Are You a Star Trek-ophile?

It is always fun when a new Star Trek feature film comes out. I am old enough (barely) to remember the original series and how exciting it seemed at the time, as well as how corny it so often looks today. I waited with excitement for every one of the Star Trek films to appear with the original crew. Unfortunately, I was disappointed about every other time a new film appeared. One might say I am a Trekker, although not one as enthusiastic as many others I know. I certainly don't own a Star Fleet uniform and I have never tried to learn Klingon. So with the release of the new Star Trek “prequel” this summer, I was excited to see a reimagining of the original series and how the crew of the Star Ship Enterprise first met. I didn't go to an opening day screening, but one of my friends who did, said that the film "didn't suck." What a relief! Good enough for me; I watched it over the Memorial Day weekend and was not disappointed. It looks like the Star Trek franchise has the potential for another arc of some half dozen or so movies based on the early career of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhuru, and Scotty. What do others think about the film and possibilities for the future of the Star Trek Franchise? Also, since this is a National Air and Space Museum blog, what do you think about the possibility of real space travel in the future? Will my successors at the museum be collecting key artifacts from spacecraft like the Enterprise a millennium from now? Roger Launius is a curator in the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum.