Yeah, this is literally the sort of mainstream celebrity news that HN should flag without question, but pop culture nostalgia always means the rules don't count. Pretending you flew in a spaceship in the 1960s shouldn't count for "technical merit."
Meanwhile the story about an Israeli massacre of Gaza aid workers with actual technical content didn't last an hour before being flooded with complaints about being "off topic" then getting flagged.
From the HN guidelines: "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting." Star Trek was wildly popular among the OG hackers before most of the people reading this were even born.
A lot of non-hackers also like Star Trek, and a lot of hackers don't like it. Liking Star Trek isn't indicative of or relevant to being a "good hacker".
By this logic being old and probably white and male is also what it takes to be a good hacker.
May I remind you that Hacker News generally values civil discourse and that ageist, racist, and sexist comments are not welcome here. Please take some time to review the HN guidelines that are linked at the bottom of the page.
Also HN: Remember Star Trek?!?