Geoffrey Mandel's K-7 Blueprints

Regarding the scans of Geoffrey Mandel's blueprints of the K-Class Space Stations (TOS era), as posted on the LCARS Blueprints web-site:

In the "General Notes" on Sheet #3, Note #4 states "The Station has permanent staterooms which will normally accommodate 864 persons in addition to the standard Station's complement." The "Station's Complement" on Sheet #2 states the standard Station's complement to be 86 officers and 712 crew members. Putting these two statements together would suggest that a K-class space station would have a maximum capacity of 1,662 hominid lifeforms.

The "Particulars" on Sheet #3, indicate an overall height of about 160 meters and a overall radius just under 200 meters, and a standard ceiling height over each deck of just under 2.5 meters.

I do not know anything about Geoffrey Mandel, but I remember his name being associated with more than one schematic art project in the mid-1970's. My memory is vague on this topic, but I seem to recall his work was highly respected.

Mandel's K-class schematics, stardated 7611.01 (1 Nov. 1976), while not covering the station deck-by-deck, still appear to be very thorough. He seems to have created a layout for the station that combines the design conventions used in Franz Joseph's plans for the Starship Enterprise with that of a hotel. In fact, the "General Notes" on Sheet #3 say as much. Kinda like a space cruise-ship?

What other sci fi art projects was Mandel known for? How was his work regarded? I assume that if Mandel came up with the personnel capacity figtures above, he must have figured that a station of this size would have sufficient interior volume to handle all of those people.

Overall, his work seems very impressive. But there are some things about it that have me scratching my head. If I understand these schematics correctly, the Station's officer's quarters are located in the upper part of the central hub, below the Station's Bridge. Below those quarters are what I call a "shopping mall", presumably where the barroom brawl took place in "The Trouble with Tribbles", and below that in the heart of the hub where the outer pylons join there appears to be "transportation nexus" and "station's services" area where most of the station personnel must perform the bulk of the station's operations. So this must be where the officers and at least some of the crew work. And at the bottom of this hub complex is where the shuttlecraft hangar is located.

Also, if I have Sheet #4 correct, each of the outer pylons house (1: a sidewalk between the hub and the outer pods, (2: crew's quarters, (3: and raw materials' storage. And then those outer pods seem to house habitat, presumably for "guests", and certain support services.

Am I right in assuming that Mandel's plans put forth the supposition that the internal arrangement and structure of each of these outer pods (and their pylons) would be basically the same? And it does seem to me that the officers and at least some of the crew are performing their work duties all on Decks 28 thru 35 in that central hub. Am I missing something there?

The "Station's Complement" on Sheet #2, borrowing a cue from Franz Joseph's blueprints of the Enterprise, the crew are all commissioned officers; there are no warrant officers or enlisted personnel listed. I seem to remember someone in this forum came up with a Ship's Compliment bill for a Constitution-class starship not too long ago that included details with enlisted personnel. It would be interesting to revisit this concept and superimpose this kind of approach over Mandel's roster. Would a commodore be necessary for a station of this size? Deep Space 9 was run by a commander, after all. Coming up with a basic personnel roster outline for a station like this would be tricky, since (I would imagine) there is no "real world" instance to draw from. This, after all, is a space station. Apparently hanging in deep space. It's not like a naval base at Pearl Harbor or Diego Garcia. It is a space vessel, like a starship without warp drive.

Another thing has me wondering: the roster makes no mention of civilian personnel. Since K-7 in "The Trouble With Tribbles" seemed to be a purely civilian station, (we never saw any Starfleet personnel stationed there) and we do not know the nature of the space station seen in "The Ultimate Computer", it is reasonable to assume it was a Starfleet installation; probably a TOS-era version of a "deep space" station. But does that mean that on K-class stations run by Starfleet, everything on the station is Starfleet operated?

 

Geoffrey Mandel at Memory Alpha: http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Geoffrey_Mandel
Geoffrey Mandel's Homepage: http://www.geoffreymandel.com/

 

^ Wow. I thought he was just a '70's fandom artist. I had no idea he also worked extensively on the "inside" as well.

What about his K-7 blueprints? Is he widely regarded as having nailed down the correct size of the station?

 

As I recall in the DSN epsisode Trials and Tribbleations, when Chief O'Brien is talking about how many decks on K-7 there are to be searched, the number matches up with the number of decks shown in Mandels plans.

 

Here's the link to the earlier thread in this forum that included a fan-created crew roster. Post #9 in that thread is the specific post I was talking about in the O.P. in this thread.

 

That's one of the more well thought-out starship crew manifests I've seen.

To modify it for something like K-7, you probably could start by eliminating some of the positions you don't need on a stationary base: helmsmen, navigators, and such. Propulsion folks from engineering might be replaced by maintenance personnel, both for the station itself, as well as to provide repair/refit services to ships docking at the station. Sciences personnel might be either expanded or deleted depending on the mission/location of the station being manned.

A more civilian oriented station might just have a "skeleton crew" Starfleet presence (security, engineering?), with most of the day-to-day operations being done by civilians. Or there might be more of a mix like we saw at Deep Space Nine where the facility was run by Starfleet/Bajoran Militia personnel, but there was space leased/rented to civilian merchants and such.