In 2000, almost 40 years after he slapped those three befuddling letters on the hull of the USS Enterprise, Matt Jefferies spoke with “Star Trek: The Magazine” to clear up a rumor propagated by the Experimental Aircraft Association that the registry number NCC-1701 was inspired by his 1935 WACO Model YOC aircraft, which bears the registry NC-17740. In truth, he didn’t buy the plane until 1968, so it couldn’t have inspired the Enterprise, although he admitted that he never tried too hard to dispel the myth.
These are not the words, nor the timeliness, of a man who genuinely cared what Trekkies think. If Jefferies wanted to demystify “NCC,” then he would have done so. By his own account, at least one of the three letters is present because he thought it was “fun,” so it’s possible that he never even applied words to them. There are a lot of questionable things we ignore in the “Star Trek” franchise, and maybe this too is okay to let pass by without further thought. Jefferies certainly did.
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