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"Where no man has gone before" is a saying used in the introductory sequence of episodes of the science fiction television series Star Trek. The infamous Zefram Cochrane, who was the first to fly at warp speed, supposedly originated the phrase, in a speech which described what humans could do with this new warp technology; he utters the phrase in the first episode of the Trek prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise.
The term was also the name of Star Trek's second pilot episode, which introduced Captain James T. Kirk and much of the rest of the Original Series cast.
In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the word "man" was changed to "one" both to avoid sexism and also to reflect the increased number of non-human aliens aboard the Enterprise. The latter rationale is acknowledged at the end of the motion picture Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country in which Captain Kirk uses both versions of the phrase, following a story that dealt with cross-species racism. An episode early in TNG's first season used the updated catchphrase as its title, just as an early episode of the original series used the original phrase for its title.
The phrase has become popular outside the Star Trek franchise, having been adopted by NASA [1] (http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4214/contents.html).
The split infinitive phrase that precedes it, "To boldly go" has been both ridiculed and praised. British humorist and science-fiction author Douglas Adams parodied it in his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, describing a long-lost heroic age when bold adventurers dared "to boldly split infinitives that none had split before". Cleverly enough, said split infinitive was deftly avoided by Dr. Cochrane himself in his Enterprise appearance by declaring how his engine would allow the human race to go boldly, rather than boldly go.
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