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planetary classes

^Which is an entirely separate complaint. One can draw one's own conclusions about the quality of the series, but how can you not be aware that the intention of the prequel was to show the origins of the familiar elements of the Trek universe? I mean, that's pretty much what prequels do.
 
Also a possibility that TOS was trying to emulate the stellar types of O-B-A-F-G-K-M with a similar classification for planets.

Why O-B-A-F-G-K-M? Why that order? Why seven letters?
What does each stand for?

Apply those same answers to "Class M" planet, I suppose.
Maybe TOS planets were classified T-Y-F-K-M-O-P or any other assorted arrangement.
 
For what it's worth, I found a fairly comprehensive and seemingly accurate Wiki entry about Trek planet classes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_M_planet

Basic layout:
Class A, B and C
Typically small, young planets whose class depends on their age and solidity of their cores.

Class D
Class D objects are planetoids like asteroids and some moons. Regula, the site of the underground second stage of the Genesis experiment in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, is a Class D planetoid. The USS Voyager also encountered Class D planets in the Delta Quadrant, one in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Gravity" and one in the episode "Emanations".

Class E, F and G
Typically, Proto-Earth-sized planets whose class depends on their age and solidity of their cores.

Class H
Class H planets appear in the series as harsh desert worlds. The planet Tau Cygna V visited by the USS Enterprise-D in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Ensigns of Command" was designated as a Class H world.

Class I
Class of gas giant, larger than Class J, and smaller than Class S and T.

Class J and T
Class J and Class T planets are gas giants. Class J are smaller than Class T which are considered "super", or "ultra", gas giants. In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Starship Down", the USS Defiant enters the atmosphere of a Class J gas giant to rescue the crew of a Karemman ship attacked by the Jem'Hadar. The USS Voyager encounters a Class T Super-Giant in the Delta Quadrant with "radiogenic" rings in the Voyager episode "Good Shepherd".

Class K
Class K planets are barren worlds with no native life. However, through terraforming, they can be made into Class M worlds. In the original Star Trek series episode "I, Mudd", the planet Mudd was designated in dialogue as Class K.

Class L
Class L planets are barely habitable worlds with primitive ecosystems. In "The Chase", the planet Indri VIII is indicated in dialogue as Class L. In "The 37s", the planet on which Amelia Earhart and others are stranded is a Class L planet with an oxygen–argon atmosphere. In "Muse", the planet on which B'Elanna Torres' shuttle crash lands is described as a Class L planet, which also supports Bronze Age humanoid life. In "Timeless", the USS Voyager' crashes into a Class L planet with an arctic climate. In "The Ascent", Quark and Odo crash-land on a desolate Class L planet.

Class M
from the Vulcan term "Minshara," is a fictional classification for planets and planetoids in the Star Trek science fiction media franchise.

Their atmospheres are composed of nitrogen and oxygen and have an abundance of liquid water necessary for carbon-based life to exist. Extensive plant and animal life often flourishes; often, a sentient race is also present. Earth is a textbook example of a Class M world; other Class M planets that appear throughout the franchise include Vulcan, Cardassia Prime, Bajor, Betazed, Romulus, Ferenginar, and Qo'noS.

In fiction, Class M planets are similar to those suggested to be found in the real-world astronomical theory of life supporting planets found within the habitable zone (HZ), sometimes also referred to as the 'Goldilocks' zone. The Earth Similarity Index, a scale used in planetary science, includes within its classification of habitable planets (hClass) a "Class M", where the "M" stands for mesoplanet (not to be confused with Asimov's mesoplanet proposal), i. e., a planet with moderate (as necessary for liquid water) temperatures, more technically speaking: the thermal surface requirements necessary to support complex (multicellular) Earth-like life.

Class N
Class N planets have a reducing environment and are barren and rocky with extremely high surface temperatures caused by thick atmospheres containing carbon dioxide and corrosive sulfides. In "Night Terrors", Class N environments were mentioned as the ideal places to use oxidizer-free explosives. The Tholian are said to have come from an N Class planet in the Star Trek: The Lost Era book The Sundred. The game Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Final Unity mentions that Class N planets are more related to Class M with the key difference being a higher ratio of water to land.

Class O and P
Planets covered almost completely with water (class O), or water–ice (Class P).

Class Q
Planets with continually changing environments caused by peculiar orbits, an orbit around a variable output star, or some other factor which causes conditions to drastically change over time.

