Why only 150?

[Timo]

Ah, but Kirk's ship was 'packed' more or less as was admitted by on-screen dialogue.

Well, at least some of Kirk's Ensigns had their own personal quarters ("Obsession"). The setup doesn't appear to differ much from Janeway's, then - although in both cases we lack direct evidence of the enlisteds sleeping in bunk beds three high, as ST6 indicates is the Starfleet practice.

Also: MSD's aren't to be taken seriously. Voyager's has two warp cores, when the ship clearly only has one.

Perhaps more relevance comes from the fact that the Defiant MSD shows four decks when dialogue specifies at least five full-height decks and a turbolift chart shows six. If the average MSD omits 20% of decks (1 out of 5), then a 24-deck MSD for the E-E would lend credence to Picard's ship having 30 decks, which is much more sensible for a ship of those dimensions anyway...

The 1701 and 1701-A and NX-2000 didn't have.

The bridges of the TOS and TOS movie ships always suffered from a TARDIS effect: if the ship's outer dimensions were as given, the turbolifts wouldn't fit. The problem could be solved by moving the bridge down a bit, at which point additional rooms would also become available around the bridge.

The TMP bridge provides access to an airlock and docking port. Backstage material claims this is by having a turbolift that rotates on the spot, which is rather insane. Since the access clearly is via turbolift anyway (Spock emerges from it), it's much more likely that the access features movement between decks. That is, the docking port would be located somewhat above the bridge level.

This also helps explain how Chekov in that scene could reach the bridge simultaneously with Spock without using the same turbolift: he would have taken the other lift, and the single shaft serving the docking area would split into two at bridge level... The "rotating turbolift" theory wouldn't allow for that.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

Chekov crawled through a hatchway that came out underneath Uhura's console.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

Another possibility regarding the Voyager was that when she was launched, not all of her internal volume was habitable. A good chunk of the ship's interior (perhaps anywhere up to a third perhaps?) could have been unpressurized spaceframe reserved for future crew complement expansion and new facilities down the road. Starships could be designed with the ability to be upgraded both internally and externally.

1. That's ludicrous, Voyager was a finished ship.
2. With the magical abilities of Voyager's engineering team, they could have change "unpressurized spaceframe" into Disneyworld after a couple of days if they'd wanted/

 

[Timo]

"Voyager was a finished ship" isn't a particularly convincing argument in real-world terms, as we have several hints that she was only very recently launched and represented a novel type. It might take years of operations until a ship like that truly became "finished".

The second argument should overrule the above concerns, though...

Yet Neelix was chiefly worried about making the Klingons feel like second-class citizens. This could be fixed in less than a week by building additional luxury quarters, but the immediate solution to the problem might still require appropriating some existing luxury quarters for Klingon use. I'd be more willing to believe that the ship was designed to accommodate 300 people in comfort, and Janeway initially just gave her crew even more comfort by putting just one person in a two-person stateroom, rather than needlessly cramming them in at regulation strength and leaving half the staterooms unoccupied.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

Well, Voyager was finished by the time it was launched, but it probably wasn't stocked to the full.
We've seen examples where SF ships were launched on missions or went into service without being 100% stocked/equipped.

Keep in mind that the ship was sent into the Badlands because of it's apparent unique ability (at the time) to navigate the plasma storms without issues (or turbulence), and it only had 36 photon torpedoes at launch (which is probably not it's full compliment, because given the amount of internal volume the ship has, it should be able to house at least 100 or 150).

Anyway...
In regards to Kirk's ship being 'packed'... well, one has to keep in mind that the only time we saw crews sharing quarters on Voyager was in 'Good Shepherd'.
Celes was a unique case in this regard and very... unremarkable.
It's possible that there were several crew-members of lower ranks who had to share because of their ranks - and not because of shortage of space, but because it's how it was done.
Or it's also possible that Celes was sharing quarters because she wanted a room-mate. It might be a mixture of both.

Keep in mind that Q's son was assigned private quarters for his own use (and they were fairly small by comparison).
It's not a stretch to think that those of lower ranks have smaller quarters - and besides, they don't really have a NEED for extremely large space - most of which was reserved for higher ranking officers.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Another possibility regarding the Voyager was that when she was launched, not all of her internal volume was habitable. A good chunk of the ship's interior (perhaps anywhere up to a third perhaps?) could have been unpressurized spaceframe reserved for future crew complement expansion and new facilities down the road. Starships could be designed with the ability to be upgraded both internally and externally.

1. That's ludicrous, Voyager was a finished ship.

You didn't read what I said.

I proposed that the Voyager was launched with the ability to expand with new facilities and an increased crew capacity in the future. Such a thing would have been taken into consideration when the Intrepid Class Starship Project was entering the final design phase. So when the Voyager was launched, she was finished, but simply with extra space for future mission applications.

