• 'Star Trek' reaches warp speed at real fusion lab

    Paramount Pictures

    This scene from "Star Trek Into Darkness" was shot at California's National Ignition Facility, which is pursuing nuclear fusion in a lab.

    By Clara Moskowitz
    LiveScience

    If the Starship Enterprise's warp drive looks especially realistic in the new "Star Trek" film, that's because it was shot in a real-life laboratory for nuclear fusion research: The National Ignition Facility in California.

    The J.J. Abrams-led crew of the new film "Star Trek Into Darkness," got special permission from the U.S. Department of Energy to film scenes from the movie at the facility, which is part of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif.

    There, real-life scientists are using the world's most energetic laser system to attempt to create nuclear fusion — the merging of two atoms into one — in a laboratory. If successful, the technology could provide a truly clean, renewable energy source for the future. While the National Ignition Facility (NIF) hasn't succeeded in igniting fusion just yet, scientists say they're getting closer and closer to their goal. [Photos: The Evolution of the Starship Enterprise]

    There are genuine links between the research going on at NIF and the futuristic science portrayed in "Star Trek," the film's producers point out: After all, the Enterprise is fueled with deuterium, the heavy variant of hydrogen, which the NIF uses in its fusion experiments.

    "For many years, we've been waiting for 'Star Trek' to realize they should be here!" principal associate director of NIF Edward Moses said in a statement. "This is a very futuristic facility… and I think we've all been influenced by Star Trek's vision of the future."

    The film uses NIF to portray the innards of the 23rd-century starship, which uses a warp drive to bend space-time, allowing the Enterprise to travel faster than the speed of light.

    Moses said he and his science team were thrilled to see their lab transformed into a sci-fi vision. "It was super exciting to see J.J. Abrams' vision of what we do," Moses said.

    For their part, the film crew was just as excited to see real-life science in action.

    "We were there just trying to shoot a movie, but all around us, these innovative scientists are working on technologies that will likely help the whole world," Abrams said. "The idea that one day the research at NIF could create clean, limitless energy is so exciting. On the one hand, it was simply a great location for the story. But more importantly, we were really honored to be welcomed there. These people are doing research that could alter the destiny of the planet the way the wheel or the light bulb did."

    The collaboration is especially fitting, because so many scientists have been inspired to pursue their careers, in part, by science fiction such as "Star Trek."

    "We couldn't even believe they let us in to shoot — and then, they were so excited about having us," Abrams said. "So many people told us 'Star Trek' inspired them to get involved in science."

    Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook and Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

    Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • 'Star Trek' stars go ga-ga over real astronauts during video hangout

    NASA connects the crew of "Star Trek Into Darkness" with the International Space Station and other astronauts. Watch the full 56-minute Google+ Hangout.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    You'd think that traveling at warp speed to the planet Nibiru would be the coolest thing in outer space, but for the Hollywood types who made "Star Trek Into Darkness," talking with a real astronaut on the International Space Station was way more awesome.

    "I'll just act like this is a perfectly normal thing to be happening," Damon Lindelof, a writer and producer for the just-released movie, told NASA's Chris Cassidy during a Google+ Hangout presented on Thursday by the space agency and Warner Bros. "We are literally tickled pink to be talking to you right now."

    The other "Star Trek" actors in on the Hangout — Chris Pine (who plays Captain James Kirk), John Cho (Sulu) and Alice Eve (who gets a healthy dose of screen time as Dr. Carol Marcus) — were just as taken. They laughed and hooted like fanboys when Cassidy let go of his microphone and took an upside-down spin in zero-G.

    Pine said he loved the idea of mashing up fictional and real-life spaceflight: "It's great that our worlds can meet at some point in the middle and hopefully inspire people to do good things, and to explore."

    The feeling was clearly mutual: Astronaut Mike Fincke, who served as space station commander in 2008-2009, said the "Star Trek" TV shows and movies have long inspired scientists, engineers and spacefliers. "We fall for it every time here at NASA," he said.

    Fincke appeared in the final episode of the "Star Trek: Enterprise" TV series, and on Thursday he joked that he'd rather be in Hollywood: "Ever since I was 3 years old, I wanted to be a director and writer, but I failed director-writer school. Then I tried acting, and that didn't work out. So now I go on spacewalks." 

