My dad was a fan of Star Trek and I've watched my fair share of it with him in the past. As I still enjoy watching it today. I will admit neither him or I would ever be classified as Trekkies. We don't go crazy buying models or collect posters or remember everything about the show. My dad has been gone now since 05' but if he was still around, him & I would have so watched the new "Star Trek" movie together. The reason for me writing this is that theres many sci-fi things that can be watched and never believed possible. Wither by advancement in tech. or otherwise humanly key quoting "Humanly" poss. some things just want ever happen. I always doubted the "Beam Me Up" thing being something that could be done. But advancement in technology has me not in doubt any longer. With development of nanos and laser modifications I believe we may just about be able to do that. If we can one day take a laser beam ride and nano be redeveloped we wouldn't need a space ship to get to mars. Simply be "Beamed Up" there. We will always need vessels and the USS Enterprise can carry our technology into space for my theory would only be the ability to laser beam nanos from one location to another but not through anything. For that would be to advanced it would be like making a blueray disc player able to read multiple discs on top of one another with a laser beam. If you follow me on that. My theory would be more cost effective then "Surrogates" for the nanos would reconstruct us at another location with all of our information; dna, characteristics, individuality, personality, knowledge. Then other beams of laser can change that nano information for another person to work on say Mars for exp. Beaming a laser to mars isn't sci-fi at all. The computer for Microsoft and Intel to work on would be to recreate the information of us there. We could learn about planets by just sending a processor there to process the nanos received via the laser. "Beam Me Up, Scotty!"
R.I.P Dad 55'-05' (maybe one day I can take his ashes into outer space)