Science Alive! Episode 8: The Science behind Star Trek

00:18

here at Starfleet Academy there are lots

00:21

of career opportunities which one is

00:23

right for you find out in this edition

00:24

of science alive I'm with Aaron Gregory

00:28

she is an assistant curator here at the

00:29

canada aviation of space museum hello

00:31

Aaron hi Dave now what is Starfleet

00:33

looking for in a medical officer well

00:36

medical officers and Starfleet have kind

00:39

of unique challenges in fact that they

00:41

don't just have to treat humans they

00:43

have to treat many many different

00:45

species it's complicated it's very

00:47

complicated so they've got to keep all

00:49

that information and check they've got

00:50

to be able to recognize different

00:52

anatomies figure out what curious

00:55

ailments they might have right and treat

00:59

them accordingly okay so how much

01:01

training is there be a lot of training

01:04

involved for sure but I think a lot of

01:06

this stuff at least in in our

01:07

experiences is kind of on the fly

01:10

learning on the fly right just to become

01:13

a doctor I mean you get a fair amount of

01:15

training and then there's an awful lot

01:17

of in the field experience is that what

01:20

Starfleet looks for as well for sure I

01:21

think in order to be a chief medical

01:23

officer certainly you need to have a lot

01:25

of experience as a medical officer just

01:27

kind of getting in and you know maybe

01:29

you get your first assignment you always

01:30

work under a chief medical officer and

01:32

learn from their experience and

01:34

certainly a huge field here at Starfleet

01:36

is engineering definitely engineering is

01:39

very important there are specialized

01:41

positions within engineering yep for

01:43

sure you have engineers and they'll have

01:45

various specialties within that overall

01:48

team and then there's the chief engineer

01:50

who is responsible for all the other

01:53

engineers what are some of the

01:55

responsibilities of the engineering

01:57

division on the starship so the

01:59

responsibilities of the engineering

02:00

division are wide they are they vary

02:04

widely they have to maintain the warp

02:07

core that's super important to to keep

02:09

the ship running they also maintain

02:10

things like impulse engines the

02:12

Replicators the transporter is you know

02:16

section within the engineering division

02:17

and basically all the ship systems

02:20

life-support also very important to

02:22

board a starship and what are the

02:24

aptitudes that Starfleet is looking for

02:26

for that I mean creativity is really big

02:29

really can you sort of a computerized

02:31

sort of physics is physics kind of thing

02:33

definitely and they certainly have to

02:35

have really strong knowledge of science

02:37

and math and you know utilize those in

02:40

in pretty much their all their

02:42

day-to-day operations but there is an

02:44

element of creativity and taking those

02:47

principles and kind of turning them on

02:48

their head in times whenever it's

02:50

required figuring out creative solutions

02:52

to get more power from one area of the

02:54

ship to another and really thinking in a

02:57

broad way about how the entire ship

03:00

functions and being able to get it to do

03:02

what you needed to do another critical

03:04

command position on a starship is the

03:06

first officer what's the relationship

03:08

between the first officer and the

03:10

captain captain obviously hugely

03:12

important role in on a board a starship

03:15

so the captain has to essentially take

03:18

stock of everything that's going on so

03:20

all of ships operations they have a team

03:23

of advisors that are you know usually

03:25

the chief so the chief engineer chief

03:27

medical officer is first officer

03:28

certainly he you know takes advice and

03:31

reports on a daily basis from each of

03:34

those people and determines kind of you

03:37

know the priorities for Starfleet he you

03:39

know he gets gets direction from the

03:42

Admirals and all that at Starfleet

03:44

Command he's responsible for telling the

03:46

ship where it needs to go how fast it

03:47

needs to get there making complicated

03:50

negotiations with variety of species

03:52

kind of understanding their cultural

03:54

practices in order to make those

03:56

negotiations smoother and and just has

04:00

to have a kind of a wide knowledge base

04:04

in order to properly make effective and

04:07

quick decisions on everything that goes

04:10

on in the starship now in Starfleet do

04:12

you train for command or do you start in

04:15

another area and then move into command

04:17

further along in your career command is

04:19

a stream but you can certainly come to

04:22

command from a variety of different

04:24

specialties so for example Kathryn

04:27

Janeway who later becomes an admiral she

04:29

comes up through science so she was

04:31

actually a science officer and through

04:33

her experience over the course of her

04:34

career became the captain of the

04:37

starship right there are

04:39

are examples of chief medical officers

04:43

that become captains and command medical

04:46

ships so you can come at it from a

04:48

variety of different ways and but

04:51

certainly you know command is a stream

04:52

on its own lots of options here at

04:54

Starfleet Erin if somebody wants to try

04:56

though for themselves what do they do

04:57

now you just come down to the Canada

04:59

aviation and Space Museum the Starfleet

05:02

Academy the experience runs till

05:03

September fifth Thank You Erin Erin

05:05

Gregory an assistant curator here at the

05:07

canada aviation and space museum this

05:09

was science alive