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The first episode of the original television series aired on Sept. 8, 1966, and it stayed in the ratings cellar. In 1968, the Trimbles organized a massive "Bring Back Star Trek" mail campaign with an estimated 40,000 to one million letters mailed. The result: the show stayed on television for another year....
The author explores the reasons for the popularity of the television series and films. Seago also presents several facts: 130 novels written todate, 13 Star Trek books are sold every minute in the United States, over 63 million copies of the books are in print worldwide, and seven motion pictures have generated over half a billion dollars in revenues. There are an estimated 500 fan publications, a Universal Studios theme park attraction, a Saturday morning cartoon show and two television series spinoffs: Deep Space Nine and Voyager. Sales of retail merchandise are reported to have exceeded $ 750 million during the past five years. In 1993, a Purdue University study asked over than 30,000 students who, other than parents and teachers, had been most influential in their lives in promoting science. The answer, by an overwhelming majority: the characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation and the original Star Trek series.

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