Population Spacedock

[Arpy]

What are some of the different thoughts on how many people live on spacedock—or its maximum capacity? I’m watching a video about it now and the number 80,000 was given, but that seems low.

Also there are the two “spacedocks.” That from TSFS and the possibly larger Starbase 74 version from TNG’s “Remember Me,” if we’re not saying it’s the same design with bigger doors.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Link the video please.

 

[Arpy]

Link the video please.

It’s this one.

I’m new to his channel. Just watched the Andorian one too. Not bad—loved the four-sex stuff from the novels.

But yeah, the idea that Spacedock has the same population as Starbase 1 from SNW seems off to me.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Think about 80,000 people and how massive of a number that is.

My little small city within the suburbs of LA is 48,000 people.

Remember, this is 80,000 people dedicated to the operation & functions of 1x single StarBase.

A large stadium venue can easily seat 80,000 people.
The Largest that humanity has ever created in North Korea can seat 150,000 people.

Nearly everybody on that station is a trained StarFleet Officer with a dedicated job to do on each StarBase.

For reference IRL; Fort Liberty (FKA Fort Brag) is one of the US' largest Military Base:

Fort Liberty is the largest US Army base by population, serving a population of 47499 active-duty Soldiers, 51,564 Reserve Components and Temporary Duty students, 16,276 civilian employees, and Contractors, 71,960 active-duty family members. There are 125,278 Army retirees and family members in the area.

And we're talking in the 24th century with a fleet of advanced Automation to help aid every officer be more efficient along with a fleet of helper bots to do maintenance of docked StarFleet vessels.

So ~80k people for a single StarBase sounds very believable. That's probably not even counting any civilian contingent and support personnel that are from the Private Sector.

 

[Arpy]

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Note how few 1000 people actually are for a Galaxy Class starship. Spacedock is many many times larger, Starbase 74 larger still. These are truly cities in space (built over heavily-populated planets), and I could easily imagine their populations in the hundreds of thousands, with max capacities in the millions.

There's nothing canon numbers-wise.

Jackill puts the smaller version at 101,435 crew, with emergency capacity an additional 36,000+. That's a very small number given how little of his internal room space is labeled habitat. Must be if everyone had their own room. But if you had to evacuate the planet and asked people to camp in the corridors, it's easily in the millions.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

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I know, but that's a Galaxy Specific Problem.

Note how few 1000 people actually are for a Galaxy Class starship. Spacedock is many many times larger, Starbase 74 larger still. These are truly cities in space (built over heavily-populated planets), and I could easily imagine their populations in the hundreds of thousands, with max capacities in the millions.

There's nothing mentioning the Civilian Contengent of people who live on-board.

There's nothing canon numbers-wise.

Sadly

Jackill puts the smaller version at 101,435 crew, with emergency capacity an additional 36,000+. That's a very small number given how little of his internal room space is labeled habitat. Must be if everyone had their own room. But if you had to evacuate the planet and asked people to camp in the corridors, it's easily in the millions.

But a giant chunk of the internal volume of the station is for 0-G StarShip Parking/Repair.

 

[DEWLine]

And we're just talking about the ST3 version of Spacedock here.

 

[Tomalak]

The flip side is why would you need that many people permanently living on an orbital space station? Most of the internal volume is probably empty for starship hangers and cargo facilities, much of which are automated, in addition to the starbase’s own internal power and life support systems. How many people really need to live and work there? 80,000 seems a huge number to be doing… what exactly?

I would guess that personnel are transient or may live on the planet below. The core crew is probably quite small. Maximum capacity is a different question.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

The flip side is why would you need that many people permanently living on an orbital space station? Most of the internal volume is probably empty for starship hangers and cargo facilities, much of which are automated, in addition to the starbase’s own internal power and life support systems. How many people really need to live and work there? 80,000 seems a huge number to be doing… what exactly?

I would guess that personnel are transient or may live on the planet below. The core crew is probably quite small. Maximum capacity is a different question.

Remember, places like that are usually pretty busy and operate 24/7/365.

So you may need rotational shifts all the time to keep it going Round the Clock.

Spoiler: Different potential Shift Patterns for 24/7/365 operation

Given that there is no "Night-Time" in space, I'm a fan of 4x 6-Hr Shift Duty Cycle split amongst 7x Teams with a Work Week of 24 Hrs.
Out of a 39 Hr work week, that gives you 15 Hrs to train & improve yourself in your various sub-jobs/skills and be a better Specialist or Multi-Skill person depending on what kind of StarFleet Officer you want to evolve into.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I think 80,000 is from Discovery's first season, when Starbase 1 (of a different design) was taken by the Klingons and everyone killed.

