For sixty years now the ‘Space… the final frontier…’ speech is engrained in the minds of half the planet. Even if they’ve only seen an SNL parody of Star Trek, they know what it means and where it came from. Within the world of Star Trek, there’s no exploring the final frontier without one vital component – another piece of the Trek lexicon that’s synonymous with it’s universe – warp drive.
Invented by Zephram Cochrane following the third world war, warp drive was a revolution of space flight. Scraping the pieces together in a battered rural town in Montana, Cochrane used an abandoned missile silo to launch his test ship, the Phoenix, turning a relic of war into a symbol of hope. Maybe not on purpose. His revolution was built for fame and glory. But the day he launched his test flight alongside his co-pilot Lilly Sloane and the pair broke the light-speed barrier, they caught the attention of a nearby alien survey vessel; Vulcan’s on a fairly routine patrol who then made contact and welcomed Earth into the galactic community.
It was a long road getting from there to exploring strange new worlds. But warp drive was the breakthrough that opened Earth to the universe, the infinite possibilities, and united the planet in their next adventure…
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