Space may be the final frontier, but Star Trek is a well-explored universe by now. Captain Kirk, the Enterprise, transporters, phasers, tricorders and Klingons are part of our common language. But there's still tons of insane stuff you've never heard about Trek.

Perhaps you've already read the Ayn Rand version of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, but how might the epic change in the hands of Ernest Hemingway, Oscar Wilde, Ian Fleming, or Lewis Carroll? Or, for that matter, George Lucas or Gene Roddenbury?

Two things happened in the past week or so: Star Trek: The Next Generation's first season came out in eye-popping high definition. And Roberto Orci said that talks about a new Star Trek TV show are "almost real."

Prolific novelist Norman Spinrad wrote two scripts for the original Star Trek — but only one of them was produced, "The Doomsday Machine." The other one, "He Walked Among Us," was scrapped, and nobody's been able to read it — until now.

In August 1966, Star Trek producers Bob Justman and John Black pressed Gene Roddenberry to finish the show's introductory monologue. Throughout the month, the three men exchanged several subtly different copies of the opening speech. Here are two of the scrapped drafts.

Space may be the final frontier, but Star Trek is a well-explored universe by now. Captain Kirk, the Enterprise, transporters, phasers, tricorders and Klingons are part of our common language. But there's still tons of insane stuff you've never heard about Trek.

At the Hero Complex Film Festival, director Nicholas Meyer revealed a confrontation he'd had with Gene Roddenberry over Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

On March 11, 1964, Gene Roddenberry handed in the first draft of his Star Trek proposal to NBC. The cast is almost entirely different, but the gist of the show is intact — truly a fascinating "what if."

For a guy who felt that science fiction was dead a few years ago, Ridley Scott seems to have renewed his interest in the genre of late. He's producing a show for the Science channel paying tribute to scifi's creators.

After the first pilot for Star Trek was on the verge being rejected by NBC, Gene Roddenberry sent this impassioned letter to his agent on February 12, 1965. It's a fascinating snapshot of Roddenberry with his back against the wall.