Would NASA's Journey to Mars Exist Without 'Star Trek'?

NEW YORK —  In the fictional universe of "Star Trek," space crews set out on voyages seeking strange new worlds and unknown life, to boldly go where no man has gone before. "The most fundamental parallel between NASA and 'Star Trek' is the charter to explore and expand human knowledge beyond what we know now and to try to study, understand and communicate what the rest of the galaxy is like," Dave Lavery, NASA's program executive for solar system exploration, told Space.com.