franchise-star-trek-tng-technical-manual1

10.7 SCIENCE DEPARTMENT OPS10.7 SCIENCE DEPARTMENT OPSThe Enterprise is equipped to support a number of researchteams whose assignments are designed to takeadvantage of the fact that the ship is a mobile researchplatform whose assignments will take it through a very largevolume of space. Such secondary research missions typicallyinclude stellar mapping and observation projects, planetarysurveys, interstellar medium studies, cultural and lifeformstudies.These secondary mission teams must necessarily focustheir work on stars and planets near primary mission sites, butthe broad operating range of the Enterprise makes this an extraordinaryopportunity to study a large number of celestialobjects. As with other investigation teams, secondary researchprojects are generally developed by Starfleet researchersor affiliated university and industrial scientists, andassigned to the Enterprise for either short-term or ongoinginvestigations.The Galaxy class starship in extended mission configurationincludes facilities to support approximately twentyspecialized mission teams, depending on team sizes andtypes of investigations being conducted. These facilitiesinclude living accommodations for up to 225 people, as wellas nonspecialized laboratory and work spaces that can beconfigured for specific investigator requirements. Additionally,some forty sensor pallet assignments on the lateralarrays are reserved for mission-specific instrumentation, whichcan be installed and modified as needed. Similarly, somefifteen instrument mounting positions within the long-rangearray cluster are available for mission-specific investigations.Each individual department or investigation team is responsiblefor the operation of its own observations andexperiments. Because secondary mission investigations areby definition subordinate to primary mission requirements,these teams must remain flexible in their operations. Nonetheless,each department or team is responsible for providinga regular update of operational preferences to the OperationsManager so that daily mission profiles can be designed tosatisfy as many departmental needs as possible.Our property masters, Joe Longo and Alan Sims, and theirassistant Charlie Russo, have come up with a fairly amazingarray of scientific hand tools. Many of these have beendesigned by Rick, but one that was not was the "spectralanalyzer" used in the geology laboratory in "Pen Pals." Fansof the movie Buckaroo Banzai may have recognized it as theoscillation overthruster, still eluding the clutches of the evil redLectroids. Another Buckaroo reference in Star Trek was thebridge dedication plaque on the starship Excelsior in StarTrek VI, which bore the motto, "No matter where you go, thereyou are."Department headPrincipalinvestiqatorrmcipalwestiq a torStafftechnicianStafftechnicianStafftechnicianMissionspecialistMissionspecialistStafftechnicianStafftechnicianMissiontechnicianUSS Enterprise crew personnel \ Attached personnel (short-term assignments)10.7.1 Organization of a typical science department