows up gradually… and then becomes ordinary.

And somewhere along the way, we realize:

We’re closer than we thought.