The franchise -- spanning six television series, 10 feature films, hundreds of novels, computer and video games, and millions of fan stories -- had its first television broadcast 40 years ago Friday, when the three-day Star Trek 40th Anniversary Gala Celebration & Conference opened.

Fans, actors, authors, scientists and entrepreneurs -- including the man who was inspired by the show to invent the cell phone -- celebrated Gene Roddenberry's fictional universe and how "Star Trek" changed the world.

"The core value of 'Star Trek' is to look to the future as a challenge we can rise to," George Takei -- aka helmsman Hikaru Sulu on the USS Enterprise -- told a packed crowd of more than 200 people at the event's opening ceremony Friday.

Actors also reminisced about their "Star Trek" experiences and offered behind-the-scenes anecdotes.