EmperorTiberius said:
It's also worth mentioning that a ship like Nova can't have better and more scientific equipment than a Galaxy when you look at their volumes. I mean, look at the main sensor array on galaxy and on nova...entire nova could fit inside that deflector. Galaxy class is 1/4 empty, tons of room for future upgrades and additional equipment. Nova class is jammed.
Actually, I think the Nova-class
does have better and more scientific equipment than a Galaxy-class because it's
dedicated science vessel. I believe that the big module on its forward primary hull is one gigantic sensor array rather. A Galaxy-class is big because, even though it's primary mission is exploration, it's really a big multipurpose long-range cruiser that needs that size for missions that aren't scientific in nature. Like with phaser arrays, a Galaxy-class may have
more or
bigger sensor arrays because it needs to cover any blindspots it may have because of its bigger size, but I would argue that the Nova-class sensors are more powerful and that is a key factor in the design.
Overkill? How many people does it take to survey--let alone explore--an ENTIRE PLANET? How many scientists are there in a United Federation of Planets with a population of around a quarter of a trillion?
It's not necessary to have 10,000 scientists in one place at one time. Various small scientific teams can be deployed to survey an ENTIRE PLANET over a long period of time.
Logistically speaking, you are incorrect even by Federation standards.
Not true at all. That's just your opinion on the subject and is no more valid than mine.
Unless--and only unless--the only points of interest on the entire planet are within a few hours walk of wherever it is the away team decides to beam down (as depicted in most TOS and a few TNG episodes).
A science vessel will only need to go to specific places of interest. It's not necessary to
literally scour the entire planet, but several different sites can be chosen that can provided a good example of the different environments of the entire planet.
Otherwise, any kind of survey fast enough to be completed in "a few months" would not require an away mission of any type and therefore could just as easily be conducted from orbit by a series of probes.
It may not even require a series of probes if the scans can be conducted from orbit, but if something interesting does pop up, then it'll be necessary to send down a small team to check it out. And this does seem to be Starfleet's policy.
The only reason to send exploration vessels to check out a planet is the need to have people land there and check it out. And it IS a need, or else they wouldn't bother doing it.
Which is why there are vessels assigned to exploration missions in Starfleet.
Since a given human is only a few feet tall, and since a tricorder only has a range of few miles or more (and then is only used to guide humans to up-close observation of a given phenomenon) then you have a survey team exploring a planet with a surface area of around 35,000 square kilometers. If you beamed all ten thousand researchers to separate parts of the planet, they could conduct their entire mission without ever seeing each other.
It still doesn't require nowhere remotely near 10,000 researchers to do all that (or at least definitely not on one mission). A science vessel of 80 can send small teams to various points of interests for more close-up studies and to collect samples while the ship scans the rest of the planet from orbit and the science personnel still onboard can analyze that data.
Essentially, a science vessel is one big warp-capable sensor array. It has more onboard facilities dedicated to scientific investigations and research than most ships, but it's principle role is that of a data collector that can be deployed for weeks or even months longer than a larger ship can.
To paraphrase a common argument on these boards: planets are BIG. Twenty guys with tricorders and a science kit will not be able to explore the entire thing in detail in anything less than a geologic age.
I disagree. That's just
way underestimating the capabilities of sensors and other scientific technology that the Federation has at it's disposal. And as I said earlier, it's not necessary to explore the entire thing, but just enough of it to get a really good example of the conditions of a planet. At some point, it's gotta be
"you've seen one M-class planet, you've seen 'em all," so analyzing every square inch of a planet doesn't have to be conducted RIGHT THEN AND THERE. That information can be brought back to a starbase or deposited into the Federation database for more comprehensive studies by the larger scientific community.
Of course, I am saying all this with the assumption that Starfleet has some concrete REASON to do all this exploration other than infantile curiosity (prelude to colonization, searching for life form data on specific types of plants and animals, comparative genetics, paleontology, biochemistry and evolutionary studies), all of which would necessitate examination of almost every corner of the planet for a full collection of datapoints, and even then that examination will take a considerable amount of time--sometimes several weeks examining the behavior and diet of a single species--just to compile.
Which would necessitate follow-up surveys if necessary.
This is not a job for a little pipsqueak Oberth with some orbital scans and a two-man landing party.
Well, in Star Trek III, the
Grissom was only to conduct scans of the Genesis planet from orbit but when they discovered something unusual on the surface, Captain Esteban authorized only a two-man team to check that specific object out.
You don't send science vessels into uncharted territory. That's what cruisers are for.
Which brings us back to my original post about smaller science vessels following the larger trailblazers to conduct the more lengthy follow-up scientific surveys.
That doesn't require nowhere near 10,000 researchers to survey just one planet though. It's not the 16th-Century, and given that that the wealth of knowledge of planets is already considerable by the time of Federation, individual planetary surveys don't require a large staff with the advanced scientific instrumentation they have at their disposal.
Heh... given the amount of information we have on our OWN planet, it can still take several months or years just to conduct botanical surveys on terrestrial continents we have already been exploring for years. Starfleet technology is more advanced, but NOT so advanced that they no longer need to send people to physically land on a planet and take samples. There is still lab work to be done, specimens to be collected and organized, surveillance work, core samples, aerial surveys, tracking of movement patterns, tracking of distribution patterns, and staff and technicians to support all of these operations while they are in progress. If anything it should take MORE people than it does today, with the greater amount of things they know how to look for and the greater number of questions they'll have to answer. The lab complex on a vessel designed for this task would easily fill the Enterprise-D's main shuttlebay.
Which is why a science vessel's primary purpose is really data collection and initial research. It can do that longer and more extensively than a larger cruiser can, but ultimately it's job is to bring that data back so it can be researched further back home.
And like I alluded to earlier, there can always be return follow-up missions, so it's not necessary to have almost every scientist in the Federation present at one time to survey just one planet.
You think there are only 10,000 scientists in the entire Federation?
No, but less than 80 are needed to collect enough data on a single planet. 9,920 scientists can stay right where they are eating replicated popcorn and work on the data collected by the science ship.
I tend to agree about the Intrepid-class being a multimission cruiser in the same way that the Constiution-class was. But larger ships (specifically cruisers and explorers) also need to be larger to carry personnel in the case they are needed to serve as personnel transports or for appropriately-scaled evacuation missions from stricken worlds, outposts, or other disabled vessels.
True that. And the Galaxy Class should be alot more self-sufficient than it is, given the logic of having the crew's families on board (requireing deeper excursions into space that won't be backed up by a second visit for another five to ten years at least). In this context, Q's throwing Enterprise into J25 should have been interpreted as a mere "Crap, we weren't scheduled to survey THIS system now... how inconvenient."
I actually think that was the context in that episode. Q sent them somewhere they weren't ready to go to just yet.
But I also think that the
Enterprise-D was somewhat atypical of a Galaxy-class ship (because of her status as the Federation flagship) and that her sister ships did generally operate farther from home on deep-space exploration missions, at least until they were needed back for the Dominion War...
