Can you imagine a universe without a new 'Star Trek' on the horizon?

It's been 60 years since NBC aired the first episode of Star Trek. Above, Leonard Nimoy as Spock. Star Trek Archive hide caption

Ask actress Jeri Ryan about the endurance of Star Trek , and she answers with the earnestness of a truly converted fan.

"The way that Star Trek has always held a mirror up to society and always been political in a non-threatening way … it's fascinating to me. It was groundbreaking," said Ryan, who knew little about Trek when she joined Voyager in 1997 to play the character Seven of Nine.

Ryan marveled at how the original series, which debuted on NBC in 1966, featured a Russian character as the Cold War was raging in real life, alongside a Black female officer and a Japanese helmsman, sending a not-so-subtle message of what it might take to survive and thrive in the future.

"It was an optimistic view … of what we could achieve if we stop screwing it up," she added, ruefully. "If we learn to appreciate and celebrate our differences and stop being afraid of everyone who is different from us."

Robert Picardo and Jeri Ryan in Star Trek: Voyager . Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption

Star Trek officially notched its 60th birthday last week, joining a select few TV and film franchises that have survived six decades of pop culture upheaval. The original series, starring William Shatner as Capt. James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock, aired for three seasons on NBC. It gave rise to a franchise of TV shows, films, video games, novels, comic books, conventions and collectibles.

They're all centered on characters connected to Starfleet — an exploratory and peacekeeping armada co-founded in the distant future by humans, who scoot between planets in giant starships and are connected to other alien species in a United Federation of Planets.