    If Lindelof has anything to do with it, Fincke won't be the last astronaut to make the crossover to Hollywood. He promised Cassidy that he'd be welcome to a cameo role in a future "Star Trek" movie. "Maybe you could class up the joint a bit," Lindelof said.

    Cassidy said the "Star Trek" crew would be welcome aboard the space station as well. He noted that there were currently a couple of vacancies in the U.S. segment of the station — due to the fact that one batch of crew members has just returned to Earth, and their replacements aren't due for launch until May 28. "We got two open beds," Cassidy joked. "The first two here get 'em."

    You can watch the whole 56-minute Hangout while you're waiting for the next showing of "Star Trek Into Darkness," but here are a few of the highlights:

    • When asked about last week's ammonia coolant leak at the station, Cassidy said he was surprised to see how quickly mission managers were able to plan a spacewalk to fix it. "It's not like you can rescue Spock from a volcano and push a button. It doesn't happen that way up here," he said. Cassidy said the episode illustrated how useful it is to have "garage-tinkerer" types aboard the station.
    • Cassidy said ammonia contamination was one of the three emergency threats that the space station crew had to be prepared to deal with, along with an onboard fire or rapid decompression. That led Lindelof to warn the astronaut about the latest "Star Trek" super-villain. "You should watch out for Benedict Cumberbatch," he said. "He's very threatening, I understand."
    • Cassidy said the thing that gets him the most about "Star Trek" and other space movies was the ease with which everyone walked around on spaceships, as if artificial gravity was nothing special. Even though weightlessness has its drawbacks, floating around in zero-G would make the movies much more interesting. "Trust me, it's a pretty cool thing to do this anytime you want," Cassidy said.
    • The astronauts talked around a question that asked them to name their favorite "Star Trek" captain, but Fincke said his favorite name for a starship would be Enterprise (natch!). Fellow NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren went with the Starship Endurance, which pays tribute to the ship for Ernest Shackleton's famous Antarctic ordeal in 1914.
    • Life aboard the space station tends to give astronauts the same optimistic view of the future that runs through the "Star Trek" saga, Cassidy said. From space, Earth seems so tranquil and peaceful. "There are no borders down there," Cassidy said. "You can't see a little yellow line painted on the green part."
    • One of the questions sent in during the Hangout focused on a more mundane aspect of spaceflight: How do spacewalkers handle a sneeze? Cassidy admitted that could be a problem. "Once the helmet goes on, any schmutz that goes on there is just an impediment to seeing clearly," he said. The solution is to incline your head downward before the sneeze, so that the schmutz is directed below the face plate.

    More about 'Star Trek' and spaceflight:

    Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the NBC News Science Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with NBCNews.com's stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • Get set to again man 'Star Trek' Enterprise bridge

    New Starship / CBS Television Studios / Paramount (Kickstarter video screencap)

    A version of the Starship Enterprise bridge as seen on "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

    By Elizabeth Howell
    Space.com

    Calling all wannabe space captains: The starship Enterprise bridge from television's "Star Trek" may open to the public in the next year. After lying in a studio backyard for years, a display version of the bridge from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" is slowly being refurbished by a group called New Starship.

    Nothing's confirmed yet, but organizer Huston Huddleston said he is in talks with the San Diego Air & Space Museum to bring the bridge there in the middle of 2014. It will remain there for a year, the plan goes, before possibly hitting the road for other locations.

    This exhibit, Huddleston said, would include not only the bridge, but re-creations of other iconic "Star Trek"ship locations such as the transporter room and Capt. Jean-Luc Picard's personal quarters. (The museum confirmed the talks to Space.com, but said plans are yet to be finalized.) [Video: Star Trek's Bridge Restored]  

    "We thought, to quote 'The Six Million Dollar Man,' we have the technology to make this into something that was seen on the TV show, but the technology wasn't there back then – touch-screen computers and interactivity," Huddleston said.

    "We want to make it an educational piece to bring an entire classroom of kids on the bridge of the Enterprise and have them fly the ship."

    Even if the exhibit doesn't end up in San Diego, Huddleston aims to have it in other museums — including a proposed science-fiction-focused museum in Hollywood he's involved with that he'd love to see open in 2016. However, considering the design is still not finished, he acknowledges the latter could be an ambitious aim.

    Huston Huddleston

    "Star Trek: The Next Generation" star Denise Crosby is among the celebrities who have expressed their support for the project, backers say.

    From the scrap heap, back to Hollywood attention
    According to Huddleston, the display bridge was completed after the film "Star Trek: Generations" went into theaters in 1994. The bridge that was used in the "Next Generation"show was "blown up" as a part of the storyline of the movie.

    New Starship's acquired bridge is one of three that were made for "Star Trek: The Experience," a Las Vegas theme park that closed in 2008, according to media reports. This particular bridge was used for a tour, then returned to Paramount Studios in 2006.

    Subsequently the bridge sat outside — unused — for about five years, Huddleston said. "It was when Paramount sold their rights to CBS," he said, referring to when CBS acquired Paramount Television around 2006. "It kind of fell between the cracks."

    Huddleston, a writer, producer and director, found out about the abandoned bridge from a friend who was leaving Paramount in 2011.

    With the set scheduled for the scrap heap, Huddleston said he negotiated to have the pieces temporarily shipped to his backyard, paying $7,000 in shipping costs to get it moved an hour south, from Anaheim to Sherman Oaks, Calif. [Original 'Star Trek' Galileo Shuttlecraft Restored (Photos)]

    He next spent months contacting people he knew in show business, working to get support. His big breakthrough came after attending the Creation Entertainment Official Star Trek Convention in August 2012, where he got the attention of "Battlestar: Galactica" writer Ronald D. Moore and Rod Roddenberry, the son of "Star Trek"creator Gene Roddenberry.

    Next, cautiously, the group spoke with CBS officials with this idea, and gradually gained their support for the interactive exhibit, Huddleston said.

    "It wasn’t a fan film, and it wasn’t just some geeky, nerdy, 'I’m going to turn my living room into the bridge of the Enterprise thing.' It was bigger than that," Huddleston said. "They understood it, and they understand the huge PR boost, the positive thing this is doing for the 'Star Trek' franchise."

    Huston Huddleston

    The computer for "Number One" – William Riker, as played by Jonathan Frakes – is among the pieces being restored in a Star Trek: The Next Generation display bridge.

    Crowdsourced support
    From there, plans have been flying at warp speed. New Starship started a Kickstarter campaign in late 2012 aiming to raise $20,000 to assist with restoration. It received more than three times that goal – $68,611 – all going toward restoring various pieces and starting the museum.

    Another $14,505 came from a separate IndieGoGo crowdsourced campaign that fell far short of its original $240,000 fundraising goal.

    Everyone on the project is working as a volunteer, Huddleston said. New Starship's Kickstarter page also acknowledges sponsorship from collectibles site Entertainment Earth, and Abrams Books.

    Fragile bridge pieces these days are scattered across the United States — the captain's chair is in South Dakota, for example — as volunteers work to restore it. The frame is safely in storage and will be worked on last; its fiberglass frame received less damage after being stored outside.

    Huddleston, meanwhile, has a packed schedule of convention tours for the summer to make aspiring Starfleet cadets aware of the project. One of his planned stops is a NASA-affiliated event in Houston in August that could include astronauts and some Hollywood stars.

    The bridge should be ready sometime next winter, at which point Huddleston and his backers plan a gala event at a Paramount sound stage in California that will even feature the wedding of two "Star Trek" fans on the bridge.

    Updates on the project are available on its Kickstarter page.

    Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace, or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebookand Google+.

    Copyright 2013 Space.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • NASA gets a plug in new 'Star Trek' film trailer

    Paramount Pictures

    A NASA advertisement will play before the new "Star Trek" movie, a trailer made possible by crowdfunding.

    By Miriam Kramer
    Space.com

    A NASA video announcement highlighting the agency's space exploration efforts could be coming to a theater near you when the next "Star Trek" film warps onto the big screen in May.

    The Aerospace Industries Association, a private organization that represents more than 350 manufacturers involved in spaceflight, has raised more than $42,000 to help place a NASA advertisement in 59 movie theaters for eight weeks across the U.S. The NASA video ad will run before "Star Trek Into Darkness" — the next chapter in the rebooted "Star Trek" franchise — when it debuts on May 17.

    After setting up a campaign on the crowdfunding website IndieGoGo.com on March 26, officials from the AIA met their initial $33,000 goal in six days with the help of more than 1,000 backers.

