NASA physicist Harold White and artist Mark Rademaker recently released spectacular images of the “IXS Enterprise,” a design for a hypothetical faster-than-light starship based on work being done in Dr. White’s lab at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

Dr. White is Advanced Propulsion Team Lead for the NASA Engineering Directorate. One of his laboratory’s goals is “to pursue propulsion technologies necessary to enable human exploration of the solar system over the next 50 years, and enabling interstellar spaceflight by the end of the century.”

It’s been nearly half-century since Star Trek (aka Star Trek: The Original Series) debuted in 1966. Since that time, several technologies depicted in that show and later Star Trek shows (ST: The Next Generation, ST: Voyager, ST: Deep Space 9, and ST: Enterprise) are moving from science fiction to science fact. So how close are we today to the world of Star Trek? Let’s take a look at 8 of these technologies.

IXS Enterprise. © Mark Rademaker. Used with permission of Mark Rademaker

1) Warp Drive

NASA regards faster-than-light (FTL) travel as “at the level of speculation, with some facets edging into the realm of science.” But as the New York Times reported in 2012, they are funding research into whether FTL is possible, based on the theories of physicist Miguel Alcubierre. Dr. White hopes he can exploit a “loophole” in Einstein’s theory of general relativity. As described by io9:

Essentially, the empty space behind a starship would be made to expand rapidly, pushing the craft in a forward direction — passengers would perceive it as movement despite the complete lack of acceleration. White speculates that such a drive could result in “speeds” that could take a spacecraft to Alpha Centauri in a mere two weeks — even though the system is 4.3 light-years away.

However, other physicists such as Sean Carroll consider this extremely unlikely for a variety of technical and economic reasons. Carroll estimates the odds of humanity ever developing the warp drive at “much less than 1%.”

So for now, the warp drive is still firmly in the realm of science fiction. But we can still enjoy the beautiful starship designs by Mark Rademaker at his Flickr gallery.

However, other technologies from the Star Trek universe are much closer to becoming reality.

2) Universal Translator

The crew of the Enterprise often used a “universal translator” to communicate with aliens.

In real life, Microsoft recently announced Skype Translator, which allows near real-time audio translation from one language to another, utilizing advances in speech recognition and machine translation technologies. The Microsoft Blog noted, “it is early days for this technology, but the Star Trek vision for a Universal Translator isn’t a galaxy away, and its potential is every bit as exciting as those Star Trek examples.”

3) Handheld Computers

Starfleet officers in Star Trek: The Next Generation frequently used hand-held touchscreen networked computers called PADDs (Personal Access Display Devices).

Does that sound familiar today?

Star Trek artist Doug Drexler has said that the contemporary Apple iPad is “eerily similar” to the fictional PADDs designed in the 1980s:

The PADD never had a keyboard as part of its casing, just like the iPad. Its geometry is almost exactly the same — the corner radius, the thickness, and overall rectangular shape. It’s uncanny to have a PADD that really works… The iPad is the true Star Trek dream…

4) Medical Tricorder

Long before I went to medical school, I was intrigued by the tricorder Dr. McCoy used to make his diagnoses.

Today, there are several companies vying for the $7 million top prize of the Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE competition. According to the guidelines, entrants must be able to “continuously monitor five vital signs, namely blood pressure, electrocardiography (i.e. ECG, or heart rate/variability), body temperature, respiratory rate, and oxygen saturation” as well as “screen for over a dozen different conditions, including whooping cough, hypertension, mononucleosis, shingles, melanoma, HIV, and osteoporosis.”

One of the front runners, the Scanadu Scout, has a sleek design and works by being placed next to the patient’s forehead. Scanadu has already raised $1.6 million through its IndieGoGo campaign.

Company CEO Walter De Brouwer said he was inspired after his young son required extended hospitalization and he watched the nurses recording his son’s vital signs on a daily basis: “As a big Star Trek fan, I wanted to challenge myself to build something that made the ‘tricorder’ a reality.”

As a physician. an advocate of free market economics, and a fellow Star Trek fan, I’m especially delighted that market-based mechanisms such as crowdfunding and X-Prize competitions may help make De Brouwer’s dream come true.

5) Energy Weapons

The Star Trek phaser weapon is still purely fictional. But before phasers became standard issue for Starfleet, officers also used laser weapons (e.g., in “The Cage”).

In real life, the US military is actively working on “directed energy weapons” such as battlefield lasers. The US Navy is scheduled to deploy its first ship-based laser weapon later this summer on the USS Ponce for at-sea testing in the Persian Gulf. Such weapons are intended to be used against enemy small boats and light aircraft. The Navy is also developing similar lasers to be mounted on ground vehicles “to keep enemy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from tracking and targeting Marines on the ground.”

(No word on whether the weapons will also make the obligatory “pew pew“ sound.)

