We all have occasions that are indelible. We can remember what we were doing, how we felt, who was with us. September 8, 1966 is one of those dates for me. It was a Thursday night, and I was all alone in the living room. I was only 15, but I'd fallen in love with science fiction at least 7 years earlier, and this evening was the first time I would see a new science fiction series -- Star Trek.

A "Wagon Train to the stars" was how Gene Roddenberry had described it. I'd never heard of any of the players, although both William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy looked vaguely familiar. But it was the place the stories took place that fascinated me. Travel between stars in days rather than centuries? Faster-than-light was a conceit, to be sure, but maybe by the 23rd century ...

Roddenberry's universe is not perfect. His characters are driven by the same desires and needs that we face today. There were plenty of fights, Kirk kissed too many women (none of them me), and sometimes something scandalous would happen. I recognized the significance of that first interracial kiss between Kirk and Uhura; but there was also the first use of two profanities ("Hell" and "Damn!" -- Kirk was a little foul-mouthed as well as open-mouthed), and the first blatant intimation that a couple had had sex ("The Mark of Gideon's" famous "boot-pulling-on" scene -- generally, it was just pan-up to fluttering curtains, which I didn't understand until I was much, older).

For a series that only ran three years and 79 episodes, it's amazing to contemplate just what a huge impact on not just the Science Fiction community but on the world's technology it had. [More to come] ( )