If you trace enough NASA careers, aerospace engineers, deep-tech innovators, and advanced research scientists back to childhood, you eventually end up in the same place:
Sitting in front of a television watching Star Trek.
Before I get started:
People don’t always say it out loud, but it’s true. Star Trek didn’t just entertain an era — it inspired one. The communicator shaped early thinking around mobile devices. Shipboard computers helped normalize the idea of talking to intelligent machines. Replicator concepts pointed minds toward automated manufacturing and 3D printing. Tricorder-like medical tools shaped portable diagnostics.
The image above is of Spock with a phaser because it was his use of a phaser battery to power a downed shuttle craft on his episode of "his first command", that inspired me to wait for decades for a more powerful battery. Also, I spoke to Leonard Nimoy in the 1960s with my younger brother when he was with Shatner at a Jerry Lewis Telethon and mom called to donate money and talk with "Capt. Kirk", but he was so desired for a phone call we got "Spock". Which was still amazing, and over time, even more so.
Here are some well-documented names of astronauts and NASA professionals who have publicly said Star Trek influenced or inspired them when they were young:
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Dr. Mae Jemison – First Black woman in space; has repeatedly credited Star Trek (and Nichelle Nichols’ Lt. Uhura) as a major inspiration. She later even appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
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Mike Fincke – NASA astronaut; lifelong Trek fan who has openly said the show inspired him to dream of space. He later appeared in an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise.
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Chris Hadfield – Though Canadian Space Agency, he trained and worked extensively with NASA and has said Star Trek helped shape his love of space as a child.
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Terry Virts – NASA astronaut who has talked about growing up with Star Trek and the role science fiction played in pushing him toward space.
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Scott Kelly – NASA astronaut who has spoken about being influenced by science fiction growing up, including Trek’s depiction of exploration.
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Bobak Ferdowsi – NASA/JPL “Mohawk Guy,” Curiosity mission engineer; has credited Star Trek and science fiction as early motivators for getting into space engineering.
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Charlie Bolden – Former NASA Administrator has discussed how shows like Star Trek expanded cultural vision and made space careers feel possible for future generations.
Meanwhile, Stargate came later and influenced a different kind of thinking: power density. ZPMs (Zero Point Modules) were fictional, but the underlying idea was rational — civilization changes when energy stops being a constraint.
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Science fiction never “tricked” anyone into believing fantasy. It gave engineers permission to imagine boldly and ask harder questions of physics.
And in 2026, that mindset matters more than ever.
Because two of the most important technologies humanity relies on — silicon computing and lithium energy storage — are running out of road.
Silicon Has Been Brilliant. It Is Also Finite.
Moore’s Law carried us for six decades. It didn’t just make computers faster. It made them cheaper, smaller, and everywhere. It fueled economic growth and reshaped civilization.
But physics has limits.
Transistors are now so small that we are brushing atomic boundaries. Heat and quantum tunneling are no longer theoretical hurdles; they are daily engineering reality. Fabrication complexity and cost keep climbing. The industry responded brilliantly with:
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chip stacking
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massive parallelization
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domain-specific accelerators
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architectural optimization
Those are ingenious — but they are extensions, not the next era.
If we want another leap, it will not come from squeezing silicon harder. It will come from thinking differently:
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Photonic processors that compute with light
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Spin-based and quantum-inspired effects instead of charge movement
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Neuromorphic architectures modeled after biological brains rather than calculators
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Graphene and 2D materials that surpass silicon’s physical constraints
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Quantum computing — not for everyday laptops, but for chemistry, cryptography, physics, and problem domains previously unsolvable
Progress does not come from worshiping yesterday’s miracle. It comes from graduating from it.
Batteries Changed the World — But They Won’t Take Us Far Enough
Parallel to the silicon story is the quiet plateau of lithium-ion batteries. A couple of years ago a futurist was being interviewed and when asked what the next big revolution needed was he said: batteries. And then explained what I'm saying here. We need a massive revolution in battery tech but far beyond where most of us are thinking today.
Batteries have enabled laptops, smartphones, wireless everything, and electric vehicles. They reshaped energy strategy. They made portable computing possible. They are one of the most important technologies ever built.
But like silicon, they have theoretical ceilings — and we are getting close.
Incremental gains remain, but they will not power the century ahead.
If humanity expects:
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resilient global energy grids
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serious renewable storage
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large-scale electrification
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aviation and transportation breakthroughs
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automation at planetary scale
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meaningful space capability
then we need new energy storage thinking, not just better lithium.
Viable pathways already exist:
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solid-state batteries — safer, denser, transformative
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lithium-sulfur — potentially massive energy density increases
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metal-air systems — extraordinary theoretical capacity
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sodium-ion — cheaper, more abundant, geopolitically stable
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graphene supercapacitors — nearly instantaneous charging paired with endurance
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advanced nuclear micro-generation where appropriate
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and yes, increasingly realistically, fusion as real infrastructure rather than fantasy
This is not a shortage of science.
It is a shortage of commitment.
This Isn’t About Fantasy. It’s About Will, Effort, Desire.
Star Trek didn’t make people foolish.
It made them ambitious.
It helped shape NASA. It helped shape entire technology sectors. It inspired generations of problem-solvers who refused to accept “good enough.”
And for those of us who grew up in that era, the message landed deeply. Many of us have been waiting since the 1960s for:
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a battery breakthrough that unlocks a different kind of world, and
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a computing paradigm that doesn’t just extend Moore’s Law, but surpasses it in a completely different direction
We have waited patiently, believing — correctly — that physics still offers headroom.
The barrier is not imagination.
The barrier is hesitation.
2026 Should Be the Year We Stop Hesitating
Silicon gave us the digital age.
Lithium gave us the mobile and electric age.
But the next era of human capability will belong to new architectures of computing and new architectures of energy.
That doesn’t require fantasy.
It requires courage, investment, and the willingness to think the way we once did — when we believed new frontiers were worth pursuing simply because they defined the horizon of what was possible.
Many of us have been waiting since the ’60s for that next leap.
And what about magnets?
Because they may quietly be one of the most important keys to the next era of technology. From spintronics that could replace silicon logic, to magnetic brain-like chips that run AI with almost no heat, to fusion reactors and superconducting energy storage that could redefine global power, magnets are no longer just for motors and hard drives. They are shaping the future of computing, energy, and possibility itself — and most people don’t even know it yet.
It's time to build it. To conceive it and built it all.
I'll leave you with this on batteries:
The development of next-generation energy storage: an interview with Zaiping Guo, and this on computing: Blocking out the noise: An interview with a quantum computing expert - CEO and cofounder of Alice & Bob, Théau Peronnin, shares his insights into the value of quantum computing and what companies can do to prepare for its arrival.
Excelsior! Right?
Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!
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