Star Trek Exhibit Offers Far-Out Science to Earthbound : San Francisco: In addition to exotic missions, audience learns about virtual reality, triangulation and how wave forms affect the signal-to-noise ratio of radio transmissions.

SAN FRANCISCO —  The planet of Kutta faces destruction from a rogue asteroid. Red-alert sirens wail, muffled thuds echo through the room. At the helm of the U.S.S. Enterprise, 8-year-old Travis Buck positions a reverse tractor beam that will deflect the asteroid and save the planet.

A schematic on his screen gives the position of the beam and the projected path of the asteroid. He presses the blinking “fire” button. Slowly the asteroid curves to the right, out of the path of the planet.

“You are a true warrior,” says Lt. Worf, security officer in the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” series.

Travis has saved the inhabitants of Kutta--and learned a few elements of basic physics too.

Even on a Wednesday morning, the Star Trek: Federation Science exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park is full of fans beaming down to planets, helping Lt. Gordi LaForge realign the Enterprise’s navigational computers and zeroing in on a distress signal from a shuttle craft with a breached warp core.

Or, for the science teachers in the audience, they’re learning about virtual reality, triangulation and how wave forms affect the signal-to-noise ratio of radio transmissions.

Either way, everyone’s having a lot of fun. Travis is here for a special birthday present. He’s a major Star Trek fan, something that seems to run in the family. His uncle has flown all the way from Montana just to spend the day at the exhibit with Travis and his parents.

“They’re both big fans. They collect everything to do with Star Trek,” said his mother, Kristen Wells. The family drove for more than an hour to spend the day at the museum.

His mother called Star Trek a good influence on Travis, who wants to grow up and invent warp drive.

“He uses words and concepts that really surprise me. He’s a complete science buff because of the show,” she said.

The exhibit, built around concepts from the Star Trek phenomenon, flows seamlessly into intriguing science lessons. Pressurized air-powered rockets illustrate the physics concepts of action and reaction.

Clustered around a model of an invading virus, Jason, Zachary and Joshua Killmaier fight against time to fit antibodies into the receptor sites at the virus’ edge. Over them, Dr. Beverly Crusher lectures on the biology of disease.

It looks like a game of air hockey, but when the brothers have vanquished the virus, 10-year-old Jason pauses to cogently explain the biological basis for their fight.

“They’re all into science,” said Joe Killmaier, their father. “They all watch Star Trek.”

All across the exhibit, children stare in rapt attention at their screens, moving effortlessly between 20th- and 24th-Century science.

Not so their adult counterparts. Michael Gaylord of San Francisco failed in his attempt to save the planet that Travis so ably defended.

“You are relieved of duty!” Lt. Worf barked from the screen.

“I don’t know how to use these computers,” Gaylord muttered.

In the Away Team section, families line up to enter the transporter room, where they’re beamed down to an idyllic planet. On a screen, they see their images projected into a green world where crystalline entities buzz and bop around them like soap bubbles.

Visitors get an anti-xenophobia lesson at booths that let them see themselves as alien. In a kind of interspecies political training, they peer at busts of familiar Star Trek aliens, including Ferengis and Klingons, and manipulate light levels until their features merge with the alien. Voila--instant cross-species understanding.

Not everyone present pretended that they were there to educate their children. Simon and Ginger Bate saved a few planets of their own over the course of the morning, but 13-month-old Julian seemed unimpressed.

“I certainly appreciate all the science things here, but I came for the Star Trek,” Simon Bate said. “We never miss an episode.”

The education exhibit, which was designed by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland, opened there in January, 1992. Two identical traveling Star Trek exhibits will tour throughout this country and Canada.

Star Dates and Star Sites

Schedule for the two traveling Star Trek exhibits:

* February-April, 1994: California Academy of Science, San Francisco; Denver Museum of Natural History.

* June-August, 1994: Science World, British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C.; Carnegie Science Center, Pittsburgh.

* October-December, 1994: The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia; Carnegie Science Center, Pittsburgh.

* February-April, 1995: The Morris Museum, Morristown, N.J.; Museum of Science and Industry, Tampa, Fla.

* June-August, 1995: Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature, Winnipeg, Manitoba; Museum of Science and Industry, Tampa, Fla.

* October-December, 1995: The Science Place, Dallas, Tex.

* June-August, 1996: Pacific Science Center, Seattle.

Source: Associated Press