USS USS was a identifying prefix used before the name s of sea - faring ships on Earth and space - faring ships of United Earth and United Federation of Planets . The abbreviation has been used to stand for " United States Ship " , " United Space Ship " , and " United Star Ship " . History . As shorthand for " United States Ship , " the US Navy used the USS prefix on the hulls of various sea warships , such as aircraft carrier s and ironclads , including : , , and . ( ; ; ) Some early spaceships from Earth , such as the , also placed the USS designation on their hull . ( ) Starfleet used the " USS " designation on certain computer graphics for United Earth starship s , such as and . However , they did not label the hulls of the starships , and the ships were not commonly addressed with the prefix . ( ) On Federation starships operated by Starfleet , the " USS " prefix was more prominently featured on the hull of the ship and as part of the starship ' s official title . USS was referred to as standing for either " United Space Ship " ( , , ) or " United Star Ship . " ( ) This designation was used as early as 2167 on a starship , the . ( ) " The same practice was also continued by the Federation in the alternate reality after the timeline was disrupted by the temporal incursion of the Romulan Nero . " ( ) Appendices . Background information . In his original " Star Trek " pitch ( p . 3 ) , Gene Roddenberry utilized the prefix " S . S . " for his then - envisioned primary space vessel , " " . While the acronym has a signifying " Single - screw Steamship " , Roddenberry refrained on that occasion from specifying the acronym , but it stands to reason he either assumed " Spaceship " or " Starship " . It was only after the series ' pilot episode was picked up , and Roddenberry had worked out his initial pitch into the more fully worked out first version of " The Star Trek guide " internal document – famed in later " Star Trek " - lore under its " The Writer ' s Bible " denominator – that he amended the " S . S . " to " U . S . S . " , this time emphatically specifying the acronym to stand for " United Spaceship " , and most certainly not for " United States Spaceship " , as the old notion of traditional statehood had been abandoned in his vision of the future . ( 3rd revision , 17 April 1967 , p . 1 ) Author Stephen Whitfield has related in his reference book " The Making of Star Trek " ( p . 112 ) how Roddenberry had to actually mount a vigorous defense of the meaning of his new amended prefix against chauvinistic network executives who were lamenting why it could not be " a good , safe patriotic " United States " spaceship . " The first spaceship from Earth known to use " USS " was first shown in , in a picture of the on display on the recreation deck of the refitted . The placement of a desktop model of this craft in suggests the ship predates United Earth , so the USS designation may have still meant " United States Ship " at that point in history . Shortly before began its initial airing , Rick Berman implied that was purposefully without the " USS " prefix because it wasn ' t a Federation starship . ( ) The use of " USS " by Starfleet before the formation of the Federation was only seen on a computer graphic in the " Enterprise " episode . This graphic had both the " Enterprise " and the designated with the USS prefix , which may have been a mistake on the part of the graphics designers , as neither ships ' hull designation used " USS " .