[jgarry]

Google: real devices from star trek

Could be that something in the near future as simple as relativity was 100 years ago will solve the hardest ones, namely transporter and ftl tech.

Then again, it was funny as hell to see the flying car in Captain America.

[archangel_one]

Somehow I suspect that the transporter and warp drive won't fall that easily, but I admit you never know :)

The tech level in Captain America was all over the place, which is deserving of a rant in itself, but suffice to say it was the most annoying part of that movie to me.

[thenonsequitur]

Given the amount of focus the physics world is putting on string theory right now, and given that hidden dimensions offer us the possibility of a mathematical basis for warp drive, I wouldn't be shocked if a theoretical blueprint for an actual warp drive is created sometime this century. Even if that happens though, I doubt it will become viable technology this century simply because the energy requirements to bend space-time (at a macro level) via a hidden dimension are literally astronomical. I'd wager that coming up with an energy source for warp technology is actually a harder problem than warp technology itself.

As for transporter technology, I don't even think we have the beginning of the science behind that, so I think that's even more distant from today's science than warp drive engineering.