6) Androids

Star Trek: The Next Generation featured the character of Data, an android Starfleet officer. One of my favorite episodes of that series was “The Measure of a Man,” in which the central issue was whether Data was merely property that could be disassembled at will for scientific purposes — or a sentient being with legal rights. In other words, was Data an “it” or a “he”?

Although there has been a lot of recent discussion over a computer program that reportedly passed the Turing Test (fooling judges into thinking it was human), no one seriously suggests that this particular program is sentient. Sentient machines are still in the realm of fiction. But contemporary robots and “artificial intelligence” technologies are closing the gap with Star Trek.

The Japanese company Softbank will soon sell “affectionate robots“ that are “programmed to read the emotions of people around it by recognizing expressions and voice tones.” A Hong Kong venture capital firm recently named an algorithm to its board of directors, giving it an equal vote in deciding whether or not to invest in biotechnology firms. Engineers are actively working on the problem of “robot soccer“ — which requires solving complex problems in machine vision, rapid control of limbs, coordination between multiple robots, and strategic planning. Their stated goal: “By the middle of the 21st century, a team of fully autonomous humanoid robot soccer players shall win a soccer game, complying with the official rules of FIFA, against the winner of the most recent World Cup.”

MIT’s Technology Review recently discussed the growing debate over whether we should implement some version of Asimov’s “3 Laws of Robotics” that govern robot behavior to protect humans from harm. Ten years ago, I would have said this debate was premature. Today, I’m not so sure.

7) Teleportation

The transporter is an iconic part of the Star Trek universe. Even people who aren’t fans of the show are familiar with the phrase, “Beam me up.” (Interestingly, Wikipedia notes that “the transporter was created because the budget of the original series in the 1960s did not allow for expensive shots of spaceships landing on planets.”)

At this time, teleporting objects is not yet possible. However, separate teams of scientists at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in Adelphia, Maryland have recently reported successes in “quantum teleportation” of information. This may someday lead to the development of more secure methods of information transmission or the development of powerful quantum computers. Unfortunately, you won’t be able beam from New York to Los Angeles at the speed of light.

8) Intelligent Aliens

Strictly speaking, this isn’t really a technology. But encounters with intelligent aliens are a staple of Star Trek.

Although we have not yet made “first contact” with other intelligent life forms, astronomers are making enormous progress in detecting planets outside our solar system. NASA recently announced the discovery of the first potentially habitable Earth-sized planet. A group of biologists led by Louis Irwin estimate that there may be as many as 100 million planets in the Milky Way galaxy capable of harboring “complex life.” (Other scientists think this is an overestimate.)

Nobody knows if or when we’ll encounter alien life. But as of last year, the Intrade “betting market” predicted that the likelihood that NASA would announce the discovery of extraterrestrial life (any life, not necessarily intelligent) before midnight December 31, 2015 was 10% (!)

9) Other technologies

Finally, there are several other fictional Star Trek technologies with early counterparts in the real world.

I could devote a whole article to medical technologies alone. MIT has announced a programmable needle-less medication injector akin to the Star Trek hypospray. University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has started real-life medical trials of suspended animation to help treat severely injured trauma patients. Handheld ultrasound scanners (such as this unit from Signostics) are now regularly used in emergency and military field settings away from the hospital. University of Leicester scientists have developed a prototype “sickbay” bed for emergency patients. 3-D printers now allow creation of customized replacement body parts.

http://www.signostics.com.au/gallery.php?gallery_id=0

In the non-medical realm, many scientists are working on some form of the invisibility cloak. NASA has awarded a grant to develop a rudimentary food “replicator” using 3-D printing technology. Earlier this year, the New York Times reported that “the holodeck is beginning to take shape.”

Conclusion

Of the 8 main Star Trek technologies listed above, the universal translator, PADDs, tricorders (and related medical technologies), and directed energy weapons are the closest to becoming reality. Human-like androids are still a ways off. The warp drive, teleportation, and the discovery of intelligent alien life are still in the realm of science fiction.

Overall we’re a lot closer today to the world of Star Trek than 48 years ago (when ST: The Original Series aired) or 25 years ago (when ST: The Next Generation aired). Given how much progress we’ve made, I can’t wait to see what the next 25 years will bring.

The technology we saw on the Star Trek Enterprise is fast becoming a reality in our lives. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

In a distant part of the galaxy, 300 years in the future, Starship Enterprise Captain James T. Kirk talks to his crew via a communicator; has his medical officer assess medical conditions through a handheld device called a tricorder; synthesizes food and physical goods using his replicator; and travels short distances via a transporter. Kirk’s successors hold meetings in virtual-reality chambers, called holodecks, and operate alien spacecraft using displays mounted on their foreheads. All this takes place in the TV series Star Trek, and is of course science fiction.