Class R
A rogue planetary body, which is one that does not orbit a star but drifts freely in space. However, not all rogue planets are classified as Class R; for instance, in Star Trek: Deep Space 9 episode "The Search", the Founders homeworld in the Omarion Nebula is referred to as a "rogue" Class M planet. But this is probably a rare situation as most planets that don't belong to a star system would not be able to support life.

Class S
Class of gas giant smaller than Class T and the next larger size up from Class I.

Class T
The largest class of gas giant. Smaller gas giants are, in order of decreasing size, Class S, I, and finally J.

Class Y
Class Y planets are referred to as "Demon" worlds, where surface conditions do not fall into any other recognized category. Such worlds are usually hostile and lethal to humanoid life. If life develops on these worlds they usually take on many bizarre forms, like living crystal or rock, liquid or gaseous physical states, or incorporeal, dimensional, or energy-based states. In the series, examples of Class Y "Demon" planets include Tholia, the "Silver Blood" planet discovered by the USS Voyager in the Delta Quadrant in the episode "Demon" and later mentioned in "Course: Oblivion", and the home world of the incorporeal Medusans.

Class X and Z
Reserved for other designations of "demon" planets.
 
Also a possibility that TOS was trying to emulate the stellar types of O-B-A-F-G-K-M with a similar classification for planets.

Why O-B-A-F-G-K-M? Why that order? Why seven letters?
What does each stand for?

Originally, in the 1860s when spectroscopy was first used to distinguish stars into different spectral types, they were labeled alphabetically from A to P in order of the strength of their hydrogen Balmer lines. Later, once we gained more understanding of the hydrogen atom and the nature of its emissions, it was determined that different factors affected the strength of the hydrogen lines and that it wasn't a straight increase with temperature -- cooler stars didn't have enough energy to boost the H atoms' electrons out of the ground state, and hotter stars had enough energy to ionize the atoms altogether so there were no electrons to jump and produce Balmer lines. So the strongest lines were from stars around 10,000 K, dropping off in either direction, and that meant the alphabetical classification based on Balmer line strength didn't represent a meaningful temperature progression. Early in the 20th century, Harvard astronomers revised the classification system, dropping redundant categories and reordering them by temperature, leaving OBAFGKM from hottest to coolest.
 
Right on. I know about the color/temperature meanings of the stellar letters. Perhaps TOS envisioned an equivalent seven-letter/temperature classification for planets. Or they needn't be sequential letters nor even seven letters.
 
^Except we keep discovering so many new, different types of planets and dwarf planets that it would take a lot of letters to classify them.
 
Star Trek has provided a possible answer. In "The Bonding", I learn that the planet is Class M, Type IV. I think within each classification that there are differences, and these types represent these differences, but, in the overall scheme, these planets fundamentally meet the criteria for that classification.
 
Don't be silly. Planetary classes are for stupid planets!

Star Trek has provided a possible answer. In "The Bonding", I learn that the planet is Class M, Type IV.

I was going to suggest a Class and Category scale with letter and number.

But "Mudd's Women" also mentions a "class J" cargo ship. How do they keep it all straight?
 
From the original pitch, they were to explore habitable planets with (E)arth-(M)ars, or E-M, conditions, so it was probably originally "em"-class planets.
 
From the original pitch, they were to explore habitable planets with (E)arth-(M)ars, or E-M, conditions, so it was probably originally "em"-class planets.

Upthread, I listed what the third revision of the Star Trek Writers/Directors Guide had to say about Class M, and I described why in the 1970's I assumed -- with others -- that the "M" in "Class M" stood for "Mars".

Here's what the original pitch for Star Trek said, created by Gene Roddenberry, first draft, dated March 11, 1964:

Original Star Trek Pitch said:
The "Parallel Worlds" concept is the key ...
... to the STAR TREK format. It means simply that our stories deal with plant and animal life, plus people, quite similar to that on earth. Social evolution will also have interesting points of similarity with ours. There will be differences, of course, ranging from the subtle to the boldly dramatic, out of which comes much of our color and excitement. (And, of course, none of this prevents an occasional "far out" tale thrown in for surprise and change of pace.)​

[...]

IV. Nature and duration of command:
Galaxy exploration and Class M investigation: 5 years​
[...]

VII. Consistent with the equipment and limitations of your cruiser class vessel, you will confine your landings and contacts to planets approximating earth-Mars conditions, life, and social orders.

Some format and budget considerations ...

