h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Although the NCC part of the Enterprise's registry is meaningless, Gene Roddenberry borrowed it from the US Navy, who used the registry prefix NC on all ships made after the second world war. There it represented "New Construction".

The 1701 was chosen becuase it could be read from a great distance.

And one last peice of trivia, the starship USS Constellation had the registry 1017 used in the episode 'The Doomsday Machine' which was crippled by the planet killer, was in fact a $15 model of the Enterprise with the numbers re-arranged, and the name scorched out.

Many fans make fun of the fact it doesn't look that much worse than the very expensive production model of the Enterprise.

Hi! I had read (I can't remember where) that NCC stood for Naval Commission Contract, NX stood for Naval Experiment. Further Gene Rodenberry stated that he based the registry on a plane he flew.

I'd always heard it stood for Navy Constitution Class. Seems I was wrong.