Andre Bormanis, long-standing Star Trek science consultant turned script writer and author is taking his turn in the hot seat for our latest Q & A session. Here, Andre sheds light on warp travel and the future of technology. To put it simply, "fascinating."

Question: How come time doesn't move slower for the people on the starships going faster than light on Star Trek like it should in theory?
Bart H.

Andre Bormanis: When a starship is traveling at warp, it's in subspace, not normal space. The ship's warp drive is essentially expanding space behind the ship and shrinking space in front of it at rates many times faster than light. Within its own bubble of subspace, however, the ship is not moving at anywhere near the speed of light, so there is no time dilation effect.

Q: I have a question about Voyager. When Seska stuck a needle in Chakotay's neck/shoulder and said she used his DNA to impregnate herself, I became puzzled. Was that anywhere near right or possible? I know it didn't work, because she was already pregnant with Maj Cullah's baby. Was it just a writer's whim/mistake?
Jill S.

AB: In principle, you could use DNA from just about any cell in a human body to create a clone of that person — essentially a delayed identical twin. Seska could've used selected strands of DNA from Chakotay's cells to fertilize her own egg cells, or she could've used his DNA to create a clone.

Q: Do you think it is actually possible to achieve a speed faster than light?
Maxx

AB: It's certainly possible to stretch or shrink space at rates much faster than the speed of light, which is the basic operating principle of the warp drive. We know space expanded much faster than light shortly after the Big Bang that created the universe. All it takes to warp space is matter or energy, but it would take A LOT of energy to warp space to the degree required to propel a starship ? la the Enterprise or Voyager. I don't think we'll see warp drive anytime soon, but eventually, someday, it just might be possible.

Q: How close are we to a fully-functional Matter/Antimatter drive?
Chris L.

AB: We can already create and store miniscule amounts of antimatter in the laboratory, a few atoms worth at a time. The problem is creating and storing it in quantity. Nobody knows how to efficiently make even a few million atoms at a time, let alone the trillions upon trillions of atoms' worth you would need to propel a spaceship. But it certainly would be a potent fuel: a paper clip's worth of antimatter would be enough to send the space shuttle into orbit! Check out the NASA-sponsored website "Warp Drive When?" for more info on warp drive and antimatter fuel.

Q: I have noticed that the orientation of ships to each other in space is always the same most of the time on Star Trek. That is to say, the ships'dorsal and ventral surfaces are always oriented the same in space. Since there is no up or down, right or left in space. Why are some of the ships not "upside down" or "perpendicular" to each other when they are shown on the screen? I think this would be a more realistic portrayal of how things are in space. Granted, some fight scenes have shown this, but not often enough.
Kurt G.

AB: I agree. I think the feeling among the producers and special effects people is that ships upside down relative to each other might just look odd to the average viewer, especially on something as small as a television screen. There is also some justification for orienting planet-orbiting spacecraft relative to the planes of their orbits.

Q: Hey, Andre! I have your book about Star Trek and some of the scientific realities of the show ("Star Trek: Science Logs"). Since that book has been released, have there been any scientific breakthroughs that would add to the content of the book?
Mark M.

AB: Certainly there's been a lot of exciting work in genetic engineering, including the completion of the human genome project. The discovery of intermediate mass black holes and the possiblity that there is a kind of anti-gravity force operating in the universe are subjects I would also include if I were writing "Science Logs" today.

Q: Is controlling gravity possible? Just like gravity plating in Star Trek ships?
Frank D.

AB: If physicists figure out how gravity is related to the other basic forces of nature — electromagnetism and the nuclear forces — may well be able to control it by manipulating electromagnetic and/or nuclear forces, forces that we already have some control over. There have been some experiments conducted recently at a university in Texas that suggest that rapidly spinning superconducting disks might shield gravity slightly. If that effect is real and we figure out how it works, it may also point the way to a method for creating artificial gravity. I'm writing an article about this for an upcoming issue of Star Trek: The Magazine.

