"Ahem. We are expecting some royalties from this...," tweeted actor George Takei, who played Lieutenant Hikaru Suluin on the original "Star Trek" series.
ADVERTISEMENTPresident Donald Trump on Friday went boldly where one show has gone before.
Trump unveiled the logo for the U.S. Space Force on Twitter, where users were quick to point out its similarities to the symbol for the fictional Starfleet, from the famous TV franchise "Star Trek."
"After consultation with our Great Military Leaders, designers, and others, I am pleased to present the new logo for the United States Space Force, the Sixth Branch of our Magnificent Military!" Trump tweeted.
The Star Trek Starfleet Command seal also features a celestial arrowhead wrapped with a shooting star.
"Ahem. We are expecting some royalties from this...," tweeted actor George Takei, who played Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu, the helmsman of the USS Enterprise, in the original "Star Trek" series.
However, John Noonan, an aide to Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., pointed out that the longstanding logo for the U.S. Space Command — a division of the U.S. Air Force that will now operate under Space Force — also has a lot in common with the Starfleet medallion.
"For those excitedly tweeting that Trump stole the Star Trek logo!!!!, the patch on the left was the existing Air Force Command logo. The same one I wore as a Lieutenant in 2005," he tweeted, noting that it was a long-running joke that the agency had copied the popular show.
"Star Trek: The Original Series" first aired in 1966.
Trumpinitially floated the idea of creating a Space Force in March 2018, saying he originally came up with the name as a joke.
"I said, 'Maybe we need a new force, we'll call it the Space Force,' and I was not really serious," he said in a speech to service members at the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in California at the time. "Then I said, 'What a great idea, maybe we'll have to do that.'"
Later that year, in August, Vice President Mike Penceannounced details for the Space Force as a proposed new branch of the U.S. military — responsible for protecting national security in outer space.
The Department of Defense released a 15-page report in 2018 saying that the Pentagon would "usher in a new age of space technology" in order "to deter and if necessary degrade, deny, disrupt, destroy, and manipulate adversary capabilities to protect U.S. interests, assets, and way of life."
Trump, when he signed the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act into law late last year, made Space Force official as the sixth branch of the military, operating within the Air Force.