In what ways does the U.S.S. Enterprise function as a character, not just a vehicle in Star Trek? Does “she” have a personality? Do the other ships in the Star Trek universe have the same level of character development?

I feel like the Enterprise, like any vehicle or building  – because the Enterprise is a home as well as a method of transport, is a character and has a personality as a result of the ways that the other characters treat her and this is true of other ships in the Star Trek universe and also starbases like DS9.

Scott asks if you think weâ€re getting closer to realizing the Vulcan philosophy of IDIC (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations) here on Earth. What would it take for that to happen? What would it look like? How might things be different?

I don’t really know that the Vulcans realised that philosophy fully themselves – they appear to still trip over their own prejudices especially when it comes to other species and members of their own society who aren’t like the majority.

Perhaps it would take a major crisis where everyone needed to work together for us all to see the value in everyone’s difference and appreciate them.

Why is it important to see yourself on television? Why is television an important subject for scholarly study and how does what we watch shape the world we live in?

It’s important to see yourself represented on television because it helps both you and other see that we are all part of the same society, all equally worthy of having that representation. Seeing ourselves in this way, achieving great goals, even in  a fictional universe, helps us to believe that these things are possible – which in turn helps us to actually make these things possible.

At the end of the video, Margaret says that space exploration was controversial in the 1970s and 1980s. People wondered why the government was spending time and money exploring the solar system when critical problems existed here on Earth. What do you think? Should the government resolve Earthly issues before exploring space? Or is a scientific investigation of distant worlds a fundamentally human endeavor of exploration? Explain your argument.

I think that space exploration is still controversial now, to an extent. There are a lot of things going on in the world – there’s poverty, hunger and disease etc. and often I think many people thing that our endeavours should turn towards solving those problems rather than how to get to Mars.

I think that we should still invest in space exploration – the scientists and engineers who work on these things can’t be redeployed to solve world hunger. That’s not something within their expertise. I’d also say that it’s not necessarily the part where we actually accomplish the end goals of various space exploration projects that we achieve the most. The journey to those goals are where discoveries are made that can be applied to our Earthly issues – the approaches taken to solve space problems allow us to come at terrestrial problems from a different direction that might not have been previously considered.

Think of a global issue that we are facing today that causes fear or concern. What would be the plot of a television show that depicted a utopian and optimistic vision of the future of that issue?

A utopian and optimistic vision of the future of the coronavirus issue? Well ideally I would like the plot to show it being resolved with little to no futher loss of life and everyone learning good hygiene practices, employment and healthcare being reformed globally so that people don’t go to work sick and have access to medicine etc.

However, as it’s a tv show, there would probably have to be more drama and urgency conveyed.