1,014?
- Thread starter MikeS
- Start date
Well, for one thing lots of stuff on a 24th century starship is fully automized, and then every crewmember has a whole apartment to live in.
...Probably Starfleet would do everything its power to keep the crew count of a starship down, so as not to risk too many lives. OTOH, starships seem to be fairly flexible in their crew capacity as opposed to crew requirement: the old NCC-1701 went from about 200 to about 430 between "The Cage" and TOS, which would seem like a retrograde step if that was about crew requirements. It'd be easier to swallow if we just assumed the ship could take aboard 230 freeloaders (scientists, extra medics, entertainers and other camp followers) for a long exploration mission.
Similarly, the E-D could probably easily accommodate 5,000 to 10,000 people. Starfleet just doesn't deem it necessary to run the ship with that many people aboard - even though some other Galaxy class vessel with the same internal configuration but a different mission might indeed have that many people aboard.
Timo Saloniemi
Similarly, the E-D could probably easily accommodate 5,000 to 10,000 people. Starfleet just doesn't deem it necessary to run the ship with that many people aboard - even though some other Galaxy class vessel with the same internal configuration but a different mission might indeed have that many people aboard.
Timo Saloniemi
Theres always the possibility of an evacuation mission to consider, the Enterprise-D seemed to encounter those types of missions about once a season on average.
I highly doubt that, but I'm also too lazy to count all the crew quarters on the Enterprise-D blueprints.
There's a big diffence between the amount of living space given to crewmembers aboard the Enterprise-D and that given to the crew of a modern day naval ship. I served aboard a destroyer and the berthing compartment that I bunked in had about sixty men living in it. The compartment was probably no larger than Picard's quarters.
Also, I believe that the TNG tech manual stated that a large part of the internal volume of the Enterprise was empty in order to give the ship greater mission flexibility. That empty space could be used to transport cargo; accommodate specialized lab modules for science missions, or to provide berthing space if the ship had to transport a large number of people.
Also, I believe that the TNG tech manual stated that a large part of the internal volume of the Enterprise was empty in order to give the ship greater mission flexibility. That empty space could be used to transport cargo; accommodate specialized lab modules for science missions, or to provide berthing space if the ship had to transport a large number of people.
An aircraft carrier has 5-6,000 people aboard because it exists entirely to support an airwing of 90 or so combat aircraft. Take away the people you need to crew the planes, service the planes, operate the flight deck, handle the ordinance, plan the operations, etc, etc... how many does that leave who actually only operate the ship itself?
Then cut that number by an arbitrary percentage because many of their jobs, on a starship, would be automated or done by an AI. Half? More?
Then we can add in another arbitrary number of personnel to make up the compliment of scientists and their families for the final number. Maybe take the number of employees at an average research lab, whatever that may be...
Then cut that number by an arbitrary percentage because many of their jobs, on a starship, would be automated or done by an AI. Half? More?
Then we can add in another arbitrary number of personnel to make up the compliment of scientists and their families for the final number. Maybe take the number of employees at an average research lab, whatever that may be...
About 2000-2500.
And then account for 300 years of technology improvments for automation.
I tend to think that the Galaxy-class was designed to be the ultimate multipurpose starship and was built as big as it was to carry out any possible mission that Starfleet might dispatch--from deep-space exploration and diplomacy, to scientific research, to routine civil operations, to Federation defense, to even medium-scale evacuation of worlds in distress. The Galaxy-class probably could even serve as a deep-space transport carrying entire populations from one destination to another, if necessary. In that capacity, the Galaxy-class was built with enough space to carry upwards of 10,000-15,000 people for a limited duration.
I think if the Galaxy-class was more of a specialized or single-purpose vessel, it probably would have been a much smaller vehicle with a crew perhaps even slightly smaller than the Voyager's, IMO.
I think if the Galaxy-class was more of a specialized or single-purpose vessel, it probably would have been a much smaller vehicle with a crew perhaps even slightly smaller than the Voyager's, IMO.
I tend to agree with this. In The Ensigns of Command, the Enterprise only seems incapable of moving the 15,253 colonists in three days time because radiation is preventing the transporter from operating.
From Yesterday's Enterprise, where Tasha is talking about the alternate Enterprise-D:
"She was the first Galaxy Class warship built by the Federation... forty-two decks... capable of transporting over six thousand troops..."
"She was the first Galaxy Class warship built by the Federation... forty-two decks... capable of transporting over six thousand troops..."
Indeed.
