In 1966 Captain James T. Kirk and the Starship Enterprise began to boldly go where nobody has gone before. The show was groundbreaking. Not only was it a rare case where a Hollywood studio asked for a second pilot but its cast broke racial and gender barriers. Key to what the crew of the Enterprise could do was the technology that they used as they sought out new worlds and new civilizations. In 1966 it seemed so far ahead of its time but now 50+ years later how close are we to using what Mr. Spock or Dr. McCoy used?
A piece of futuristic technology that saves the Enterprise on multiple occasions is the tractor beam. It allowed the crew to grab hold of an object in space like a shuttle or even if re-programmed to repel an object like an asteroid. Now obviously a large space ship like the Enterprise does not exist so this technology is well in the future, if it is even possible, but the groundwork is there. Optical tweezers use small lasers to manipulate molecules and a focused laser is capable of trapping and suspending molecules allowing scientists to remove bacteria or to reorder cells. These are used in the study of DNA so a large scale beam is well in the future. The astronauts on the International Space Station would love it though.
A good TV show needs action and since Star Trek was intended to be a western in space then a good gunfight would be needed every now and again. When our intrepid explorers would have to draw their phasers on someone they had two settings, stun and kill. Captain Kirk often ordered phasers set to stun since it would only incapacitate the enemy for a time and they would recover. Weapons designed to stun someone were one of the first Star Trek technology to be developed. In 1969 Jack Covar invented the taser which has the capability of rendering its victim incapacitated. It needed to come in contact with someone’s body to work though. In more recent times Applied Energetic can use its Laser Guided Energy and Laser Induced Plasma Energy technology to transmit high-voltage bursts of energy to a target. The phaser may actually be here sooner than we thought. In the Gulf War a device known as a Dazzler was used to send a directed-energy pulse of electromagnetic radiation that was capable of stopping someone in their tracks.