Now, it’s happened again: “Transparent aluminum,” a technology first suggested in the film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, has been developed for real.
While later retconned as the default glass-like material used on Federation starships and space stations, the specific phrase “transparent aluminum” first appears in the 1986 film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
Star Trek: Discovery debuts on CBS in January 2017 and streams exclusively through CBS All Access thereafter.
The result was a material that retained the properties of aluminum but was also effectively transparent.