csdeptaa@unm-cvax.UUCP (01/02/85)
NCC-#### - Naval Contract Construction Number.
or
Naval Construction Contract Number.
In the old days, well today too, when the keel of a ship is laid, it is
given a hull number. Then somewhere between the time it starts to look like
a ship and that ship is commissioned, it gets it's designation and fleet number.
i.e., when the nuclear carrier USS Enterprise was being built, it probably had
a four digit hull number (what the number was I do not know, but it wouldn't
take much to find it). To the builders it was more commonly known as hull #
such and such. Then some time later it received the designation and number
CVAN-65: C for carrier, V for heavier than air-aircraft, A for attack, and
N for nuclear; 65 meant that it was the 65th fleet carrier ever built. Later
CVAN was just Shortened to CVN, since the older non-'A' carriers (WWII vintage)
have been sold or scrapped(sigh!) and the 'A' became redundant.
Now to the point, if there ever was one, in the 200 years since, it was
probably determined that in deep space without sufficient light (obviously) a
ship number was unecessary. With CSBR (an advanced version of IFFN radar),
there really was no reason for a visible painted-on number and soon the hull
number replaced the need for a designation number because the CSBR broadcasted
who and what ship it was attatched to. Now there's one number to one ship,
which makes record keeping a little easier (shock of shocks!)
Years later, some starbase bureaucrat decided that while the ships were in
port, it would be nice to look out his window and be able to tell which ship was
which, so he ordered every ship there to be painted with USS <whatever>, but
this seemed somehow incomplete. He reviewed each ship's data trying to find
something that each ship had in common, but yet different, and came to the
conclusion that the only thing that he could use was their hull numbers
(NCC-####). At the time, there were no two ships alike, and all he had was the
data sheets on just those ships in port. i.e. if there were 2 destroyers, that
bureaucrat might have been inclined to have DD-#### painted on, but this wasn't
the case. If he had thought it out a little more, he might have looked at the
main ship roster in the main computer. This just goes to prove that bureaucracy
seeks its own level of extra record keeping and paper work!!
About USS, doesn't McCoy tell Edith Keeler, in CEF that USS stood for
United Space Ship not United Star Ship? Maybe it doen't matter? Maybe it's
one of those things like saying either or either (let's call the whole thing
off).
Chris Wayne @ UNM,
translated from the Kirtland Tapes,
by Strek, a division of,
Baron Software
Kirtland Tapes, Strek, and Baron Sowtware are tademarks owned by the author.
All Rights Reserved! (I'm not sure what all that means, but it sounds official.)