CAPTAIN'S Log Star date, 2105.5 Our mission to rendezvous with a starship on the far side of this zone. I set the impulse drive for half the speed of light. But as we pull out of orbit, there is an excruciating pressure on my chest, I can't move and my face is fixed in a horrible grin. Minutes later, I am dead ... and all because those clever Star Trek physics consultants didn't introduce inertial dampers until the year 2168.
The problem, according to physicist Lawrence Krauss, is the G forces exerted by acceleration. Astronauts can tolerate about 3G, but even at that rate it would take months to reach even half the speed of light. That's a bit slow for television, and hence the need for inertial dampers plot devices that neatly cancel the force due to acceleration by generating an artificial gravitational field in the opposite direction. Simple!
Only, according to the technical specifications, they take 60 milliseconds to activate, and so won't save you from death by acceleration. Can't let the physics get in the way of a good story.
This lack of scientific credibility doesn't bother Krauss, who is happy to tolerate the constraints of the medium. Instead, he uses the phenomenally successful Star Trek series to ask if there is life out there and explore the problems of interstellar travel.
The vast distances involved, for example, call for fancy manoeuvres in space time (worm holes are a favourite Star Trek shortcut), and short periods travelling faster than the speed of light, aka "warp drive".
However, apart from having to accelerate slowly, and the fact that nothing can travel faster than light anyway, there is the small matter of fuel (no ship could even begin to carry enough fuel to reach those high speeds, let alone afford the literally, astronomical costs) and the problem of time, which moves more slowly for you, relative to others, the faster you travel.
A consequence of Einstein's theory, this means that, while a few months might pass on board ship, thousands of years might have elapsed at Federation HQ. Jet lag on an intergalactic scale that would play havoc with administration.
Yet Krauss doesn't rule out interstellar travel the complicated fabric of space time may well provide exotic ways of getting from Aldebaran to Betelgeuse, and moreover, he believes matter antimatter reactions might fuel the journey. Truth could yet be stranger than Star Trek's fiction (though sadly there is, currently, no such thing as a dilithium crystal).
Krauss explains in simple terms (there are no equations) why Star Trek wouldn't couldn't, shouldn't work. Despite, or perhaps because of this, I had to watch Star Trek again, and whisper it enjoyed it.
I also find myself admiring the technical and literary ingenuity of the writers. They used small computer diskettes on the Enterprise long before the rest of us, and encountered the gravitational field around a "black star" before the phrase "black hole" was coined.
There are even technical manuals for some of their fictional devices, though they can't always explain how they might work.
(Asked how the Heisenberg uncertainty compensators in the transporter worked, one consultant replied. "Very well, thank you!")
They do get some things wrong, and Krauss allows him self a chapter of errors, including why you couldn't see a phaser beam hear an explosion in space or see any "beings of pure energy". There may be life out there, Jim, but it's probably life as we know it.
And the transporter? It was originally devised to avoid the need for expensive landing shots, but who hasn't dreamed of being able to say "Beam me up, Scotty!"
Alas, Krauss reckons you would need a telescope 40,000 kilometres wide to see a person's atomic structure, and a computer storage system 5,000 light years across to store that information. Then, you heat the person to 100 billion degrees C to turn them into a stream of particles
Aahh, you canna change the laws of physics, as Scotty would say. Yet Krauss's approach seems rooted in the primitive technologies of the late 20th Century far less creative than the Star Trek writers. For who knows what magic the 24th Century will bring?
Overall, the book is a worthwhile attempt to exploit popular culture and explain some science. Read, then watch and enjoy. And, Let it be so!