Warp Factor Trek celebrates Star Trek‘s 55th Anniversary
Fifty-five years.
Fifty-five years of Kirk, Spock and McCoy.
Fifty-five years of the Enterprise, log entries and multi-colored Starfleet uniforms. Of transporters, phasers and tricorders. Of alien shapeshifters and inquisitive humans. Of dreaming about strange new worlds and boldly going where no-one has gone before.
For all these years, Star Trek has been a monumental achievement of human imagination and creativity, compelling those witnessing it to consider the possibilities of an optimistic future while also drawing them in by the stories, the character interplay, the at-times-clunky, often-classy design of high-speed spacecraft and other technologies. And for all these years, we’ve had the pleasure of watching, listening to and experiencing Star Trek.
I often wonder what precisely went through the brilliantly creative mind of Star Trek‘s creator, the so-called “Great Bird of the Galaxy”, Gene Roddenberry (whose 100th birthday would have been earlier this year), when he first set his fingers on the keys of his typewriter and wrote the initial document which paved the way for this wonderful achievement, “Star Trek is…“
That first-draft document, written on 11 March 1964, outlined the direction the series would initially take, though at that time it was to feature the adventures of Captain Robert April, in command of the starship SS Yorktown. It wouldn’t be until another two years later that Star Trek finally debuted, on 8 September 1966, in the form of the episode “The Man Trap”, featuring Captain Kirk commanding the USS Enterprise.
Since then, we’ve had iteration after iteration of this glorious adventure, with as many as ten TV series, thirteen feature films, and countless novels, comics, games, home video releases, non-fiction books, fan films, soundtrack albums, playing cards, costumes, and many, many other items of merchandise.
This website, Warp Factor Trek, is an endeavor to reflect the ongoing trek, to whet the appetite for the show with various articles written about all sorts of subjects related to the pop-culture phenomenon. We certainly hope you enjoy reading these articles and, who knows, perhaps contributing to them yourself (we’d love to include your input!).
Here’s to the next fifty-five years of Star Trek; may you all live long and prosper. Set course for Warp Factor Trek… Engage!
Webmaster of WarpFactorTrek, Dan is an avid Star Trek fan who lives in Aberdeen, Scotland. Dan has loved Star Trek ever since discovering it in his childhood. He worked as an administrator, for six years, on the encyclopedic Star Trek website Memory Alpha, which involved studying the making of the various series and films. He has been mentioned in the official Star Trek Magazine, has qualified from a Star Trek course taught at Glasgow Clyde College, and coordinated the SubSpace Chatter (formerly The Scotch Trekker) YouTube channel, which regularly featured live interviews with the cast and crew of Star Trek.