# What did "mark" mean on Star Trek? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted, star-trek-paramount\ **Created:** [September 29, 2015, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913 "2015-09-29T03:26:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913/41 "2015-09-30T01:47:51Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > . . . I believe the “400 degrees” bit originated in the original ST tech manual, back in the mid-70s. I always figured was just thrown in by someone who didn’t know what he was talking about. . . . Hewlett Packard scientific calculators used to have GRD – Grads, Radians, and Degrees – buttons, so you could use 400 grads, 360 degrees, or 2 pi radians for your circles and angle calculations. There must have been some serious legitimate use for it. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913/42 "2015-09-30T01:49:43Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > And 100,000 lightyears wide. Which means it’s basically flat. If you’re traveling 10,000 light years thataway and 200 light years up, your vertical angle is going to be quite small. In Star Trek, no one ever did that. That’s like arguing that Jet Aircraft can’t climb vertically, because the earth’s atmosphere is really a very thin membrane over the surface of the entire planet. But jet aircraft can and do climb at very steep angles…and anyone travelling from earth to 61 Cygni is going to travel at a very steep angle with respect to the ecliptic. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913/43 "2015-09-30T01:54:44Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > But jet aircraft can and do climb at very steep angles…and anyone travelling from earth to 61 Cygni is going to travel at a very steep angle with respect to the ecliptic. Bravo! 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913/44 "2015-09-30T02:17:58Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > If the ship has a bow, a stern, a port side, a starboard side, a keel, and a dorsal spine, you do have a sense of “up and down, sideways, backward and forward,” regardless of your external frame of reference. You don’t even need artificial gravity (though it is of course always desirable if you’re in deep space). ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913/45 "2015-09-30T02:23:58Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I suspect that the “number mark number” system is probably a normal space system used when under impulse power. In that context (within a planetary system or at least not at warp), a relative to the current heading system makes sense, especially if the ships are powerful enough to just power around the system without having to worry about transfer orbits or anything like that. Yeah … you would think that any artificial gravity/hyperlight drive system would render the effects of inertia moot. However, we still see the _Enterprise_ bank like an airplane, so it must somehow still be compensating for them. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913/46 "2015-09-30T02:31:34Z")
I just thought it was the method of separating angle of pitch to angle of yaw. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913/47 "2015-09-30T03:51:49Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Yeah … you would think that any artificial gravity/hyperlight drive system would render the effects of inertia moot. However, we still see the _Enterprise_ bank like an airplane, so it must somehow still be compensating for them. It could be using attitude to assist the gravity compensators, thus saving a little on fuel consumption. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913/48 "2015-09-30T07:06:39Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > It could be using attitude to assist the gravity compensators, thus saving a little on fuel consumption. Logical. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913/49 "2015-09-30T07:18:42Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Does Starfleet have fixed navigation buoys floating all over? Some sort of galactic positioning system? The answer to this is “Yes,” since in at least one episode (“Gamesters of Triskelion”) Kirk et al. were beaming down to inspect an automated remote communications and navigational station before disaster struck. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913/50 "2015-09-30T07:20:26Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Hewlett Packard scientific calculators used to have GRD – Grads, Radians, and Degrees – buttons, so you could use 400 grads, 360 degrees, or 2 pi radians for your circles and angle calculations. There must have been some serious legitimate use for it. Also logical. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913/51 "2015-09-30T11:54:28Z")
Could it be that Roddenberry was thinking of the old system on the Mississippi for sounding depths from which Samuel Clemens took his pen name of Mark Twain? ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913/52 "2015-09-30T12:56:53Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > On Earth, headings and bearings are given from the perspective of your vehicle’s three-axis control system, whether you’re on the surface, below it, or above it. Yeah… It occurred to me last night as I was falling asleep that headings are in reference to the North Pole. In other words, if your heading (direction of travel) is 0 degrees, you’re going due north; 90 degrees, due east; 180 degrees, due south; and 270 degrees, due west. This is regardless of where you are on the surface of the Earth. Easy-peasy. But again, this doesn’t really work if you’re navigating deep inside a sphere. Even if you have a north pole, you’re going to need some kind of complex algorithm to figure out your position and orientation to it. ---
