This El Paso Writer Actually Predicted The Future

A native El Pasoan was behind one of syndicated tv's most iconic shows. Star Trek took us where no man had gone before and showed us the future in almost every episode.

Gene Roddenberry was born in El Paso in 1921. He served in the US Army Air Corp, flying almost 90 combat missions in the South Pacific. By 1945, he'd earned a Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal.

He flew commercially for Pan Am before deciding to take his love of writing to Hollywood and the fledgling tv market.

He wrote for several tv shows like Dragnet and Highway Patrol before writing and producing Star Trek which is celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2025 with an entire years worth of events.

How Did Star Trek Predict The Future?

In the show, Gene's characters crisscross the galaxy finding new life forms, new worlds, and solving the problems of the universe all while trying to get Mr. Spock to laugh and Captain Kirk to utter .. a .. complete .. unbroken .. sentence.

In doing so, they, (Gene), introduced us to:

• Google and Alexa - Nearly every episode has a cast member researching something "online" or directing a question like this" "Computer, (Alexa), what is 2 plus 2?
• Automatic doors - Before Star Trek, people had to actually push and pull on these things.
• The crew also used flip phones, tablets, camcorders, drones and made video, (Facetime), phone calls.
• Lt. Uhura used a wireless, (bluetooth), headset to communicate.

Those are just a few examples, there are lots more.

Predicting The Societal Future

Thanks to Roddenberry's progressive mindset, Uhura, (played by Nichelle Nichols), was one of tv's first black, female main characters. In the season 3 episode titled "Plato's Stepchildren", she and Capt. Kirk, (William Shatner), share the first on screen, interracial kiss.

Star Trek was also the first series to have multiple, female cast members and THE first, (I think), to have women in positions of power or high rank. While some say he was a bit misogynistic, he saw the writing on the wall.

READ MORE: New Space Race Underway In Texas

Envisioning a time when women would have the same rights and opportunities as men, he wanted the Enterprise crew to be split 50/50 gender-wise. However, the Hollywood shot callers balked and Roddenberry was forced to thin it down to a 1/3rd female crew.