There have been volumetric analyses done on starships over the years. I'm pretty sure that in terms of useable space, Voyager is one of the per capita HIGHEST ratios of crew to actual ship volume they inhabit. Voyager had as much, if not more useable space than a Nimitz-class carrier, so plugging 150 people on her perfectly allows long, leisurely walks along corridors while running into no one at all, which happened often enough on all the Trek series. Just watch almost any documentary on modern naval warships on YouTube, and you won't be able to have a single shot without SOMEONE doing something unrelated to the shot in the background.
I've been on the USS Midway museum, and it's tough to imagine 4100+ crewmen aboard just keeping her running without every available inch of the ship swarming with seamen.
Yeah, I wrote that. And I ain't correcting.
Mark
There have been volumetric analyses done on starships over the years. I'm pretty sure that in terms of useable space, Voyager is one of the per capita HIGHEST ratios of crew to actual ship volume they inhabit. Voyager had as much, if not more useable space than a Nimitz-class carrier, so plugging 150 people on her perfectly allows long, leisurely walks along corridors while running into no one at all, which happened often enough on all the Trek series. Just watch almost any documentary on modern naval warships on YouTube, and you won't be able to have a single shot without SOMEONE doing something unrelated to the shot in the background.
I've been on the USS Midway museum, and it's tough to imagine 4100+ crewmen aboard just keeping her running without every available inch of the ship swarming with seamen.
Yeah, I wrote that. And I ain't correcting.
Mark
Saquist
Commodore
If you don't count the machinery the Enterprise could give each 1,014 people 2300 square feet of living space. That's a two story 4 Four bed room 2-1/2 bath Living Room, Game Room, Kitchen, Formal Dinning Room and Breakfast nook all for one person.
So the Enterprise could house at least 4056 people in the Saucer alone.
Because Gene Roddenberry said "he didn't have the money" to pay for all the extras that he thought would be needed if the ship had 3,000 crew like Andy Probert suggested it would have.
I just pretend that there's 900 people handling actual operations, and a fluctuating compliment of science and mission specialists that just so happened to bring the net total to around 1,000 in the few times it was mentioned on screen, but is usually in the normal 2-3 thousand range.
The operating crew might be way smaller than that, if we trust the backstage idea that one USS Hera was a Nebula class vessel, that is, a starship equal to a Galaxy in size and almost identical in design. That vessel was lost with a crew of only 300+.
Of course, the Hera might "in fact" have been of a smaller ship type... And/or the fact that most of those 300+ crew were Vulcans meant that everybody was doing the job of two or three humans!
Timo Saloniemi
Of course, the Hera might "in fact" have been of a smaller ship type... And/or the fact that most of those 300+ crew were Vulcans meant that everybody was doing the job of two or three humans!
Timo Saloniemi
The crew complements of ships could vary and depend largely on what kind of mission an individual vessel is on. Perhaps some Galaxy-class ships had smaller crews than the Enterprise-D while others may have had larger (the same could probably said for sister ships of other designs too).
I think I read somewhere the Enterprise-D really had an actual crew complement of 800+ or so, but carried an additional 200+ civilians/passengers that were mostly spouses and children of various crewmembers.
Of those 800, maybe only a fraction--maybe a third perhaps--were actually involved in the day-to-day running and maintenance of the ship (operations, engineering, etc.,) with the rest being mission-related personnel. In that regard, it may be possible to run an entire Galaxy-class vessel with a minimal crew of no more than 300. Perhaps the Galaxys that participated in the Dominion War were operated with such skeleton crews...
I think I read somewhere the Enterprise-D really had an actual crew complement of 800+ or so, but carried an additional 200+ civilians/passengers that were mostly spouses and children of various crewmembers.
Of those 800, maybe only a fraction--maybe a third perhaps--were actually involved in the day-to-day running and maintenance of the ship (operations, engineering, etc.,) with the rest being mission-related personnel. In that regard, it may be possible to run an entire Galaxy-class vessel with a minimal crew of no more than 300. Perhaps the Galaxys that participated in the Dominion War were operated with such skeleton crews...
Well the Enterprise D could of course handle 10,000 or more crew if most of them slept "barracks" style with not much personal space. But the Ent D was a long range explorer that was designed to operate for long periods away from starbases and planetary installations. For that reason, 1000 crew could live and work on the ship in relative comfort (remember this figure includes families and children who are essentially passengers) as if they were living on a starbase.
Somebody count how many beds are on the blueprints.
And then bear in mind that those could all be bunkbeds! haha
And then bear in mind that those could all be bunkbeds! haha
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