immense joy reading this anecdote
StarTrek.com: For my last question, what has been your favorite or one of your favorite memories of interacting with the Star Trek fandom?
Nana Visitor: I’ll tell you my favorite, and I’m flexing a little bit. No, actually, I’m flexing a lot. My favorite interaction was speaking to astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, six months ago, while she was at ISA [International Space Station], and I was at ESA [European Space Agency], and when I heard [the person connecting us] say, “Open a channel to the space station,” it almost blew me apart because that was a phrase I’ve said over and over, "Open a channel. Open a channel.“ And yet now, because Samantha watched the shows, because they were important to her, there was a channel being opened to an actual space station and I was talking to this astronaut. That almost blew me apart and I didn’t exist after that.
(Cristoforetti is definitely a huge trekkie, on her previous stint on the International Space Station in 2015 she actually wore a Voyager-era Starfleet uniform. And, perhaps more importantly, she’s currently in command of the ISS!)