Neil deGrasse Tyson on Star Trek: The Original Series

“The Enterprise was the first ever [spaceship represented in storytelling that was not designed to go from one place to another; [it was] only designed to explore. It was revolutionary in terms of what we would think space would, and should, be about.”

“What matters is not what they look like now, but what they looked to others at the time that they prevailed... There is only one spaceship that's earlier than [the original Enterprise], and that's the flying saucer from The Day the Earth Stood Still. So, what matters here is, what did [the Enterprise] look like at the time it came out (1966) compared with anything that had been imagined before? And when you consider that, that is the most astonishing machine that has ever graced the screen.”