This science fiction is, however, becoming science reality. Many of the technologies that we saw in Star Trek are beginning to materialize, and ours may actually be better than Starfleet’s. Best of all, we won’t have to wait 300 years.

Take Captain Kirk’s communicator. It was surely an inspiration for the first generation of flip phones, those clunky mobile devices that we used in the 1990s. These have evolved into smartphones, far more advanced than the science-fiction communicator. Kirk’s device didn’t receive e-mail, play music, surf the Web, provide directions, or take photos, after all. It also didn’t sweet-talk him as Apple’s Siri does when you ask her the right questions.

Soon, our smartphones will also add the medical-assessment features of a tricorder, and it won’t need to be a separate device.

Apple recently announced that iOS 8 will provide a platform for medical-sensor data that will be displayed by an app called Health. Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and others are all racing to build their own platforms and medical devices. We will soon see a new generation of wearable devices such as bracelets, watches, and clothing that use external sensors to perform electrocardiograms and measure our temperature, blood oxygenation, and other vital signs. These will later be replaced by less obtrusive sensors in skin patches, tattoos and eventually microchips embedded in our bodies. As well, we will have cameras and heat, gas, and sound sensors in our bathrooms, kitchens, and living rooms that constantly monitor our health and lifestyle.

What are making these health sensors possible are miniaturized mechanical and microelectromechanical (MEMS) elements made using microfabrication technology. Similar advances in microfluidics and nanofluidics are enabling development of labs on thumbnail-sized chips. Nanobiosym, for example is developing a device, called GENE-Radar, that can identify, within minutes, a range of illnesses, including AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and cancer. Such devices will also be ubiquitous and immediately identify a broad range of disease markers. Unlike the Star Trek tricorder, which is used occasionally, they will constantly be monitoring our bodies.

When you look at the advances that have already happened in 3D printing, you begin to realize that this is the making of the Star Trek replicator. 3D printers can create objects in plastic, metal, glass, titanium, human cells, and yes, even chocolate from a design. Today’s 3D printers are painfully slow, and it takes many hours to print a breadbox-sized object; but in a decade, they will become as common, fast, and inexpensive as our laser document printers. In about two decades, we will be 3D printing our dinner as well as our electronics.

We already have Star Trek– and Jetsons-like video-chat capabilities. Rather than require the large, clunky monitors that we saw George Jetson and Captain Kathryn Janeway use, ours use free Facetime and Skype apps that run on smartphones and laptops. Holodeck-type video conferences have also been possible for several years. I spoke via hologram, in 2011, to a bunch of entrepreneurs in Uruguay using technology that a small company there, Holograam, had developed. Remember the holographic message from Princess Leia to Obi-Wan Kenobi, in Star Wars? That’s how my beamed image looked.

Start-ups such as Oculus, which Facebook recently purchased, are developing virtual-reality goggles that simulate the real world. Others companies are developing three-dimensional projectors that beam images onto screens that make a person look as though physically present. These technologies are in their infancy, but watch them grow and add touch and smell capabilities. We will be meeting each other through virtual reality, and it will feel as if we are really there.

The universal translator that Captain Kirk used to talk to alien species is also in development. Google Translate already does a great job of translating pages of text from one human language to another. And earlier this year, Microsoft demonstrated a real-time, voice-based, language interpreter that works on Skype. I don’t expect any progress on alien languages until we encounter some alien species, but a commercially available virtual real-time translator (a virtual interpreter) for human languages isn’t so far away.

Scientists recently announced that they had made breakthroughs in quantum teleportation. They were able to show a promise of quantum information transmission — showing the duplication in the spin state of an electron between one place and another, through quantum tunneling — without transmitting matter or energy through the space intervening. This led to hopes that we might one day see a Star Trek-like transporter that can beam our atoms from one place to another. I am not waiting for this one, however, as there is no way that I will willingly allow my atoms to be disintegrated in one location and reassembled in another. I would worry about a software bug or a hardware crash. We saw these too in Star Trek. I’ll just stick to the self-driving cars that will become commercially available by the end of this decade.

The most exciting Star Trek marvel of all — the Starship Enterprise — may also be on its way.

In discussion at Fox Studios in March 2012, Elon Musk told me that he planned to retire on Mars. He said he was inspired by Star Trek and planned to build a spacecraft like the Starship Enterprise to take him there. I really thought he was joking — or had had too much to drink. But after that, his company Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, successfully docked a spacecraft it had built, called the Dragon, with the International Space Station and returned with cargo. On Dec. 3, 2013, SpaceX launched a commercial geostationary satellite using Falcon rockets. SpaceX says it is planning a Dragon/Falcon 9 flight in 2015, which will have a fully certified, human-rated, escape system useable during launch.

I’ll bet that Musk does develop a version 1 of the Enterprise. And he may well be our first real-life Captain Kirk.