Yup—they ALWAYS fall for "Spock's Brain"

Yeah, so this blog uses a clip from the Shat's How William Shatner Saved the World 2005 doc to make its point...

...that NASA's "Dawn" mission to explore inner planets and the asteroids one at a time by orbiting them is using ion power—which is very cool and exciting, yes—

...but even Bill's own show, and JPL's Dr. Marc D. Rayman, shows once again how I love that everyone falls for the clinker in "Spock's Brain": that the "What is brain?" Eymorg gogo-boots females having ion power in their ship is a big deal, even to the Starfleeters. Mostly because Spock not only reports the fact, but Scotty UNDERLINES it big time with a "They could teach us a thing or two!"

So rather than blame the best crew in Starfleet with amnesia, let's just chalk it up to bad third-season continuity—again. Not only is ion power indeed a fact already in our lifetime, per the NASA missions, but it already was in THEIR lifetimes. And routine.

Check out the computer's audio readout on that peskly Starbase 10 shuttlecraft—shuttlecraft—from "The Menagerie," Part 1...

"... Class F shuttlecraft: Duranium metal shell. Ion propulsion power. ..."

Nope... no one ever remembers that. Too bad Scotty wasn't around to say "Wowzers! Aye!" or that line might have been remembered as well.

None of this nonsense, of course, takes away from the awesomness of this NASA exploration of asteroids and more, complete with "parking orbits" of each one studied ...