 

[Arpy]

I know, but that's a Galaxy Specific Problem.

In which case there could be even more on spacedock.

There's nothing mentioning the Civilian Contengent of people who live on-board.

There are civilians on the Enterprise, and that’s far more dangerous and limited in resources. This is either a military base (many of which in the real world do include families) or a seaport or both.

But a giant chunk of the internal volume of the station is for 0-G StarShip Parking/Repair.

Parking, repair…Jackill includes huge open spaces for nature and long-range subspace communications apparatuses too. Even so it’s a huge amount of space easily accommodating hundreds of thousands.

And we're just talking about the ST3 version of Spacedock here.

Or both—why not? I’m not starting a separate thread for the other one.

The flip side is why would you need that many people permanently living on an orbital space station? …. How many people really need to live and work there? 80,000 seems a huge number to be doing… what exactly?

I would guess that personnel are transient or may live on the planet below. The core crew is probably quite small. Maximum capacity is a different question.

That’s a lot of transporting to the surface and back every shift. But I dunno, maybe. This is a design we’ve seen in heavily populated areas, not a lone outpost needing to be self-sufficient.

On the other hand when the one in PIC s3 was attacked it was holding the line by itself, so maybe I take that back.

 

[Arpy]

I’d love to explore more of its dual nature as a port as well as a military installation. If you think it’s more just that latter, what are civilian space stations like in the Trek future? What do you imagine they look like? What are their populations?

I can see independent ones as well as orbital components of cities on the ground. We’ve heard of the San Francisco Orbital Yards. What’s Orbital Philadelphia like? And completely new space cities…Avalon Station?

EDIT: …or Laputa One. (I could see that being a Daystrom annex or something lol)

 

[Tomalak]

One of the most prominent features is the huge antenna farm on the top of the mushroom, and another on the base. Clearly this thing is a massive communications hub for Earth as well as a starbase and drydock facility.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

In which case there could be even more on spacedock.

Part of which I'm assuming is a large civilian contingent of the Officer's families.

Didn't Mariner live on a StarBase when she was younger with her Parents?

There are civilians on the Enterprise, and that’s far more dangerous and limited in resources. This is either a military base (many of which in the real world do include families) or a seaport or both.

That was bad policy of it's "Golden Era" time to shove Civilians on a StarShip.

I can understand having families on StarBases circling a Habital Planet with a size-able Civilian Population & it's own Planetary Defense Grid that is fully independent and decoupled from the StarBase.

That would allow quick Transporter Evac in a Emergency.

Parking, repair…Jackill includes huge open spaces for nature and long-range subspace communications apparatuses too. Even so it’s a huge amount of space easily accommodating hundreds of thousands.

I agree, but I don't agree to the design choice of it being fully open, all it takes is one bad apple or a terrorist attack to wreck every starship inside the Mushroom Safe Harbor / Dock facility.
In my Head Canon for a upgraded Standardized StarBase in the 26th century, each MushRoom section is larger, but split into Upper/Lower Halves, and then into 6x Slices on each level with shared Ingress/Egress corridors on each level for a total of 12x seperated sections per large Ovaloid Mushroom-ish Saucer Section.

Or both—why not? I’m not starting a separate thread for the other one.


That’s a lot of transporting to the surface and back every shift. But I dunno, maybe. This is a design we’ve seen in heavily populated areas, not a lone outpost needing to be self-sufficient.

That's why the StarFleet Officer and it's civilian family members would live on the StarBase =D.

On the other hand when the one in PIC s3 was attacked it was holding the line by itself, so maybe I take that back.

StarBases of that caliber need to be designed like a Castle, it should be that damn tough.

StarBase 1 was able to withstand a Fleet bombarding it for nearly an hour.

That's IMPRESSIVE, no matter how you look at it, can the defenses be improved, yes; but that's a lesson for StarBase design in the future.

 

[Arpy]

That was bad policy of it's "Golden Era" time to shove Civilians on a StarShip.

This is not canon. For all we know there are more families onboard starships now than ever. And there might have been for a while before the Galaxy Class given those on the Miranda Class Saratoga.

Frankly, I like the idea. It’s something to aspire toward, not ever the cheese of Napoleaonic sea battles. Those are swell, but they don’t dazzle the imagination or inspire the spirit. Real space is exactly that: empty. Let’s pray we go out to explore on ships like the E-D, not something out of the Alien universe. Blech.

I agree, but I don't agree to the design choice of it being fully open, all it takes is one bad apple or a terrorist attack to wreck every starship inside the Mushroom Safe Harbor / Dock facility.

