Cosmic Queries: Star Trek

About This Episode

Join Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-host Leighann Lord as they boldly go where no one has gone before: answering fan questions about Star Trek. Are cloaking devices possible, and why do the Klingons and Romulans have them but the Federation doesn’t? How does Geordi La Forge’s multi-spectrum visor work, and why doesn’t everyone in the future use them? Are collective intelligences like the Borg evil? You’ll find out how transporter beams might work, and whether they result in an exact duplicate of you with your thoughts and memories or merely a biological clone. Explore the physics of folding space with a warp drive, and whether the Alcubierre drive is science fact or science fiction. Neil and Leighann discuss alien species and whether a warlike, self-limiting culture like the Klingons would even make it out into space before destroying themselves. You’ll also discover which ship Neil thinks is better, the USS Enterprise or the Ship of the Imagination from COSMOS.

NOTE: All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: Cosmic Queries: Star Trek.