As a result, I believe the crew complements of Intrepid-class ships--or perhaps most Starfleet ships in general--vary depending on their mission. Some Intrepid-class ships may have a crew larger than the Voyager, while others could be smaller, with each ship using its internal space differently as required by its mission.

2. With the magical abilities of Voyager's engineering team, they could have change "unpressurized spaceframe" into Disneyworld after a couple of days if they'd wanted/

But why would they if they didn't really have to? If anything, "the magical abilities of the Voyager's engineering team" was busy keeping the ship running at optimal levels rather than trying to build extra rooms for people with cooties. Given time, they probably could but I don't think it can be done at the press of a button. Installing new room modules may even be considered a dockyard job.

In such a case, a uprated version of the Voyager could be launched from spacedock on a different kind of mission with the ability to carry a crew of 300+ quite easily, IMO.

 

[tighr]

Keep in mind that Q's son was assigned private quarters for his own use (and they were fairly small by comparison).

Q's son held the rank of Captain.

 

[Deks]

Keep in mind that Q's son was assigned private quarters for his own use (and they were fairly small by comparison).

Q's son held the rank of Captain.

Which Janeway never took seriously in the first place.
Aside from that, why didn't Q give himself the highest ranking Admiral position?

 

[Deks]

But why would they if they didn't really have to? If anything, "the magical abilities of the Voyager's engineering team" was busy keeping the ship running at optimal levels rather than trying to build extra rooms for people with cooties. Given time, they probably could but I don't think it can be done at the press of a button. Installing new room modules may even be considered a dockyard job.

In such a case, a uprated version of the Voyager could be launched from spacedock on a different kind of mission with the ability to carry a crew of 300+ quite easily, IMO.

As a side note, it should be worth mentioning that both Kim and 7 were in charge of constructing the Astrometrics lab.
It was an internal job done on the fly and was done with an assistance with a full engineering team in a relatively short time span.

You_Will_Fail
There's nothing 'magical' about SF's engineers abilities.
These people can convert energy into matter and back again for one thing. It's only logical that their construction techniques will be vastly superior to our own.
I just find it ludicrous when people from the early 21st century try to superimpose their perceptions of what they observed that can be done today, to the technology/resources of a culture centuries ahead of our own.

 

[tafkats]

Celes was a unique case in this regard and very... unremarkable.
It's possible that there were several crew-members of lower ranks who had to share because of their ranks - and not because of shortage of space, but because it's how it was done.
Or it's also possible that Celes was sharing quarters because she wanted a room-mate. It might be a mixture of both.

I have trouble imagining Janeway insisting that her lower-ranking crewmembers must continue to share rooms, even with plenty of space available, for years upon years, just because "that's how it's done."

I have a much easier time believing that Celes and her roommate lived together because they wanted to. Maybe they were assigned together at the beginning of the mission and got along well enough that they never felt the need to move. Maybe, in contrast to the TUC-era quarters where junior officers were stacked in bunks three deep, Voyager's shared quarters were larger and had a suite configuration that allowed for more privacy. In that case, I can easily imagine someone who didn't get much fulfillment from her job enjoying the companionship simply because it gave her a personal connection to someone.

I had a few friends in college who got along so well, and whose lifestyles complemented each other so perfectly, that they continued rooming together long after both of them could easily have gotten singles.

 

[C.E. Evans]

But why would they if they didn't really have to? If anything, "the magical abilities of the Voyager's engineering team" was busy keeping the ship running at optimal levels rather than trying to build extra rooms for people with cooties. Given time, they probably could but I don't think it can be done at the press of a button. Installing new room modules may even be considered a dockyard job.

In such a case, a uprated version of the Voyager could be launched from spacedock on a different kind of mission with the ability to carry a crew of 300+ quite easily, IMO.

As a side note, it should be worth mentioning that both Kim and 7 were in charge of constructing the Astrometrics lab.
It was an internal job done on the fly and was done with an assistance with a full engineering team in a relatively short time span.

Actually, we don't know how long it took to build the Voyager's astrometrics lab. All we know is when it was first brought online. For all intents and purposes, it could have originally been the ship's stellar cartography lab before Kim and Seven got their hands on it (indeed, after the astrometrics lab came online, there was no further mention of the Voyager's stellar cartography where the Delaney sisters initially worked).

There's nothing 'magical' about SF's engineers abilities.
These people can convert energy into matter and back again for one thing. It's only logical that their construction techniques will be vastly superior to our own.
I just find it ludicrous when people from the early 21st century try to superimpose their perceptions of what they observed that can be done today, to the technology/resources of a culture centuries ahead of our own.

Conversely, it would be silly for us to think everything a few centuries from now can be instantly built with the push of a button.

