‘STAR TREK,’ CONT.

In “ ‘Star Trek’ as SF Lite” (Sept. 8), Gregory Benford eloquently states the minority point of view: that “Star Trek” has done more to diminish than enhance most people’s ability to achieve any insight into the starkly awesome but distinctly discomforting and dislocating implications of our so far meager venturings beyond our own planet.

Aside from reducing the cosmos to fireside coziness, making it accessible to those who want their assumptions vindicated, it simply displaces the Wild West with another exotic backdrop: a comfortingly geocentric universe, defined entirely within a megalomania for meaningless gadgetry and “aliens” with mundanely human characteristics.

As a member of the technical staff at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, I have been involved in space exploration for over a quarter-century, and I don’t feel Gene Roddenberry, well-intentioned though he was, did anything to help. Someone once said that public enthusiasm for the space program is a mile wide and an inch deep. “Star Trek” has only contributed to that superficiality.

GEORGE CARLISLE

Altadena

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It was jarring to find no mention in your “Trek” package of Michael Piller, who produced and wrote for “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” co-created and produced “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” and co-created and produced “Star Trek: Voyager.”

He championed the process (unique to “Star Trek”) that allows submission of un-agented speculation scripts from fans and aspiring writers.

LYNDA FOLEY

Northridge

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I first met Gene Roddenberry in 1972, volunteered my “Star Trek” expertise to his office from 1976 until 1986, and from 1986 until Gene’s death in October 1991 I was Paramount’s “Star Trek” research consultant, a position that required me to work very closely with him.

In all that time, I never once heard Gene claim that he was solely responsible for “Star Trek’s” success. Quite the opposite. He always pointed out that it had been a committee effort.

I still get angry when I read that “Star Trek--The Motion Picture” was somehow a failure or disaster. Of all the films, it made the most profit (adjusted for inflation), sold the most tickets and breathed more life into the franchise than anything else since, with the exception of Leonard Nimoy’s “Star Trek IV” and Gene’s other brainchild, “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

RICHARD ARNOLD

West Hollywood