    "By backing this 30-second trailer in the top movie theater markets around the United States, you can show our students and young people that we're in an exciting new era of space exploration," officials from the AIA wrote on the campaign page. "Now is the time to reach them — to remind them that an inspiring space program awaits, one that is worthy of their ambition." [See Photos of the "Star Trek Into Darkness"]

    The 30-second spot will be a cut-down version of a 2.5 minute video called "We are the Explorers" produced by NASA last year. Narrated by Peter Cullen — the voice of Optimus Prime in the "Transformers" movie series — the video details the past and possible future of the space agency.

    "Right now men and women are working on the next steps to go farther than we have ever gone before," Cullen said in his narration. "New vessels will carry us, and new destinations await us."

    This campaign comes on the heels of a March 22 announcement that NASA outreach activities will be scaled back because of sequestration. Due to the series of across-the-board budget cuts, NASA officials have suspended many of the agency's public outreach programs in place to get children and adults involved in the space program.

    The AIA seems to be trying to pick up where NASA left off. Officials with the space agency are not legally allowed to use NASA funds to buy advertisement time, but the AIA, as a private organization, is under no such obligation.

    "By funding this campaign, we can remind students and the general public that our nation's space agency is working hard on the next era of exploration," AIA officials wrote in the campaign statement. "Keeping the public informed of NASA's activities is a key element of sustaining the health of our space program."

    While the campaign has met its initial goal, AIA officials have set a new funding goal they hope to reach before the end of the month. If the campaign raises $94,000 or more, the NASA advertisement will be placed in 750 theaters in the U.S.

    You can donate to the AIA's IndieGoGo campaign until May 1.

    Follow Miriam Kramer @mirikramer and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

    Copyright 2013 Space.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Fascinating! William Shatner boosts 'Vulcan' as name for Pluto moon

    Paramount TV via AP file

    The original "Star Trek" TV cast included Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock, the Starship Enterprise's pointy-eared science officer, and William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    Just one day after astronomers asked Internet users to pick from a list of 12 names for Pluto's tiniest moons, they added a 13th name — Vulcan — at the urging of Star Trek icon William Shatner.

    "Vulcan is the Roman god of lava and smoke, and the nephew of Pluto. (Any connection to the Star Trek TV series is purely coincidental, although we can be sure that Gene Roddenberry read the classics.) Thanks to William Shatner for the suggestion!" discovery team leader Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute wrote Tuesday in an update to the "Pluto Rocks" blog.

    You don't have to be a hard-core Trek fan to know that Vulcan was the fictional home planet of Mr. Spock, the pointy-eared science officer on the original TV series' Starship Enterprise. Roddenberry was the series' creator. And long before he became a Priceline pitchman, Shatner played the Enterprise's skipper, Captain James T. Kirk.

    The point of the "Pluto Rocks" balloting, which runs through Feb. 25, is to weigh public sentiment for the naming of Pluto's two most recently discovered moons, now known as P4 and P5. As the moons' discoverers, Showalter and his colleagues have the right to recommend formal names for adoption by the International Astronomical Union. They thought it would be fun to give the general public a non-binding advisory role.

    The contest caught Shatner's eye, and he made a couple of suggestions in a Twitter update: "So what do you think of the idea of naming the two moons of Pluto Vulcan and Romulus? You have mythology, pos[itive] and neg[ative]."

    Any voter can suggest write-in names, as Shatner did, but the names should refer to people, places or things in Greek or Roman mythology that have a connection to the underworld. Right now, the two favored names are Styx (which refers to a major river of the underworld as well as the rock band) and Cerberus or Kerberos (which refers to the underworld's guard dog as well as the modern-day network protocol).

    More than 120,000 votes have been cast already, with less than 5,000 of them going to Vulcan — so Shatner would have to get those Vulcan votes multiplying like Tribbles to catch up to Styx and Cerberus. But that's not impossible, especially if he puts the word out to his 1.3 million Twitter followers.

    As for Shatner's other suggestion, Romulus certainly has a connection to Roman mythology and Trek lore. In mythology, Romulus was one of the founders of Rome, while in the Star Trek universe, the name refers to the homeworld of a race that rivaled the Vulcans. However, one of the IAU's guidelines is that a proposed name should not be confused with pre-existing names for other celestial bodies. That poses "a bit of a problem," Showalter said.

