I don’t remember where exactly I read that originally, but I just now learned it was a RAND employee acting privately.
> After I joined RAND in 2013, I was pleased and surprised to learn that I now shared another connection with “Star Trek,” because a RAND employee had been involved with the show years before the first episode aired on Sept. 8, 1966.
> RAND researcher Harvey Lynn had served as a consultant to series creator Gene Roddenberry, brainstorming technical issues and contributing insights that helped shape such “Star Trek” signatures as the Enterprise's computer (he suggested that it talk, in a woman's voice), the sickbay (he suggested outfitting the beds with “electrical pickups” that monitor the body) and the transporter used for teleportation, series star William Shatner later recalled.
> “Gene wanted authenticity and Harvey helped deliver it,” Shatner wrote in “I'm Working on That,” a 2002 book about the link between “Star Trek” scientific fact and fiction. An Air Force colonel who knew Lynn to be a “creative scientific thinker” had connected the series creator with the researcher, who consulted for “Star Trek” as a “private citizen, not as part of a RAND project,” a fact noted in the FAQ about RAND.
That’s really cool. There has always been a connection between LA/entertainment and science/research/aerospace. Burbank airport used to be a Lockheed facility, JPL is nearby, etc.
In “Hail, Caesar” it actually makes sense for Josh Brolin’s character, as a studio head, is considering a job offer from Lockheed.
If you are ever in the area at the right time, I highly recommend the JPL open house. One might even plan a trip around that.
You get to walk through everything, stand right next to the exact copy of of a Mars rover, and talk to the principals involved. It was the coolest thing that I did in the 3 years that I lived in LA.
I have always thought that we should each “adopt a NASA conspiracy theorist” and take them there, one at a time. All that hardware and all those people are right in front of you.
It’s pretty crazy that we have that kind of access.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 32.0 ms ] thread> After I joined RAND in 2013, I was pleased and surprised to learn that I now shared another connection with “Star Trek,” because a RAND employee had been involved with the show years before the first episode aired on Sept. 8, 1966.
> RAND researcher Harvey Lynn had served as a consultant to series creator Gene Roddenberry, brainstorming technical issues and contributing insights that helped shape such “Star Trek” signatures as the Enterprise's computer (he suggested that it talk, in a woman's voice), the sickbay (he suggested outfitting the beds with “electrical pickups” that monitor the body) and the transporter used for teleportation, series star William Shatner later recalled.
> “Gene wanted authenticity and Harvey helped deliver it,” Shatner wrote in “I'm Working on That,” a 2002 book about the link between “Star Trek” scientific fact and fiction. An Air Force colonel who knew Lynn to be a “creative scientific thinker” had connected the series creator with the researcher, who consulted for “Star Trek” as a “private citizen, not as part of a RAND project,” a fact noted in the FAQ about RAND.
>https://www.rand.org/blog/2016/08/star-trek-at-50-how-the-tv...
In “Hail, Caesar” it actually makes sense for Josh Brolin’s character, as a studio head, is considering a job offer from Lockheed.
You get to walk through everything, stand right next to the exact copy of of a Mars rover, and talk to the principals involved. It was the coolest thing that I did in the 3 years that I lived in LA.
It’s pretty crazy that we have that kind of access.
Keep on rockin’ in the free world!