JULY 28, 2021 - Star Trek: Voyager’s Robert Picardo, a strong social media advocate for the COVID-19 vaccine since getting vaccinated himself back in February, has thrown down the Twitter gauntlet, challenging unvaccinated Star Trek fans to step up and get the shot.

In a tweet posted July 26th, Picardo even appeared to offer some incentive for getting vaccinated, writing, “I’ll gladly offer a free autographed photo to any #unvaccinated @StarTrek fan who gets a vaccination in the next 7 days.”

It’s unclear whether he was serious or if he was using the offer to make a point, because he followed up by saying, “Will require proof of vax, a SASE & an answer to the following question: Why’d you wait until you were offered a free signed @StarTrek photo to get vaccinated?”

Regardless of the offer’s legitimacy, Picardo is continuing his tradition of using his status as a sci-fi doctor to advocate for real-world science. Back in June he appeared with a panel of infectious disease experts during the virtual event Casperia-Con, and pleaded with those watching to get vaccinated. He shared his own grief at never having known his grandfather, who died in the 1918 influenza pandemic.

“If you make a decision not to be vaccinated,” he said, “you are not only making a decision that affects all of your fellow crew members here on spaceship Earth here in the present, you’re making a decision about your own family in the future. Your decision will impact them, because the consequences of your decision may rob them of some experience that I certainly would love to have had with my own grandfather.”

If you have yet to get vaccinated, we at Daily Star Trek News echo the good holo-doctor and encourage you to visit vaccines.gov to find the nearest vaccine location near you.