Charting the Stars: Civilians in Space

I'd assume the Federation would have laws in place preventing cultural contamination, we've seen civilian scientists studying pre-warp civilisations in duck blinds and the like so it would be safe to assume that all Fed civvies in space would have to be careful not to cause unnecessary impact on other species who weren't ready for it.

 

It might be, though, that some groups/people choose to follow those rules/good ideas when they're outside of the Federation boundaries, and others don't. I don't envision Harry Mudd being awfully concerned with the Prime Directive, for instance.

 

Just how some Starfleeters don't.

 

Given what we've seen of Starfleet and the role they play in the federation, that they are a military organization is beyond obvious.

The multiple series focus on Starfleet. But within the daily lives of the people of the federation, Starfleet might be relatively unimportant, many people would go their entire lives without ever meeting a member of Starfleet.

Most (my head canon) interstellar shipping would be civilian ships, private and commercial. The same with space stations, habitats, colonies, exploration, mining. etc..

 

I always saw Starfleet as being the official operations agency of the Federation government, but that it didn't preclude various civilian organizations and institutes from doing their own thing (presumably under Federation law). As stated upthread, we've seen instances in which Starfleet and these civilian groups have worked together for various projects (one could argue that most, if not all, Federation starship designs are a Starfleet & civilian co-production, with civilian contractors doing most of the building, IMO).

And as was also mentioned upthread, space is pretty big. You can have Starfleet doing research on this astronomical phenomena here, while a civilian institute could be doing research on another astronomical phenomena there. Depending on what the research is being used for, it could either be kept as separate or joint projects. Civilian companies may also handle the carrying of cargo and/or passengers across the Federation and beyond, with some maybe even doing occasional delivery jobs for Starfleet when it might be a matter of better logistics or expediency.