Science Staffs and Labs

[Talondor]

It has always been assumed during Star Trek, TNG, that the Enterprise had a rather large resident science staff (including, I assume, assistants/interns), as well as a number of laboratories. Plus the ability to take on many guest scientists. But I do not recall anything on the show saying how many, nor the number of labs. Nor is there anything on the Galaxy class specs page, nor the other explorer-types, the Sovereigns, Nebulas, and Lunas.

Has anything ever been said about the size of the Enterprise's science department? Or the other explorer-types.

[Graham Kennedy]

From Operation - Annhilate! :

KIRK : "I can't accept that, Bones. We've got fourteen science labs aboard this ship! The finest equipment and computers in the galaxy!"

So fourteen labs on a Constitution class.

From Suspicions :

DATA : "Such a pulse could be initiated from the lateral sensor arrays, science labs one, four, and sixteen, or any of the bridge science stations."

Meaning they have at least sixteen science labs on a Galaxy class. Probably more.

Given that a Galaxy class is a good eight or so times the size of a Connie, I'd expect it to have up to 112 labs. Or of course, fewer but larger ones. Spock would surely be very impressed with the size and number of facilities, let alone the high tech equipment.

[Mikey]

resident science staff (including, I assume, assistants/interns)

Not so sure about those inclusions. The resident science staff - i.e., apart from guest researchers, civilian mission specialists, etc. - seemed to all be Starfleet. There wouldn't be an resident interns, TA's or the like; rather any particular lab or department would be headed by the highest-ranking officer in that department, assisted by an inferior staff of varying ranks (and possibly enlisted personnel, though the show has left that bit terribly unclear.)

[McAvoy]

Also the ship as large as it is carries a rather small crew relative to its size. I would imagine not every lab would be in use all the time.

Also if I remember the one episode where Picard falls in love with a scientist in one of the labs, these labs can be energy draining where it has to be done in the 'slow' times of the day.

[Graham Kennedy]

We know from a line Troi used that a good part of the ship isn't even used at all. In Liasions Troi notes that deck 8 is an "unfinished" deck which can be used to fit an extra lab.

The TNG Tech manual claims that the Galaxy class ships were launched with whopping 35% of their internal volume empty or unused, to give lots of room for future upgrades.

And in DS9, the producers said that during the Dominion War there were "War Galaxies" which skipped the holodecks, most of the crew quarters, and science labs - just included what they needed to fight. Whilst it's weird to imagine a ship that was probably something like 75% empty, the production time of such ships would be massively reduced.

[Teaos]

A war Galaxy could be a true beast. Multiple times the strength of the ENT-D.

[Bryan Moore]

I always found the power (both energy and processing power) distribution from the Enterprise to be somewhat troubling. Obviously it made for a good plot point, having to divert power from System A to System B through Subsystems C, D, E, and Q - but if we are to believe only 1/3 of the Galaxy interior is used and the labs still require enough processing power and actual energy to be used primarily on "off" hours, what would happen if the ship would run.

My current company has about 350,000 sq foot of refrigerated and frozen space, and previously I'd worked in a frozen warehouse nearly twice that size - both of which draw so much energy that a complete shutdown and restart would completely fark the power grid for miles around, enough so that we do a "rolling cool down" of our units during peak times of the summer, slowly powering them down and back on. Even then, no engineer would ever build a building with the understanding a large percentage of the building could not be powered on at the same time. Moreover, who would design a computer network that could only operate if 2/3 of the total staff in the building was on it at any given time.

I get the stretch comparison, but the question really may be "How many labs can the Enterprise sustain?"

[Graham Kennedy]

If we're talking about Lessons, nobody ever said that they didn't have enough power for anything. The issue appeared to be shutting systems down to eliminate sources of interference, possibly along with wanting all the computer processing power.


