10 Things You Didn't Know About How Star Trek Got Started

2. The Transporter Was A Money-Saving DeviceStar Trek Transporter It seems like one of the coolest sci-fi ideas ever: What if you could travel from one place to another by dematerializing your atoms and rematerializing them somewhere else? Think how much time you could save if you didn't have to rely on vehicles to get around. But Roddenberry didn't decide to have crew members "beam down" because it was a futuristic thing to do. The truth is, he simply didn't have enough money in the special-effects budget to send shuttlecraft to and from a planet surface every week. Plus, traveling by transporter beam is almost instantaneous, which allowed Roddenberry to skip the logistics and get straight to the storytelling.

Contributor

Debbie Gilbert is an award-winning journalist who's been writing for magazines and newspapers since 1988. A Memphis native who grew up near Graceland, she became a Star Trek fan in 1975.