SETS. Our format is tailored to practical production and cost factors. Use of stage sets, backlot and other locations are ximplified [sic] by Captain April's "Class M" orders. And our own "Parallel Worlds" concept. The majority of story premises listed can be accomplished on such common studio backlot locales and sets such as Early 1900 Street, Oriental Village, Cowtown, Border Fort, Victorian Drawing Room, Forest and Streamside.​
(If I missed any references to "Class M" or "Mars", it's because I had to search without the aid of a computer. I omitted some text regarding the "Parallel Worlds" concept. Any errors entering this text are my own.)

As with the Star Trek Writers/Directors Guide, the original pitch said, in so many words, that "Class M" stands for "earth-Mars conditions" [sic]. However, the spelling of "Class M" in the pitch was always with the capital letter "M". If it was ever spelled "em"-class, as cleverly suggested by Darkwing, then it was spelled that way before the first pitch was written. It's good to know that the phrase "earth-Mars conditions" goes all the way back to the original pitch.
 
Let's step back from the alphabet classification system and ask a different question: what is it that they are classifying with these letters?

We're assuming that "Class M", versus "K Type", etc., is a broad classification of all of a given planet's characteristics. Why assume that? I always looked upon Spock's reports on planets being "Class M" or whatever as an indicator on what kind of gear a landing party would have to wear (assuming surface conditions allowed for a landing party). So "Class M" would mean normal Starfleet fatigues were in order. By the "K Type" report Norman gave in "I, Mudd", it sounded like Muddworld and Elba II were similar in that they would require space suits or pressure domes. (But Marta was able to live long enough exposed outside to be hauled out and blown up.)

So maybe the Alphabet Soup was a handy indicator for how starship captains should outfit their landing parties or colonization expeditions. Consider it a "life support" indicator. Probably a standard developed by ancient Vulcan space travellers to determine whether or not it was worth landing on a given planet.
 
I doubt "Class M" stood for anything originally. As CorporalCaptain shows, it was included in the original 1964 pitch document -- and there's a lot of stuff in there that Roddenberry just pulled out of his hat, like the alleged equation for how many inhabited worlds there might be in the universe, which was pure gibberish. So I'm sure "Class M" was just some random term Roddenberry made up to sound technical -- like the reference in the next paragraph of Captain April's orders, "You will patrol the ninth quadrant, beginning with Alpha Centuri and extending to the outer Pinial Galaxy limit." Let's see... not only is there no such thing as the Pinial Galaxy, but Alpha Centauri is misspelled, there can only be four quadrants, and two points only define a line, not a volume of space. But that didn't matter; what mattered is that it sounded like it meant something to the characters, that it gave a feel of the texture of the show's world.

More to the point, the pitch document wasn't meant to be published, it was just meant to sell the idea of the show to network executives, most of whom wouldn't have known a galaxy from an asteroid. So it didn't have to make sense. It didn't even have to accurately reflect what the show would become (or else we would've been following the voyages of the starship Yorktown all this time). So "Class M" was just gibberish, like "Pinial Galaxy" and his ersatz Drake Equation. The only difference is that it's gibberish he decided to keep using. If things had gone slightly differently, we might be debating the etymology of "Pinial Galaxy" right now.
 
Or the definition of the third quadrant of the vernal galaxy?

The classification scheme is a mess.
We have gas giants under two classifications: an alphabet soup and a number soup.
We have classifications referring to size, to atmosphere, and to general characteristics of an astronomical object.

I would say Gene Roddenberry was ignorant of astronomical subjects as much as the NBC execs. In 1965, Mariner 4 had reached Mars and was transmitting data back to NASA that revealed that Mars was not Earth-like.

Though it is in its infancy, I think we are seeing how planets might be classified in the future. They are being classified on size, mass, atmosphere, and land-sea ratios. I might have missed a few. And, I think that there will be one body regulating the classification scheme so that it doesn't become a confusing mess.
 
I would say Gene Roddenberry was ignorant of astronomical subjects as much as the NBC execs. In 1965, Mariner 4 had reached Mars and was transmitting data back to NASA that revealed that Mars was not Earth-like.

Whatever Gene's level of ignorance, the original pitch was written well before the Mariner-Mars probes were launched in 1964. As far as I know, the phrase "Earth-Mars conditions" never made it into the show.
 
How then to explain the 1967 Writer's Guide, which treats Mas as having similar conditions to Earth?

Timo, I know that you were involved in the making of Star Trek: Star Charts. Do you remember having discussions about the planetary classification? Was it raised what the classification for Neptune would be?
 
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