The final episode of Star Trek, Turnabout Intruder, aired on June 3, 1969. Just 47 days later, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. The timing is so surreal to us today that it almost seems intentional.
While these two incidents were entirely unrelated in 1969, Apollo 11 would have an impact on the cancelled Star Trek.
Apollo 11
The first mission to the moon was brief. Armstrong and Aldrin only spent a day on the moon’s surface. Their one and only moon walk lasted just over two hours. While they were outside their craft, the two astronauts never ventured further than a few hundred feet from the lunar module.
This seemingly limited operation had a huge impact on humanity. What seemed like science fiction on July 19, 1969, was suddenly a fact of life on July 20. From that day forward, we lived in a world where man could travel to another world.
That opened the minds of people everywhere.
The Era of the Moon
As American astronauts walked on the moon between 1969 and 1972, Star Trek entered syndication. It aired on stations across the country everyday. Suddenly, what seemed like a silly, far-fetched science fiction show from the 1960s, was becoming a little more probable with the success of the Apollo program in the 1970s.
Apollo 11 helped people realize that space exploration was real. Star Trek seemed much more possible to people than it did when the series first aired.
Co-hosts Bob Turner and Kelly Casto talk about the first moon landing and its impact on the original series on this episode of 70s Trek.
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