Five Star Trek Weapons That The Military Wishes They Had

5 Weapons From Star Trek That America’s Military Wishes It Had -- National Interest

In Star Trek's vision of the future, humanity has ended poverty, hunger and racism. In fact, all the worst aspects of human existence have been swept away -- except war.

Warfare and weapons have been a prominent theme in Star Trek since the series debuted in 1966. Barrages of phasers and photon torpedoes erupt from starships traveling faster than the speed of light, only to be repelled by deflector shields that block their deadly energies.

Never mind that much of this is fantasy. Traveling faster than light is impossible, as far as we know (though not even the physicists are certain). Space is big, ships are small, and actual space combat would be closer to a game of hide-and-seek than the battle of Jutland or Leyte Gulf (for a fascinating interview I had with a real naval expert, see this).

Nonetheless, Star Trek and Star Wars have shaped popular perceptions of space warfare. Sometimes for good, sometimes for bad. But either way, some of those Star Trek weapons would make the Pentagon's day. Consider these:

Read more ....

My Comment: When I was a kid seeing my first Star Trek episode .... there were many things that struck me about the series .... but their handheld communicators .... that was cool and at the time I wished that I could have something like that. Today .... they are known as cell phones. So what may be science fiction today .... may be reality tomorrow.

Update: This is an interesting video .... 5 Sci-fi Weapons that Actually Exist.