There are a lot of technological advancements in Star Trek: if you take warp drive out of the picture, you still have:
- Food Replication
- Sensors
- Phasers
- Tricorders
- Transporters
- Communicators
- Artificial life forms
- Tractor beams
- Time travel
- Photon torpedoes
- Impulse engines
- Artificial gravity
And I’m sure I’m missing some, but that’s a pretty big list (and a pretty tall order). Let’s look at them one by one:
Food Replicators: Well, we are already growing meat (see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_…) so we are already advancing in that arena. As we have seen from the great late Norman Borlaug (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nor…), when it comes to coming up with ways to feed the multitudes, science has always been able to find a way.
Sensors: Science is continuously refining our abilities to scan the visual (and all the other) spectrums… and while we aren’t close to being able to scan a planet’s surface in moments like on Star Trek, we have been able use satellites and drones to gather a tremendous amount of data quickly.
Phasers: Well, we’re working on that… sort of. See this link for details on a sonic weapon that can stun, disrupt or kill: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son…
Tricorders: Do you have a smart phone? If so, you have in your hands the modern equivalent of a Tricorder (merged, of, course, with a communicator). Now, the tricorders in Trek recorded three types of data – geological, meteorological, and biological (I can’t help it, I’m a geek). Modern smart phones can record sound and video, but not much else. Yet. I recently read that at least one tablet computer coming out later next year with barometers, and most smart phoens are now plugged into GPS and provide location services (not geological, but similar)… and future phones will be extensible and customizable even more than they are now… and some of those “plug-ins” could very easily support the needs to scan and capture your environment… just like in Star Trek.
Transporters: Well, seeing as the whole original idea of this was to save money on the special effects budget (to not have to land a ship every episode), we actually have guys working on it: http://www.independent.co.uk/new…
Communicators: See Tricorder, above. We are moving away from single-purpose devices and moving more towards that “tricorder” multi-function model. The real challenge is the range – having a “cell phone” that can transmit from a planet surface to a ship in orbit without latency is a lot to ask for. Unless you have some massively powerful transmitter that can fit in your pocket… I’m thinking this may not be achievable.
Artificial life forms: Ya see Jeopardy last week? The singularity may be here sooner than we think.
Tractor beams: That’s actually being worked on now. See here: http://news.anu.edu.au/?p=3631. Whether we can ever get to the scale that a tractor beam can pull a space ship over a long distance… well, we’ll see.
Time travel: Well, we are ALL time travelers… it’s just we are only traveling in one direction. Stephen Hawking is working on it, though it may be a LONG time… http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_…
Photon torpedoes: It’s just supercharged anti-matter bombs propelled at an incredible speed, right? Well… I don’t know of anybody working on this right now… but I hope they are on our side.
Impulse engines: See the Ion drive… not yet built in space, but again, we have our top men working on it. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion…
Artificial Gravity: This was because they were on a TV show with a limited budget… and they couldn’t afford the wire work necessary to have everyone floating around. I question whether we will even invest in significant efforts to make this happen, though you never know.
All in all, we are not living in Star Trek’s world yet, but there is enough developments in “treknology” that makes me not only optimistic but also curious: would we be investigating these ideas if Star Trek didn’t have them first? I have it on good authority that Steve Jobs is a Star Trek fan – did that influence the vision behind the iPhone? It makes you wonder.
As I’ve sometimes mentioned to friends and family, the future already happened… it just some of us didn’t notice it, and the future that arrived wasn’t the one that any of us expected.