Photo via Nichelle Nichols

President Obama is kind of a giant dork.

That photo was uploaded late last night by Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura, the communications officer on the U.S.S. Enterprise in Star Trek and its six film adaptations. Nichols visited the White House in February; on the same trip to Washington, she also visited NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, according to io9.

Nichols was able to coax out Obama’s inner Trekkie when the two of them posed flashing the Vulcan salute. We’ll just have to assume they bid each other to live long and prosper.

Of course, if Obama embodies any of Star Trek‘s alien races, it’s the Vulcans. The president is sometimes considered cold, aloof and unemotional. And then there are the commander-in-chief’s ears, which he himself has likened to those of the galaxy’s most famous science officer.

At a 2009 press conference, ABC News’s Jake Tapper posed the following question about Obama’s health care reform proposals:

Is the public plan non-negotiable? And, while I appreciate your Spock-like language about the logic of the health care plan and the public plan, it does seem logical to a lot of people that if the government is offering a cheaper health care plan, then lots of employers will want to have their employees covered by that cheaper plan, which will not have to be for-profit, unlike private plans, and may, possibly, benefit from some government subsidies, who knows. And then their employees would be signed up for this public plan, which would violate what you’re promising the American people, that they will not have to change health care plans if they like the plan they have.

To which Obama replied: “I got the question. First of all, was the reference to Spock, is that a crack on my ears?”