Fifty years after Gene Roddenberry thanked MIT students for saving the series, The Roddenberry Foundation and the MIT Media Lab explore how we shape technology and innovation with optimism. 

In 1976, Gene Roddenberry stood at Kresge Auditorium and thanked MIT. Students picketed Rockefeller Center to save Star Trek from cancellation, even reaching the executive garage to plaster "Save Star Trek" stickers on executives' cars. "It is sort of like coming home," Roddenberry said.

Fifty years on, that relationship has deepened. The Roddenberry Foundation and the MIT Media Lab are launching a relationship around optimistic futures anchored in shared values: exploration, diversity, human flourishing, and the belief that how we imagine shapes what we build.

In October, the Foundation loaned the original 33-inch Starship Enterprise model to the MIT Museum for Future Fest, marking its first East Coast appearance. On October 23rd, as part of the MIT Media Lab’s 40th anniversary celebration, Rod Roddenberry joins the Media Lab for a day of exploring what's possible when exploration meets bold collaboration. In "To Boldly Go," he sits alongside space innovator and head of the MIT Media Lab’s Space Enabled group, Prof. Danielle Wood, and Mike Fincke, an American former NASA astronaut. The day also features the MIT Media Lab Executive Director Jessica Rosenworcel in conversation with internet pioneer Vint Cerf; bioethicist Hugh Herr and disability rights advocate Aimee Mullins discussing human augmentation; and panels on saving human life through biotechnology and synthetic biology. 

These conversations echo Roddenberry's 1976 message at MIT: that imagination, diversity, and bold collaboration shape what's possible. Choosing the MIT Media Lab is no accident. Decades ago, students here challenged corporate authority to save a vision they believed in. Today, the Media Lab practices what Roddenberry preached: that exploration, bold experimentation, and diversity of thought aren't luxuries—they're essential to shaping futures that serve humanity.

Why does this matter now? Because Roddenberry's core insight remains radical: that Star Trek wasn't really about spaceships. It was about proving that audiences hunger for heroes of integrity, that diversity strengthens us, and that technology should serve human flourishing. In a 1976 lecture, Roddenberry argued that humanity reaches wisdom "on the day that we learn not just to tolerate, but to absolutely value diversity in life and in ideas." He insisted television—and storytelling—shapes what we believe is possible.

The Media Lab embraces that same philosophy: that imagination, experimentation, and bold collaboration can reshape our future. By collaborating with the Roddenberry Foundation, MIT Media Lab is saying: exploration isn't nostalgia. It's a practice. And it's essential to how we innovate.