Star Trek’s Starfleet Uniform Colors: What They Mean & Why They Changed

Star Trek‘s iconic uniforms have through a variety of changes in color designation and design in the past 57 years for a variety of reasons. In Star Trek: The Original Series‘ unaired pilot, there were only two colors – blue for the science and medical divisions and gold for everybody else. Due to the costs involved in mounting a second pilot for the network, the gold uniforms were retained for TOS‘ successful pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before”. After that Star Trek embraced the gold, blue, and red uniforms that were an integral part of TOS‘ iconic visual style between 1966 and 1969.