In my Head Canon for a upgraded Standardized StarBase in the 26th century, each MushRoom section is larger, but split into Upper/Lower Halves, and then into 6x Slices on each level with shared Ingress/Egress corridors on each level for a total of 12x seperated sections per large Ovaloid Mushroom-ish Saucer Section.

I don’t think spacedock is an open port. You probably have to go through a lot to get entry. Same for just approaching the solar system and planet. One lucky nova bomb on a cloaked ship, and it’s all over. I imagine there are sensor nets and prescribed routes with various levels of scanning to get into the most sensitive dock inside the station. After all, any antimatter explosion will have a far more catastrophic effect from the inside a structure.

…that said, I wonder if there isn’t an internal deflector grid along side the interior. If you open all the doors (especially that huge fanning floor under the entire docking area) that could mitigate a lot of the blast.

 

[Tomalak]

I would have thought Spacedock is also essentially Air Traffic Control for the Sol system, and Earth orbit in particular, so it will be dealing with all civilian traffic as well as Starfleet.

I don't see why civilian ships wouldn't have access to the facility, although probably in the lower docking bays rather than the mushroom.

We don't have many canon examples, but both DS9 and K-7 were open for civilians and even other powers' fleets.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Frankly, I like the idea. It’s something to aspire toward, not ever the cheese of Napoleaonic sea battles. Those are swell, but they don’t dazzle the imagination or inspire the spirit

A civilization at the level of any era of ST would take on missions accepting the possibility of conflict, so that is rather inseparable from the state of life traveling through deep space.

Real space is exactly that: empty. Let’s pray we go out to explore on ships like the E-D, not something out of the Alien universe. Blech.

Sections of the Nostromo interior are probably closer to far future space vehicles tech / living quarters than say, TNG's E-D, which always felt like a discarded set from The Love Boat.

 

[Arpy]

A civilization at the level of any era of ST would take on missions accepting the possibility of conflict, so that is rather inseparable from the state of life traveling through deep space.

Space is probably pretty empty in Trek as well. Didn't ships come back from multiyear missions without crazy shit happening, I seem to recall? Hell, even when the Federation was at war it wasn't really at war. They didn't go all out with the Talarians, the Cardassians, others. For the most part, they were regional issues requiring modest mobilization. Indeed, even when it was all out, they let deep space explorers like the Enterprise continue on their missions. That's the sci-fi of it, anyway, and I prefer it.

Sections of the Nostromo interior are probably closer to far future space vehicles tech / living quarters than say, TNG's E-D, which always felt like a discarded set from The Love Boat.

Nah, take a look at the Chinese space station vs. the ISS. Sleeker, more livable is the future, not sci-fi horror. True function over form.

 

[Unicron]

I don’t think spacedock is an open port. You probably have to go through a lot to get entry. Same for just approaching the solar system and planet. One lucky nova bomb on a cloaked ship, and it’s all over. I imagine there are sensor nets and prescribed routes with various levels of scanning to get into the most sensitive dock inside the station. After all, any antimatter explosion will have a far more catastrophic effect from the inside a structure.

…that said, I wonder if there isn’t an internal deflector grid along side the interior. If you open all the doors (especially that huge fanning floor under the entire docking area) that could mitigate a lot of the blast.

For my part, I rather like that Jackill assumes only a small number of spacedocks were built (due to their size and resource commitment), but they're rather heavily armed. The FASA supplement for TSFS assumed that spacedocks were generally unarmed with major weaponry, but did including 40 mounting hardpoints (10 per arc) for armament if it were considered necessary. The spacedock also has highly advanced shields, the strongest then available to Starfleet forces.

The supplement gives these figures for crew and population:

50,000 resident/occupational staff + 100,000 residential dependents (presumably families or civilians, in this context)
4,500 non-residential staff
20,000 (max) transient capacity

 

[Deks]

Think about 80,000 people and how massive of a number that is.

My little small city within the suburbs of LA is 48,000 people.

Remember, this is 80,000 people dedicated to the operation & functions of 1x single StarBase.

Actually, I think 80,000 people would be comprised of both SF and civilian populations.
A starbase IS an orbital habitat after all.
I think that only about 10-25% of the 80,000 would probably be dedicated to the operation and function of the starbase itself - especially when you take into account the fact that even with orbital habitats that were presented in 1970-ies for NASA based on O'neil Cylinder and Bernal Sphere which could house up to 100,000 people... with higher levels of automation for THOSE designs in place, you'd need about 15-25% of the population dedicated to the operation and function.

Remember DS9?
The Starfleet contingent there was far smaller compared to the general population.
The total population of DS9 was around 2,000 people. Of this, SF personnel numbered in a few hundred at most.

I suspect the ratio would be similar on Spacedock type starbases... just much larger given its sheer size.