    "Romulus, along with his brother Remus, are the names of the moons of the asteroid 87 Silvia," he wrote. "They were discovered by a team led by my good colleague Franck Marchis, now a senior scientist at the SETI Institute."

    Sorry, Captain. Because there's already a Romulus in this sector of the galaxy, scientists can't reuse the name. They just cannae do it.

    Can you think of other mythological names with science-fiction connections? If they're not already taken, share your ideas in the comment section below — and send them along to the "Pluto Rocks" folks as well.

    Update for 8:45 p.m. ET Feb. 14: Vulcan is now the top pick in the "Pluto Rocks" poll, with more than 60,000 votes out of the 234,720 responses registered. Styx and Cerberus are second and third on the list. Showalter has added eight more names to the ballot, bringing the total list to 21. The eight additions are Elysium, Hecate, Melinoe, Orthrus, Sisyphus, Tantalus, Tartarus and Thanatos. "Pluto needs more moons!" Showalter writes in a Cosmic Diary entry.

    More about Pluto and its moons:

    Check out Monday's Google+ Hangout about Pluto and the moon-naming project on the SETI Institute's website.

    Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

    This story was originally published on Tue Feb 12, 2013 11:30 PM EST

  • William Shatner makes a call to astronaut in space -- for real

    By Clara Moskowitz 
    Space.com

    Capt. James Kirk of the Starship Enterprise called up an astronaut in space today for a cosmic conversation that began on Twitter and warped all the way into space.

    Actor William Shatner, who famously portrayed Kirk in the original science fiction TV show "Star Trek," called the International Space Station Thursday to ask real-life astronaut Chris Hadfield what life is like on a spaceship.

    "I'm so moved to be able to speak to you for this brief moment," Shatner told the astronaut via phone.

    You can see a video of Shatner's call to the space station here.

    Hadfield, representing the Canadian Space Agency, is serving a five-month tour on the football field-sized space station orbiting Earth. Last month, he and Shatner struck up a virtual conversation on Twitterwhen the actor wrote, "@Cmdr_Hadfield Are you tweeting from space?"

    Eventually, their conversation pulled in other "Star Trek" notables like George Takei (who played Hikaru Sulu), Will Wheaton (Wesley Crusher) and Leonard Nimoy (Spock).  

    Today, Shatner and Hadfield connected in real time for a chat about life in space, and life on the stage.

    "You've been a test pilot, the utmost example of courage," Shatner said. "How do you deal with the fear, which is also applicable to space?"

    "I read somewhere that you always knew your lines whenever you had a job in the acting profession," Hadfield replied. "I have tried to always know my lines. What I'm scared most of is not knowing what to do next. … After years of training, you practice everything down to the details so you have the confidence that comes with that."

    "The fear comes from something unexpected happening, like forgetting your worlds or an audience reaction that was unexpected," Shatner said. "In my case, your face flushes, in your case, you burn up. It's a little different."

    "Well, in both cases you go down in flames," the astronaut shot back.

    Shatner also got philosophical, asking whether flying in space helped Hadfield contemplate the enormity of the universe. "Are you able to see the unifying parts of it so that you become at one with the universe?" he asked.

    Hadfield said that in between the everyday engineering problems that occupy his mind, he does think about how humanity is poised on the cusp of exploration, looking toward a future of living out in the solar system. 

    "I feel hugely connected to that," he said. "It's what inspired me as a kid. Now I'm doing my absolute best to help people see that, to help us understand where we are philosophically and historically in our increased understanding of where we are in the universe."

    The fictional and real-life space travelers had a lot to talk about, but limited time, so the two made plans to continue their conversation at Hadfield's cottage in Ontario, after the astronaut returns home in May.

    "It's a pleasure Chris, I look forward to meeting you in person and siting down with a whiskey and a cigar," Shatner said.

    You can follow Space.com assistant managing editor Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz. Follow Space.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook  and  Google+.

    Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Plans set for 'Tricorder' contest

    X Prize Foundation

    The medical diagnostic tool envisioned by the $10 million Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize may well look much like a smartphone running an app with wireless sensing capability, as shown in this artist's concept.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News




    Qualcomm and the X Prize Foundation have laid out a $10 million plan to spur the development of medical diagnosis devices like the ones seen on "Star Trek" science-fiction shows — not by the 23rd century, but by mid-2015.

