Redshirts do always die, if you get the joke

Space.com claims that Redshirts don’t always die, but in order to get the result they wanted they ruined the joke.

Space.com is a wonderful site that we really enjoy, but we have a problem with their recent claim that Redshirts don’t always die. The folks over at Space.com did the math and determined that a red shirt isn’t the most dangerous color to wear on the Enterprise.

The problem is that in order to make the math work they forgot everything that made the joke, you know, a joke. The problem isn’t the math, it’s misunderstanding the joke. Space.com based their calculations on the number of redshirts on the ship, but that’s not the joke. The joke is that you don’t want to be redshirt Billy who beams down with Spock, Bones, and Kirk.

If you’re beaming down on an away mission having a shirt that isn’t red is still what you want. Because in the end Spock, Bones, and Kirk are all going to get back to the ship, Ensign Billy on the other hand…

The calculations come from “The Math of Khan” a lecture given at the Museum of Mathematics that Space.com covered. The lecture, which featured Connor Trinneer, who played Commander Trip Tucker on “Star Trek: Enterprise,” was trying to show that math could be fun, and using a few Star Trek jokes to help in that cause.

In the end even the lecture itself admitted that it would be better to be a blue shirted scientist than a red shirted security officer. If this lecture helps us get a few more blue shirts out there in real life then what’s the harm. Even if you’re missing the joke you’re OK by us.

Live long and prosper, just not in a redshirt.