A sad day sits on the horizon for many Trekkies. Space has never felt this empty. As the Vegas-hilton.asp" title="Hilton Hotel">Hilton Hotel makes preparations to close down their Star Trek: The Experience site this coming autumn, loyal fans set their phasers to stun and prepare to wage war against the Borg-like fat-cats who decided that this exhibit isn't popular enough to keep alive. As the stars slowly dim and fade away, Hilton execs are busy working on something to replace the exhibit.

The Experience is a blend of ship simulator, environment, museum, and gift ship/restaurant. It opened up 10 years ago, during the heyday of the Star Trek: The Next Generation movie series.

This exhibit gives fans a change to boldly explore a Trek time-line with a collection of various sci-fi vestiges. After purchasing a ticket that allows for unlimited rides for the day, customers are free to walk through a museum of Star Trek History. You can then explore displays for each of the major alien races from the show/movies, including the Borg, Klingons, and Ferengi.

The last section of the museum is a hallway that serves as the waiting lines for each ride. The left side serves as the Borg Invasion 4-D, and right as The Klingon Encounter.

Throughout the history of the Star Trek Experience, fans got to experience more than your run-of-the-mill gift shop. Taking a ride on the Enterprise, you felt like part of the Trek way of life. The Star Trek movie franchise rivals James Bond. With 10 movies already released, Star Trek completely annihilates Star Wars.

So far, the only word on a new location for The Experience is back at its original home, CBS. They will take the entire set and keep it in storage until they find a place to set up shop once again. Some Star Trek fans may be happy with this. Making the trek to Vegas to see the stars isn't on everyone's agenda. At a theme park or other location that isn't so devoted to swindling gambling money, The Experience is bound to go on for light-years.

CBS is hoping that J. J. Abrams can resurrect the franchise and bring life back to the set. With the 11th installment of the Star Trek series, the early days are going to be revisited. This movie is set to be a prequel, with Captain Kirk and Spock returning to do it all again for the first time. Another similarity to the Bond series, the “prequel” idea has historically revamped various series after they've initially run dry.

Chris Pine will play Kirk, Zachary Quinto will play Spock, and Leonard Nimoy is reprising his role as an older Spock. The film is due to release on May 8, 2009. The bad news for Trek fans is that you'll have to wait and see what the future holds with The Experience. The good news is that you probably don't have anything planned in the meantime.