PICARD: I'd like to talk to Doctor Mowray at his archaeological site on Landris Two. Could you put it through to my Ready room?
DATA: I'm sorry, sir, but Stellar Cartography has requested a communications blackout while they run an experiment.
PICARD: How long will it be?
DATA: Another three hours twenty two minutes, sir. I can override it if necessary.
PICARD: No, it's not important.
DATA: Aye, sir.

[Ready room]

PICARD: Computer, display the latest excavation schematics on Landris Two.
COMPUTER: Library computer is temporarily offline.
PICARD: Explain.
COMPUTER: Library systems have been allocated to Stellar Cartography.
PICARD: Tea, Earl Grey. Hot.
COMPUTER: Replicator systems are offline at the request of
PICARD + COMPUTER: Stellar Cartography.
PICARD: What could they possibly be doing down there?

...

NELLA: I'm sorry if the system blackouts we requested inconvenienced you. We're taking very precise gravimetric readings. It wouldn't have taken much to throw them off.


I find it very easy to believe that an experiment might require extra processing power; even right now there are many tasks that will eat up pretty much as much processing power as you can get, and running a giant mathematical model of a star certainly sounds like one of them.

And if you are expanding the number of labs in a refit, adding extra computing power would be relatively easy. If the real world is anything to go by, even just replacing the computer cores they have with modern ones would provide far more capability, and there's certainly room in the hull for extra cores.

[IanKennedy]

I didn't think that those systems where off line because the power was required to run the experiment only that they may cause interference that would prevent them from getting accurate readings. That seems to be very clear from "We're taking very precise gravimetric readings. It wouldn't have taken much to throw them off." She dosen't say it wouldn't be possible to take readings, but that they would be thrown off, ie inaccurate.

[sunnyside]

It has always been assumed during Star Trek, TNG, that the Enterprise had a rather large resident science staff (including, I assume, assistants/interns).

I was going to say that, given their mission profile, it doesn't seem very practical to have interns, however the Galaxy class had all those families. Given the years of operation I wouldn't be surprised if some kids got old enough to take those limited roles, and parents initially involved in child care may also have become free to engage in such pursuits.

I'm a little fuzzy on how much of the lab staff were civilians or Starfleet. Certainly some civilians were present on the ship though.

[Mikey]

Civilians were certainly present, but except for "guest lecturers" or temporary civilian mission specialists (Dr. Paul Stubbs, e.g., comes to mind,) it doesn't seem that any were attached as staff to the standing departments of the ship.

[Griffin]

..


PICARD: I'd like to talk to Doctor Mowray at his archaeological site on Landris Two. Could you put it through to my Ready room?
DATA: I'm sorry, sir, but Stellar Cartography has requested a communications blackout while they run an experiment.
PICARD: How long will it be?
DATA: Another three hours twenty two minutes, sir. I can override it if necessary.
PICARD: No, it's not important.
DATA: Aye, sir.

[Ready room]

PICARD: Computer, display the latest excavation schematics on Landris Two.
COMPUTER: Library computer is temporarily offline.
PICARD: Explain.
COMPUTER: Library systems have been allocated to Stellar Cartography.
PICARD: Tea, Earl Grey. Hot.
COMPUTER: Replicator systems are offline at the request of
PICARD + COMPUTER: Stellar Cartography.
PICARD: What could they possibly be doing down there?

...

You’d have thought these would be the sort of things you’d tell the captain about in advance.

[Talondor]

<<<You’d have thought these would be the sort of things you’d tell the captain about in advance.>>>

It was done in the middle of the night, if I recall, when only the night staff would be up and only the most primary systems would be needed. Data knew, and being chief of the night staff that was probably all that was needed.

[Graham Kennedy]

I would have thought it would be something the operations manager would authorise. It's supposed to be his or her job to allocate the ship's resources.

[Griffin]

It was meaning less about authorisation and more, "we're turning off the ships ability to send and receive messages" is a state of affairs I feel the captain maybe should have been made aware of. Though I’ll admit I don’t remember anything about this episode (I’m not even sure that I’ve even seen it now that I mention it) so I’m probably getting the wrong end of the stick here.