where no man has gone before

"Where No Man Has Gone Before" is the second pilot episode of the science fiction television series Star Trek. It was produced in 1965 after the first pilot, "The Cage", had been rejected by NBC. Reportedly, Lucille Ball, who owned Desilu Studios (where the pilot was produced), persuaded NBC management to consider a second pilot, thereby exercising a special option agreement it had with Desilu, because she liked Gene Roddenberry and believed in the project. The episode was eventually broadcast third in sequence on September 22, 1966, and re-aired on April 20, 1967. On July 12, 1969, it was the first episode to be shown in the UK by the BBC.

"Where no man has gone before" is a phrase originally made popular through its use in the title sequence of most episodes of the original Star Trek science fiction television series. It refers to the mission of the original Starship Enterprise. The complete introductory speech, narrated by William Shatner at the beginning of every episode of Star Trek except "The Cage" (which preceded Shatner's involvement with the show) and "Where No Man Has Gone Before", is:


Dwayne A. Day, a blogger, says that the quotation was taken from a White House booklet published in 1958. The Introduction to Outer Space, produced in an effort to garner support for a national space program in the wake of the Sputnik flight, read on its first page:

The first of these factors is the compelling urge of man to explore and to discover, the thrust of curiosity that leads men to try to go where no one has gone before. Most of the surface of the earth has now been explored and men now turn on the exploration of outer space as their next objective.