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Date: March 31, 2016

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Star Treks Transporters as an asset to tourism sectors

Beam me up, Scotty was a phrase that was popularized by the Star Trek, a science
fiction television series. The phrase was commonly used by James T. Kirk, captain of the USS
Enterprise, to order Scotty, the chief engineer, to bring him back to the ship using a Transporter.
Transporters are highly advance machines used for human teleportation by breaking down an
entity into subatomic particles, transmitting them through a matter stream and reassembling them
back aboard the ship and vice versa. It is a type of transportation that is out of mankinds reach
as of now. However if it were to be a possibility, transporters would be an efficient mode of
transportation. One can easily transport their whole being to a different place in just seconds.
This efficiency of transportation would benefit the countries given that transportation plays an
important role in the tourism sector. There are nine effective factors in choosing the
transportation mode in tourism (Westlake and Robbins 2005, 463). The efficiency of transporters
as a mode of transportation will be determined by discussing the positive and negative effects
that it may cause on the basis of three factors from the list namely time limit, distance and
geographical position.
As of today, mankind has created modes of transportation varying from its uses to its
respective environments. One of the early inventions for transit is an automobile dating back to

1786 when Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot invented the first steam powered automobile. The next
invention is the train which was a railway steam locomotive in the United Kingdom invented by
Richard Trevithick in 1804. One of the few latest inventions for transit are airplanes which were
invented by Orville and Wilbur Wright in 1903 based on George Cayleys concept in 1799.
These mode of transportation have been innovated to become more efficient for humans. These
can be separated in terms of its average speed; modern automobiles take 24 miles an hour, trains
take 8 miles an hour and airplanes take 75 miles an hour. A transporters speed can be compared
to the speed of light which is 6.71 x 108 miles per hour. Given the previous data mentioned, we
can derive that transporters have an edge when it comes to the efficiency in terms of time limit.
According to statistics (Mammadov 2012, 382), tourism amounted to 940 million tourist
arrivals for the year 2010 with an average annual growth of 3.4%. Adding transporters to the
available options for transportation internationally would bring about a drastic change in
numbers. These numbers do not only include the number of tourism arrivals but also the increase
in traffic due to world tourism growth. This can have adverse negative effects (Goeldner and
Ritchie 2012, 96). One of which is congestion meaning delays that lead to waste of time and
energy. This was evident especially on airports and roads during peak times. Taking into account
the instantaneous transport of transporters, congestion would seem less likely in this mode of
transit apart from the papers to be signed and immigration.
However, humans are only capable of lasting for a limited amount of time stored in the
matter stream. If one were to stay longer than suggested, they run the risk of data loss which
could greatly affect the end result of its reassembling depending on the amount of damage. With
this, an abundant amount of transporters are needed to be placed in strategic geographical
positions taking into account that they have optimal distances between one another to avoid

unfortunate accidents and that they are to be placed in places that are considered to be popular
tourism spots. Standard transporter systems on Earth in Star Trek have a maximum range which
was about 40,000 kilometers. This given distance is extensive and would mean that humans
could travel around the world and back in the speed of light by transporting.
The risk in going around the world and back would be the high probability that ones
matter stream would loss data by encountering distortion fields or unexpected obstacles along its
journey. Losing even just a mere one subatomic particle would result to a distorted reassembly
thus creating a wholly different entity from before it was dematerialized in the transporter
platform. Losing a great deal of data in the buffer stream of subatomic particles is a grave
danger. An event that happened involving data loss was depicted in Star Trek: The Motion
Picture. Commander Sonak, accompanied by a female officer, were killed in a transporter
malfunction while beaming to the Enterprise. During the transport sequence, a malfunction cause
a corruption of the buffer patter for the commander and the crewperson. Upon re-materializing,
the transporter systems found a great difficulty in coping with the data loss thus creating
deformed physical forms. The transportation failed and they were bounced back to Earth where
their bodies were much shorter than their usual form. The novelization of the movie suggested
that the two were essentially turned inside out.
As if creating an entity different from its previous state was not bad enough, another
unfortunate event concerning the matter stream encountering a distortion field resulted to the
spitting of one entity into two entities. Two possibly outcomes may derive from this dilemma.
The first outcome is creating one that embodies the positive traits of the original individual and
the other embodying the negative traits. Kirk of Star Trek: The Original Series was split into two

polar entities in the episode The Enemy Within. He was only able to reintegrate his two halves
by sending both through the transporter.
The second outcome is creating two identical entities as depicted in an episode entitled
Second Chances. Riker of Star Trek: The Next Generation was split into two Rikers functionally
identical to the original man. As the distortion field encountered created a difficulty in beaming
him up, a second confinement beam was initiated with the intent of reintegrating both beams in
the transporter buffer. Only one beam was successful at transporting Riker aboard the ship while
the second beam was reflected back down to the surface of the planet. The crew were unaware of
the mishap for eight years until they revisited the planet and found the second Riker.
Problems such as this would be inevitable if transporters were to be made accessible to
the public. The tourism sectors would be able to cope with situations such as these by monitoring
the income and outcome of people and communicating with the engineers in charge of the
transporter where the passenger came from before releasing them. Upon encounter with this
problem, it would be difficult to patch up. Kirk experienced a physical effect when he
transported back to forge both entities back. With this, departments in charge of transportation
would risk the safety of their tourists on the maintenance of their machinery.
To avoid ethical conundrums, humans must be required to transport within safe distances
until one reaches their destination. This would result in an additional negative effect on a factor
which is included in the list provided in choosing the transportation mode in tourism which is
price. Transporters are highly advanced machinery and its materials would make this mode of
transportation expensive. The prices of a mere one way transportation would increase due to the
utilization of multiple transporters.

Jumping back to reality, recent news have surfaced in an article from The Telegraph
stating that scientists are taking the first step towards creating transporters with the use of 3D
printers. This is done by undergoing a destructive scanning in the sender location by slicing the
object into layers in order to attain an in depth scanning of the object. An encrypted message it
transmitted to the receiver location where a 3D printer reprints the object with the information it
has attained. So far, it is the closest we have in comparison to Star Treks transporters as it can
effectively relocate physical objects across distances.
Overall, transporters would be an asset to the tourism sectors of different places. It would
boost the world tourism due to its fast paced transportation of tourists from one place to another.
It would easily climb up to the top of the hierarchy of most used transportation given that its
appealing factor to the public is that it rids of the congestion and waiting time unlike opting for
transportation by air or by sea. Despite the great potential it would provide in the development of
our transportation, the number of its negative effects is greater than its positive effects. Given
this data, opening it to the public is not an option due to it having greater health risks and high
probability of death compared to those of the current modes of transportation that we have. Our
present world, in spite of our development in the field of science and technology, is still not
ready for a great leap into using transporters.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Goeldner, C.R. & Ritchie, B. (2012). Tourism: Principles, Practices, Philosophies (12th ed).
USA: Wiley Publication.
Krauss, L. (1995). The Physics of Star Trek. New York: Basic Books.
Mammadov, R. (2012). The Importance of Transportation in Tourism Sector. Challenges and
Opportunities of Sustainable Economic Development in Eurasion Countries, 381-386.
Retrieved March 31, 2016.
Sparkes, M. (2015, Janurary 23). Scientists take first step towards Star Trek transporter. The
Telegraph. Retrieved March 31, 2016, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Westlake J. & Robbins D. (2005). Transportation in Cooper, C., Fletcher, J., Fyall, A., Gilbert,
D., & Wanhill, S. (n.d.). Tourism: Principles and Practice (3rd ed.). Essex: Pearson
Education Limited.