Question: If one traveled faster than the speed of light, what would they see. If they had a camera that could take an instantaneous picture, would it photograph what was in that space in the past? If they continued to increase their speed, could they then eventually photograph the big bang?
KlingonSGD

Andre Bormanis: Interesting question! I don't really know the answer. Travelling faster than light would make you travel backward in time. But of course everything that we see, we see as it was in the past, since light emitted or reflected from any object takes some period of time to reach our eyes. When we use giant telescopes to peer deep into space, we see galaxies and other structures as they were when their light left them billions of years ago. If you were to travel close to the speed of light, you would experience a kind of "tunnel vision" with light near the edge of your field of view shifted toward the red end of the spectrum, and light near the center shifted toward the blue.

Q: How likely is it that we will be able to use transporters like the ones in Star Trek!
EvansC

AB: I think transporters are pretty unlikely. Maybe someday day we'll have some form of teleportation, but I doubt we'll be ripping people apart atom by atom and then reconstructing them in another place. There are better ways to get around!

Q: As the science consultant, what is the longest science term you have ever used on Voyager?
Ryan

AB: Probably "symbiogenesis," which is the name of an interesting theory in biology. According to symbiogenesis, some of the structures in our cells were once independent little cells themselves. These cells were ingested, but not digested, by our cells' ancestors. The little cells formed a symbiotic relationship with the bigger cells, and now perform important functions in the cell.

Q: Do people in the 24th century still have science fiction? (I mean not like Captain Proton, that's really more like a visiting the past.) Do they make predictions about the future? Are they as fascinated about where they are going as us residents of the 21st century?
Keleley

AB: I would certainly think so. The question of what the future may bring will be just as interesting and important in the 24th century as it is today, and the literature of the 24th century will certainly reflect that.

Q: How many changes to an average script do you have to make when adding all the relevant scientific techno-babble and how does it compare with the writers original ideas?
Robbie J

AB: It depends on the script. Some are much more "tech heavy" than others. Usually I don't have more than a couple of pages of tech notes on any given script. If a story revolves around an important science concept — like the "symbiogenesis" story mentioned below — I usually talk it over with the writer before he or she starts the script, so they're familiar with the ideas and terminology when they begin writing.

Q: Which Star Trek technology would you most want to see become reality? Also, which existing scientific achievement foreshadowed by Star Trek do you think is the most important?
Traci C.

AB: My first choice would be warp drive. I would love to be able to travel the galaxy, visit other star systems, explore other planets. I think the most important devices that exist today that were foreshadowed by the original Star Trek series are the medical scanners — CAT and PET scanners — that give doctors the ability to more readily see what's going on inside the human body.

Q: From a science point of view, what is your favorite Star Trek story?
HEG

AB: Probably "Tuvix," which featured the aforementioned symbiogenesis theory. I thought it was a model science fiction story: a compelling idea from present day science taken to a new level and leading to a terrible moral dilemma, i.e. what if symbiogenesis operated not just on cells, but on entire organisms? And what if that process merged two of our crewmen into a single, new entity, and we can't immediately reverse the process? This led to the dilemma of the Captain having to choose to sacrifice a new life form to recover her lost crewman, leading to a very chilling climax...

Q: I was wondering how you got the job as Science Consultant?
Josh

AB: I majored in physics in college, did graduate work in astrophysics, then got into teaching and technical writing. I then took some screenwriting classes, my teacher liked my work and encouraged me, and eventually I found an agent here in Hollywood who was interested in representing me. She was trying to set up a meeting for me to pitch story ideas to Star Trek: The Next Generation when she found out they needed a new science consultant. They wanted someone with a background in science and creative writing, and someone who knew Star Trek well. To make a long story short, they interviewed me, liked me, and hired me, starting with the last season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I eventually started selling stories to Voyager and I've written several scripts for Voyager as well, all of which has been great fun.