**Author:** ![A\_Dodgy\_Dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a87d85/32.png) [@A\_Dodgy\_Dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_Dodgy_Dude)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913/53 "2015-09-30T14:16:57Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > But again, this doesn’t really work if you’re navigating deep inside a sphere. Even if you have a north pole, you’re going to need some kind of complex algorithm to figure out your position and orientation to it. But don’t I remember seeing on The Science Channel or the History Channel astronomers saying the expanding universe is like a balloon and all of us - absolutely everything - is on the surface of the balloon? That’s why there is no “center” of the universe? ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913/54 "2015-09-30T21:01:01Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > And if you flip your spaceship upside-down, straight up is now in a different direction. That’s why you need some kind of navigational system with fixed points from which you can reckon things. Yes. I understand the relativity of upness, which I why I went to the trouble of mentioning it. But perhaps I didn’t explain clearly enough the point I was trying to make. I was not posting in a vacuum (heh). I was replying to the assertion that in space, ‘up’ has no meaning, while ‘elevation angle’ is perfectly meaningful. My contention is that this cannot possibly be true. Either you _don’t_ pick a reference plane and a convention for which side of it is up, or you _do_. If you do, then you can measure elevation angles, and ‘up’ is the _perfectly obvious and unambiguous_ synonym for “at an elevation angle of +90 degrees”. If you _don’t_, then “up” indeed has no meaning (but see below re gravity), but here comes my point, _neither_ does “elevation angle”. It’s both or neither. A navigational system that sends the Enterprise in an unambiguous direction when a bearing and mark are given, has no problem whatsoever instructing the same Enterprise to ‘go straight up’. Now I admit to muddying the waters a bit by talking about the direction of motion relative to the Enterprise’s orientation earlier. But that’s not a problem either. One of the old chestnuts people like to throw at the Trekiverse is “how come every pair of spaceships’ up/down orientation is always the same whenever they meet?” Well, it’s a simple plot point to resolve. They’re orienting themselves using the same reference system they use to navigate. Everyone’s aligned to the galactic plane. Everyone agrees ‘where’s up’. > [@cochrane](#): > > If your spaceship doesn’t have artificial gravity, “straight up” is completely meaningless. First, no it isn’t as explained above. Second, we are talking about Star Trek here. Who gives a toss about those spacecraft that don’t have artificial gravity? Those plebs are not part of the Trekiverse AFAICR. Every spaceship we see has artificial gravity (unless it gets knocked out by hostile action). Third, it does of course make complete sense that, in the presence of a natural or artificial grav field, we choose ‘up’ to correspond with the direction opposite to the field. This would make ‘up’ ambiguous if a spaceship orients itself differently to the galactic plane. Which I guess _is why they don’t_. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913/55 "2015-09-30T22:28:08Z")
> [@A\_Dodgy\_Dude](#): > > But don’t I remember seeing on The Science Channel or the History Channel astronomers saying the expanding universe is like a balloon and all of us - absolutely everything - is on the surface of the balloon? That’s why there is no “center” of the universe? I was referring to the view that there are two compass dials superimposed on the Galaxy (Milky Way) at right angles to each other, one in the plane of the disk and the other running through its axis of rotation. This would result in an essentially spherical system of coordinates. Whether there is a center to the Universe is irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913/56 "2015-09-30T22:29:54Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Could it be that Roddenberry was thinking of the old system on the Mississippi for sounding depths from which Samuel Clemens took his pen name of Mark Twain? Very possible. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913/57 "2015-10-01T00:25:05Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I believe the “400 degrees” bit originated in the original ST tech manual, back in the mid-70s. I always figured was just thrown in by someone who didn’t know what he was talking about. The various ST Nitpicker’s guides listed a few oddities with the “Mark” system. IIRC, there were a few times when numbers in excess of 360 were given. It could be an attempt to resolve those oddities. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913/58 "2015-10-01T02:41:40Z")
> [@Nancarrow](#): > > . . . One of the old chestnuts people like to throw at the Trekiverse is “how come every pair of spaceships’ up/down orientation is always the same whenever they meet?” Well, it’s a simple plot point to resolve. They’re orienting themselves using the same reference system they use to navigate. Everyone’s aligned to the galactic plane. Everyone agrees ‘where’s up’. . . . That works, although my explanation is easier, and has a real-world analogue. The guys and I are meeting out in the desert for a picnic and hike. The first guy stops his car anywhere he wants. The second guy lines his car up with the first car, as if we’re both at a parking lot with painted stripes. And sure enough, the third and fourth guys park their cars right in line too! Spaceship captains do the same thing. Space etiquette. It spares them from looking up each others’ afterburners. ---
**Author:** ![Johnm366](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/cc9497/32.png) [@Johnm366](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnm366)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2021, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913/59 "2021-09-12T14:48:16Z")
[Processing: IMG\_20210912\_093723832.jpg…] [Processing: IMG\_20210912\_093729853.jpg…] ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2021, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913/60 "2021-09-12T15:36:14Z")
Hi, not sure what you were posting, but it appears broken. I broke the empty link part of it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-mark-mean-on-star-trek/732913.md?page=4)