 

[Deks]

I never said anything would be instantly done... just most likely by orders of magnitude better, faster and with higher efficiency.

And I also find it very likely that Celes most likely had a room-mate because she wanted and not because there was a shortage of space (most other people on Voyager seemed to have their own quarters,and as I previously pointed out, the ship would probably have about 160 to 180 quarters available in total).

As for the Astrometrics lab...
Actually, we can extrapolate from the episodes themselves.
Construction of the lab (or updating of the existing one as Chakotay mentioned - though I think this may also relate to Stellar Cartography instead) didn't start until episode 'Revulsion' (stardate 51186.2).
And since the lab was brought online in Year of Hell (stardate 51268.4), it wouldn't be a stretch to think that it took about just under 4 weeks to do it (if 48315 was the Caretaker stardate, and 51268 was Year of Hell, then just do the math: second digit of the first 2 indicate years... third one months, 4th one probably days, 5th likely hours - first digit... I have no clue... perhaps decades since the new measuring started

 

[C.E. Evans]

I never said anything would be instantly done... just most likely by orders of magnitude better, faster and with higher efficiency.

It still wouldn't be built all that quickly. Much faster than what we can build today, definitely, but not something whipped together in the span of an episode.

As for the Astrometrics lab...
Actually, we can extrapolate from the episodes themselves.
Construction of the lab (or updating of the existing one as Chakotay mentioned - though I think this may also relate to Stellar Cartography instead) didn't start until episode 'Revulsion' (stardate 51186.2).
And since the lab was brought online in Year of Hell (stardate 51268.4), it wouldn't be a stretch to think that it took about just under 4 weeks to do it (if 48315 was the Caretaker stardate, and 51268 was Year of Hell, then just do the math: second digit of the first 2 indicate years... third one months, 4th one probably days, 5th likely hours - first digit... I have no clue... perhaps decades since the new measuring started

Roughly a month. I do think that stellar cartography and astrometrics are related disciplines that both deal with the long-range tracking of celestial bodies. It's not implausible that stellar cartography was integrated into the astrometrics lab. A month or so to install upgraded astrometric sensors isn't too unreasonable, especially with considerable help from the ship's engineering department. Such a project probably would take us years to do with the technology we have and would still be considered primitive in comparison, IMO.

 

[tighr]

Keep in mind that Q's son was assigned private quarters for his own use (and they were fairly small by comparison).

Q's son held the rank of Captain.

Which Janeway never took seriously in the first place.
Aside from that, why didn't Q give himself the highest ranking Admiral position?

He did, in Encounter at Farpoint. Afterwards, he preferred to have the same rank as Picard.

 

[Deks]

Roughly a month. I do think that stellar cartography and astrometrics are related disciplines that both deal with the long-range tracking of celestial bodies. It's not implausible that stellar cartography was integrated into the astrometrics lab. A month or so to install upgraded astrometric sensors isn't too unreasonable, especially with considerable help from the ship's engineering department. Such a project probably would take us years to do with the technology we have and would still be considered primitive in comparison, IMO.

One thing to keep in mind is that under ideal circumstances, upgrading the Astrometrics would probably be a much shorter task.

However, 7 of 9 and Kim were effectively merging SF and Borg technology into one - and that took it's sweet time.
It's probably a pain in the neck to get the two technologies working in concert without one overriding the other - not to mention modifying the power relays and transfer conduits to accommodate the merged technologies.
Also, Voyager by itself never had an Astrometrics lab... it had Stellar Cartography (which probably was used to create the Astrometrics lab - and that in itself would require some internal restructuring).

If Voyager had full access to an industrialized facility such as Utopia Planitia, then it's possible the time frame needed to do the lab would be even shorter (what with a lot more engineering personnel at their disposal and tools at shipyards that ships might not even have usually).
These people were also able to make the Delta Flyer in well under a week - original finish time frame being projected at just under 7 days - again... a fully specialized facility would probably take less time.

We, have had the industrial capacity for some time now to make things pretty fast... and while our version would definitely be primitive by comparison, chances are it would probably take us less than several years - a few months perhaps (money in the real world dictates things like time frames - in ST, such a limitation doesn't exist, and things are still done faster - though they should be done even faster than what was shown - because when you start combining technologies at their disposal for industrial purposes, it starts dawning on you that what we saw was a 'dumbed down' process in order to not make things look 'too simple' - I'm sorry, but highly advanced technologies change the game, and there's nothing 'magical' about it.

 

[Cyke101]

Keep in mind that Q's son was assigned private quarters for his own use (and they were fairly small by comparison).

Q's son held the rank of Captain.

Which Janeway never took seriously in the first place.

Neither did tighr's post, hence the smiley face.