    The Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize is the latest multimillion-dollar competition designed to serve as an incentive for technological breakthroughs, following in the footsteps of X Prizes for private-sector spaceflight, ultra-efficient automobiles. low-cost genome sequencing and robotic moon missions.

    "There is a generation of exponentially growing technologies ... that are coming together to empower us to make real the 'Star Trek' technology of a medical tricorder," Peter Diamandis, the X Prize Foundation's CEO, told me today.

    Tricorders are the hand-held props that have been used by "Star Trek" characters dating back to the 1960s to check a crew member's vital signs — with the aim of keeping Bones from having to tell Captain Kirk, "He's dead, Jim." The old ones looked like cassette recorders with mini-TV screens, while the later models looked like flip phones gone wild.

    The tricorder envisioned for the X Prize would be a hand-held wireless device like a smartphone, weighing no more than 5 pounds. It'll have to record health indicators such as blood pressure, respiratory rate, pulse and temperature, and diagnose a set of 15 diseases to be named later. Diamandis said the diseases on the list would probably include respiratory and cardiovascular conditions.

    Details still to be determined
    The X Prize specifications still have to be filled out, along with the scale to be used for judging the various models in the competition, but the foundation says "teams will have to consider tradeoffs amongst weight, functionality, power requirements, battery life, screen resolution, A.I. engine location, diagnosis capability, end consumer cost, and so on."

    The schedule calls for the initial draft of the competition guidelines to be made public later this month, and massaged into their final form by September or so. The teams that seek the prize will show off their prototypes during a qualifying round in mid-2014, and the top 10 teams will compete in a final round in mid-2015. That final round will require teams to use their devices to diagnose 15 to 30 consumers over the course of three days. The teams will be judged based on the diagnoses as well an assessment of consumer experience and proof of adequate high-frequency data logging.

    A video for the Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize lays out the $10 million challenge.

    The top team will win $7 million, and there'll also be a $2 million second prize and a $1 million third prize, all put up by the Qualcomm Foundation.

    "Health care today certainly falls far short of the vision portrayed in 'Star Trek,'" Paul Jacobs, who is Qualcomm's chairman and CEO as well as chair of the Qualcomm Foundation, said today in a news release. "By sponsoring the Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize competition, the Qualcomm Foundation will stimulate the imaginations of entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists and doctors to create wireless health services and technologies that improve lives, increase consumer access to health care and drive efficiencies in the health care system. This competition will accelerate the development of tools that can empower consumers to take charge of their own bodies and manage their own care."

    The competition's formal kickoff came today during Jacobs' keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It follows up on last May's announcement that Qualcomm, a global company focusing on wireless network technology, would sponsor the competition.

    Tricorders galore
    Whether or not you call it a tricorder, the hand-held medical diagnostic device definitely seems to be an idea whose time has come. Just last month, the Canadian government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $38.5 million initiative to further the development of such devices, as well as the medical tests and protocols that would run on them. Also last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave its approval to the first hand-held device to detect brain bleeding.

    Meanwhile, a startup called Scanadu is working on a "tricorder" that parents can use to monitor their kids' health, and there are so many medical monitoring apps for smartphones that the FDA is working on regulatory guidelines for them.

    Like other X Prizes, the Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize is intended to provide an extra incentive for innovators rather than a profitable venture in itself. The Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight serves as an example: Software billionaire Paul Allen spent upwards of $25 million to win the $10 milllion prize in 2004. But that venture opened the way for what could be more profitable space ventures to come, including Virgin Galactic and Stratolaunch.

    Diamandis said the Tricorder X Prize competition was open to ventures that were already involved in the medical-device market, although he emphasized that the eligibility rules had not yet been put in their final form. He also emphasized that the winning device won't be the final word in the future history of the "Star Trek" tricorder.

    "The target here is Tricorder 1.0," he told me. "It's about demonstrating the diversity of different diseases or conditions that can be diagnosed with a mobile, user-friendly, hand-held device."

    Does it sound as if we're at a turning point for medical technology, or will this turn out to be just one more chapter in a science-fiction novel about more affordable health care? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.

    More about tricorder dreams:

    Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.