Question: The organisation of Starfleet is [somewhere between military and civilian](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/54154/is-starfleet-a-military-or-civilian-organization): Captain Picard and Gene Roddenberry both describe it as being non-military, but in some ways it has a very militarised structure, with military-looking uniforms and ranks, a strictly stratified command structure, and so on.

This is one of the main ways *Star Trek* differs from its fellow cult sci-fi TV show *Doctor Who*. In the latter, the main character is strongly against soldiers and any sort of military organisation. One of the most common ways he expresses his dislike is in not wanting people to salute him.

So when I started watching *Star Trek*, having heard about its much more militarised nature as opposed to *Doctor Who*, I was expecting a lot of saluting between the Starfleet officers. But so far (12 episodes into TNG) I haven't seen a single salute. Is this always going to be the case?

Do Starfleet crewmembers and officers ever salute each other?
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Answer: 
Starfleet personnel don't salute each other, even on formal occasions.
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Although Starfleet can be characterised as maintaining *[certain military traditions](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/54154/is-starfleet-a-military-or-civilian-organization?lq=1)* (ranks, standing to attention, chain of command) they don't hold with all that silly saluting. Gene Roddenberry in his "[writer's bible](http://leethomson.myzen.co.uk/Star_Trek/2_The_Next_Generation/Star_Trek_-_The_Next_Generation_Bible.pdf)' made that abundantly clear to scriptwriters and for the most part, this view has held sway throughout the various shows.

> 
> *In practice this means that our armaments and militarism have been
>  de-emphasized over the previous series and very much de-emphasized
>  over the movies. **We will not see saluting**. We may hear the word "sir",
>  but it is extended as the same kind of courtesy used by junior and
>  senior officers on civilian airliners.*
> 
> 
> 

That being said, there are some (very few) instances where we do see some saluting. When it occurs, it's invariably intended ironically or when captains are showing respect to alien cultures.

[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/E2ptA.gif)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/E2ptA.gif)  

Star Trek V

[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/h6evC.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/h6evC.png)  

Deleted Scene - TOS: Balance of Terror

[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/N7HCu.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/N7HCu.jpg)  

Sarek

[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WJr6E.gif)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WJr6E.gif)  

TNG: The Naked Now

Interestingly, the various [movie scripts](http://www.st-minutiae.com/resources/scripts/tuc.txt) do refer to personnel [saluting each other](http://www.st-minutiae.com/resources/scripts/twok.txt) (and the Federation flag) but in each case, this has been replaced by the person either standing to attention or simply having the scene cut entirely. I think we can put this down to writing error that was picked up during production.
In the U.S. services of naval tradition (USMC, Navy, Coast Guard) you do not (except for very specific circumstances) salute indoors or while actively in the field, and never without a cover (hat) on.

The nature of Star Trek means that 99.9% of the time they will be indoors or in the field (since when traveling about space in a spaceship you'd either be in the spaceship or actively in the field on a planet). Not to mention the dress of the typical uniforms they wear does not have a cover anyway (probably due to the fact that on a ship you are always indoors, and naval services do not wear covers indoors...so covers probably just stopped being normal at all for most crew).

So even if Starfleet protocol were supposed to be highly based on U.S. naval service tradition you still might not ever see much saluting on the show. And given that information it seems reasonable to assume that saluting has probably fallen into nearly solely a ceremonial/historical role in the Starfleet universe.