 

[tighr]

^---

And, to get even further off topic (but who am I to help the situation?) I always thought it was funny how the Enterprise-D had a fairly pedestrian Stellar Cartography lab during the series, and then suddenly in Generations we see this massive holographic Astrometrics room. I know there are budgetary reasons for not building a set like that on the series, but its funny to me that it just suddenly showed up like that.

 

[Guy Gardener]

That was Picard trying to woo Nella Daren back because his balls were turning blue.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Roughly a month. I do think that stellar cartography and astrometrics are related disciplines that both deal with the long-range tracking of celestial bodies. It's not implausible that stellar cartography was integrated into the astrometrics lab. A month or so to install upgraded astrometric sensors isn't too unreasonable, especially with considerable help from the ship's engineering department. Such a project probably would take us years to do with the technology we have and would still be considered primitive in comparison, IMO.

One thing to keep in mind is that under ideal circumstances, upgrading the Astrometrics would probably be a much shorter task.

However, 7 of 9 and Kim were effectively merging SF and Borg technology into one - and that took it's sweet time.
It's probably a pain in the neck to get the two technologies working in concert without one overriding the other - not to mention modifying the power relays and transfer conduits to accommodate the merged technologies.
Also, Voyager by itself never had an Astrometrics lab... it had Stellar Cartography (which probably was used to create the Astrometrics lab - and that in itself would require some internal restructuring).

Chakotay actually said that the Voyager always did have an astrometrics lab in "Revulsion", but that it needed to be upgraded and enhanced. But as there was also mention before that episode of the Voyager having a stellar cartography division, it's either a case that astrometrics and stellar cartography are the same thing or two separate things, with the astrometric lab having always being aboard the Voyager in either case.

If Voyager had full access to an industrialized facility such as Utopia Planitia, then it's possible the time frame needed to do the lab would be even shorter (what with a lot more engineering personnel at their disposal and tools at shipyards that ships might not even have usually).
These people were also able to make the Delta Flyer in well under a week - original finish time frame being projected at just under 7 days - again... a fully specialized facility would probably take less time.

I disagree with that it would have taken less time. I think the same number of people and resources would have been assigned to the task of upgrading the lab even at Utopia Planitia. Chakotay basically gave Kim carte blanche to the project, so Kim had all he needed to do the job, IMO. In fact, he thought the engineering team could really take over without him.

As far as the Delta Flyer, I would liken that to being more akin to the construction of a car or van. It takes longer to develop and test the design than to really build it. The hardest part is getting all the parts.

We, have had the industrial capacity for some time now to make things pretty fast... and while our version would definitely be primitive by comparison, chances are it would probably take us less than several years - a few months perhaps (money in the real world dictates things like time frames - in ST, such a limitation doesn't exist, and things are still done faster - though they should be done even faster than what was shown - because when you start combining technologies at their disposal for industrial purposes, it starts dawning on you that what we saw was a 'dumbed down' process in order to not make things look 'too simple' - I'm sorry, but highly advanced technologies change the game, and there's nothing 'magical' about it.

I disagree with this also. It took years to develop, build, and assemble the components of the International Space Station with the technology we have. I doubt that it really could have really been done in a few months. I also think that there are limits, even with 24th-Century technology, of how quickly certain things can be done. I think it's easier and faster to build small things than big things.

 

[Timo]

Or at least easier to build simple things than complex ones. Re-equipping a cargo bay into ten staterooms might really take an eyeblink, as it only involves building trivial things such as partitions and beds and plumbing - if it's possible to build a new seat for a shuttlecraft, the same machinery ought to have the capacity to build ten beds in a trivially longer time, with trivially higher expenses, and no design time or effort needed.

it's either a case that astrometrics and stellar cartography are the same thing or two separate things

Neither of the two things is actually known to be a "department", despite Memory Alpha claims to the contrary. Rather, in "Lessons", we learn that fairly obscure things like Quantum Mechanics and Spectral Analysis would be departments, or probably more like sub-departments of some greater whole (the TOS term appears to be "section"). Odds are, then, that Stellar Cartography, Astrometrics, Quantum Mechanics and Spectral Analysis are all part of the greater Science Department, and represent competing disciplines on the same, relatively low organizational level.

In fact, the high-ranking Nella Daren on the E-D was the head of a department called Stellar Sciences; both Astrometrics and Stellar Cartography would probably be sub-departments of this, each with some labs dedicated to the respective disciplines. And since Quantum Mechanics was stated to be in competition with Daren's department, it probably falls outside Stellar Sciences and is under some other high-level umbrella, for example Physics. And Stellar Sciences and Physics plus other obvious high-level umbrella things like Chemistry then fall under the command of the ship's Chief Science Officer who heads the Sciences department.

Timo Saloniemi