Canada Aviation and Space Museum presents a world premiere Star Trek exhibit

An authentic Borg costume on display at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa, May 11, 2016

This summer you can “boldly go where no one has gone before.”

And you can do it right in Canada’s capital.

The Canada Aviation and Space Museum is hosting the world premiere of an interactive Star Trek exhibit – The Starfleet Academy Experience.

The theme of the exhibit is a visit to the famed fictional academy, the training ground for all Star Fleet officers. There you can test your skills to see where you would fit in the Star Trek universe. “You go the various areas of the experience and try to figure out what career field would be best for you, should you be accepted as a cadet to the academy," explains exhibit curator Erin Gregory.

Activities include testing your medical skills with a tricorder, navigating a star ship, and testing your aim on a phaser firing range. You can also record yourself being beamed in a teleporter and take a “species selfie” as an alien species.

There’s a star ship bridge where you can try your hand at the Kobayashi Maru simulation. (If you’ve never heard of it, ask the nearest trekkie!)

The exhibit certainly benefits from Star Trek’s pop culture cache. But it’s also designed to show how science fiction can actually influence science fact when it comes to space travel, medicine, and communications. “In fact many of the technologies were inspired by those who were watching the show,” says the museum’s General Director, Chris Kitzan. “The original flip phone, etc."

Visitors might even learn a little about themselves. All the test scores are collected and presented to participants at the end of their visit.

The fact the Canada Aviation and Space Museum is presenting the world premiere of the Starfleet Academy Experience is actually a bit of a coup. The museum co-produced the project with EMS, a global leader in interactive exhibits, and CBS Consumer Products which manages worldwide licensing of the Star Trek brand. “This being the year of the 50^th anniversary of the franchise, we are really excited to be a part of it,” says Gregory.

The Starfleet Academy Experience opens May 13^th and runs to September 5^th at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum.