Star Trek: How Long Humans Live In The Future

Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Picard's Season 1 Finale

Humans can live a very long time in Star Trek's future, but exactly how long? In Star Trek: Picard, Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) was 94 years old when he succumbed to a fatal brain abnormality and died on the planet Coppelius. However, his mind and personality were placed intact into the golem, a synthetic body, so Jean-Luc was quickly resurrected. But while Picard was certainly in the twilight of his years, he was still quite a ways from reaching the end of the average human lifespan in the 24th century.

In Star Trek's optimistic future, Earth has been transformed into a near-utopia and this has had a positive effect on the human race and the average person's lifespan. By the 23rd century, humanity had wiped out war, disease, hunger, and the desire for money to instead concentrate on the betterment of the individual and of the entire human race. While there are still wars in Star Trek, they come externally from conflict with alien races; Earth itself is free of violent conflict between humans. Along with advanced medical technology that can cure most diseases and abundant food (both natural and replicated), humans enjoy a virtual paradise on their homeworld and therefore, they can live long, happy, and productive lives. In the Star Trek movies, it wasn't unusual for Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the crew of the Starship Enterprise to be saving the galaxy in their 60s. In fact, Admiral Jean-Luc Picard was 80 when he quit Starfleet; if he hadn't abruptly retired, Picard likely planned to spend the remainder of his life in service.

The average human lifespan in Star Trek was approximately 100 years during Star Trek: Enterprise's 22nd-century era. By Star Trek: The Next Generation's 24th-century timeframe, the average life expectancy increased to 120 years. Star Trek: Picard is set in 2399, at the dawn of the 25th century, and Jean-Luc mused to Soji (Isa Briones), Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill), and Dr. Altan Soong (Brent Spiner) that he wouldn't have minded another "ten or twenty" years before his new, synthetic body dies, which would bring the Admiral in line with his era's life expectancy. There are a few cases of humans living even longer than 120 years. In Star Trek's canon, the oldest living human via a natural lifespan that has been seen is a beloved face: Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForrest Kelley) was 137 years old when he cameoed in the Star Trek: The Next Generation premiere episode, "Encounter at Farpoint."

Of course, there are cases where humans have lived longer than 137 though various means, usually because of strange anomalies encountered in outer space. James T. Kirk was technically 138 years old when he died in Star Trek: Generations, but that's because he unwittingly spent 78 years trapped outside reality within the Nexus, which happened in 2293 when Kirk was 60. Montgomery Scott also found himself in the 24th century when he spent 75 years inside a transporter buffer after an incident involving a Dyson Sphere. When Scotty met the crew of Captain Picard's U.S.S. Enterprise-D, he was technically 147 years old (although physically, he was only half that age).

There's also the strange case of Zephram Cochrane (James Cromwell), who was born in the 2030s, invented warp drive and initiated First Contact with the Vulcans in 2063, but then vanished from the galaxy. In 2267, Kirk, Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and McCoy met Cochrane (Glenn Corbett), who was aged backward into a much younger man by an alien being called the Companion, despite the inventor of warp drive technically being over 230 years old in the TOS episode "Metamorphosis".

Thanks to all of their 24th-century advantages, humans live longer than ever in Star Trek and they've caught up with the lifespan of the Klingons, who can live over a century (although most Klingons prefer to die in glorious battle and never see old age). Still, humans have a long way to go if their lifespans are ever to match the Vulcans, who can live up to 200 years. But at least human beings in Star Trek have taken the old Vulcan greeting "Live long and prosper" to heart.

Source: screenrant.com