How William Shatner Changed the World

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How William Shatner Changed the World (or How Techies Changed the World with William Shatner in Europe, Asia and Australia) is a two-hour television special produced for the History Channel in the United States. Hosted and narrated by William Shatner, better known as Captain James T. Kirk, and based on his book, I'm Working on That, it focuses on technological advancements and people in the real world that were inspired by the Star Trek phenomenon.

[edit] Episode summary

First Hour

The first hour focuses on the original Star Trek series and ideas Gene Roddenberry had about the future of space travel.

The first hour starts off with the life of Dr. Marc D. Rayman, the chief propulsion engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and how Dr. Rayman became interested in propulsion through Star Trek. It also discusses how NASA's newest deep space probe's ion propulsion was inspired by the Star Trek episode Spock's Brain. Shatner also states that "those pesky trekkies are everywhere in the space program," hence the name for the first Space Shuttle Enterprise.

Next the show examines the life of Martin Cooper, the chief engineer at Motorola, who invented the cell phone. Cooper states that Star Trek was his inspiration for the cell phone and discusses the similarities between the modern day cell phone and a Star Trek communicator. He also discusses how Star Trek introduced the concept of computer voice recognition dialing.

Shatner questions ..."are Star Trek fans inventors of the modern world and everything in it?" The show then examines Gene Roddenberry and his vision of the future, and how this inspired Dr. Mae C. Jemison, NASA astronaut, to become the first African-American in space.

Next is Dr. Seth Shostak, of SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence), and his inspiration for going into astronomy.

The show then explores how Star Trek introduced the notion of the everyday user friendly personal computer, and how Trek fan, Ed Roberts, invented the first home computer, the Altair 8800, named after the solar system Altair (Altair 6) in Star Trek, inspiring Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to introduce the first Apple computer. This led to Bill Gates writing the computer programming language BASIC for the Altair and forming Microsoft. "And the rest is Star Trek history," as Shatner states it.

Next medical technologies are discussed, namely, the inspiration for non-invasive Star Trek style imaging technology.

Second Hour

The second hour focuses on the Star Trek franchise after the Original Series, namely, Star Trek The Next Generation, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Star Trek Voyager and Star Trek Enterprise, their impact and how they differed from the original series.

Next up is Steve Perlman, at the time pricipal scientist at Apple Computer, who invented the QuickTime media player from watching an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation. This would in turn pave the way for the MP3 and IPod.

The special includes appearances by Walter Koenig from the original Star Trek series, and Jonathan Frakes of The Next Generation; the latter being part of a running joke that shows him being interviewed while looking dissheveled, living in a motel, and wearing pyjamas.

Filmed mostly in Vancouver, the special featured some scenes that took place in locations shown in Star Trek TV series.