Will Star Fleet Ever Launch the USS George Floyd?

Why sci-fi shows should start naming spaceships after social justice heroes.

It’s cool that William Shatner, now 90, got to go to space for real. But as James T. Kirk crossed over from Star Trek’s fictional U.S.S. Starship Enterprise to Jeff Bezos’s real-world Blue Origin, I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if we started crossing things over the other way. What if instead of bringing fictional TV heroes into space, we better represented our real world heroes in television’s science fiction futures?

We are living among tomorrow’s legends — people who will one day be remembered as great ancestors, or at least deserve to be. I’m all for billionaires like Bezos celebrating their childhood television heroes for helping inspire their dreams, but I’m even more enthusiastic about depicting futures for today’s young people which celebrate the very real heroes who walk among us.

How about Star Trek build the USS George Floyd? Or the Science Vessel Greta Thunberg? What about the Alicia Garza Institute of Intergalactic Peace?

What if at least some of the star ships in Federation or other fictional future space fleets were named after people in our headlines, or who should be? How about…