Hikaru Sulu Captain Hikaru Sulu was a male Human Starfleet officer in the 23rd century . He was born in San Francisco , California , USA , Earth . In the early 2290s , he was the commander of the . ( ; ; ; ) The five - year mission . Sulu was a sciences division officer serving aboard the in 2265 , under the command of Captain James T . Kirk . He was the department head of the Astrosciences Department . ( ) A year later , in 2266 , Lieutenant Sulu was a command division officer on the " Enterprise " . He was one of the ship ' s helmsmen . ( ) From 2266 to 2270 , on a few occasions , Sulu was in temporary command when Captain James T . Kirk , First Officer Spock and Chief Engineer Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott were on landing parties or otherwise occupied aboard the " Enterprise " during its historic and original five - year mission . ( ; ) At one point in 2266 , Sulu announced contact with an object approaching the " Enterprise " at light speed . He later attended a department heads meeting in the briefing room where they discussed their findings . A short time after the " Enterprise " destroyed the object , Sulu announced that a new , larger object ( about a mile in diameter ) was approaching . He subsequently had to carry out several orders that Kirk issued to then - navigator Dave Bailey , as Bailey was so shocked by the alien presence he wasn ' t responsive to commands . A short time after that , Sulu counted down the minutes to a threatened destruction of the " Enterprise " which turned out to be a bluff threat posed by the commander of the second object . After Kirk used his own bluff , the second object turned out to actually be a disguise for the much smaller First Federation starship " Fesarius " , under the command of an alien named Balok . Sulu ultimately witnessed the departure of the first of several navigators to leave after having sat next to him , as Bailey ended up volunteering to stay with Balok as the first representative of the United Federation of Planets to the First Federation . ( ) Sulu was included in a five - man landing party that conducted a survey mission on planet Alfa 177 . While there , he grew fond of a dog - like animal . Due to the " Enterprise " s transporter malfunctioning ( which killed the creature ) , however , he , Leslie , and two other technicians had to stay a long while on the planet ' s surface , where they almost froze to death . Once the transporter was eventually repaired , Sulu and the three others were beamed safely back to the ship , with just some frostbite that was easily treated by Doctor McCoy . ( ) A particularly bizarre experience Sulu had to face early in his time as the " Enterprise " s chief helmsman happened when he wasn ' t even on the bridge . One day , Sulu was working on his hobby of botany in the ship ' s botany section when Yeoman Janice Rand came in with a tray of a food for the lieutenant , followed by a bizarrely acting crewman , Green . Sulu became puzzled by the crewman ' s arrival causing a frenzied reaction in a carnivorous plant , whom he called Gertrude , whose response prompted Green to quickly exit . Sulu , along with Rand , subsequently discovered the reason that the plant had acted the way it had , when they found Barnhart dead in a corridor with blotches on his face and all the salt drained out of his body ; it turned out the version of Green they had seen earlier was a shape - shifting M - 113 creature , which was killed a short time later . ( ) A few months later in 2267 , Sulu would take command of the " Enterprise " for the first time , while remaining at his post at the helm , when the ship engaged the Gorn while they were in orbit above the Federation observation outpost on Cestus III . ( )