franchise-star-trek-tng-technical-manual1

HMHIlffli'lllMiMliaiifflllllffi16.5 RESCUE AND EVAC OPERATIONSRescue and evacuation operations generally fall into twocategories, rescue and evacuation to the ship, and evacuationfrom the ship. The former will generally involve transportfrom another ship or a planetary surface. The latter willgenerally involve removal of the ship's company to anothership, a planetary surface, or into space.RESCUE SCENARIOSResources available for rescue and evacuation to theship include:• Ability to transport up to 1,000 persons per hour to theship via personnel transporters.• Availability of five personnel shuttlecraft on immediatestandby and up to six additional shuttles available on twelvehournotice. Additional shuttle vehicles may be available dependingon other mission requirements and maintenancestatus. Total transport capacity of these vehicles varies withrange and other factors, but averages 250 persons per hourfrom Class M planetary surfaces to standard orbit.• Capacity to support up to 15,000 evacuees withconversion of shuttlebays and cargo bays to emergency livingaccommodations.• Ability to convert secondary shuttlebays and Holodeckareas to emergency medical triage and treatment centers.Cross-training of sufficient starship personnel to handle suchsituations.• Ability for short-term conversion of Shuttlebay 3 toClass H, K, or L environmental conditions.range and other factors, but averages 250 persons per hourfrom standard orbit to a Class M planetary surface.• Abandon-ship protocols include use of ASRV (autonomoussurvival and recovery vehicle) lifeboats, which providefree space survival accommodations for up to 1,400 individualsfor up to fourteen days. A total of four hundred ASRVs areavailable (See: 16.4).• In a lesser emergency in either the Saucer Module orthe Stardrive Section, the saucer separation maneuver is anoption, with evacuation of the ship's company to whicheversection is not affected by the crisis. Evacuation protocolsinclude options to leave behind a team of engineering personnelor other specialists who will attempt to deal with the emergencysituation.• Environmental suits are available for evacuation intothe space environment. In such scenarios, personnel mayexit through any of the exterior airlocks, through the shuttlebays,orthroughtheexteriorturbolift couplings (assuming thatthe turbolift system has been disabled). Environmental suitsare available in storage lockers at all exit ports and shuttlebays,as well as in emergency equipment lockers located incorridor storage modules located throughout the habitablevolume of the spacecraft.• Many exterior windows are also equipped with emergencyrelease mechanisms that will permit direct exterior access.These emergency release mechanisms, located nearthe base of most windows, are enabled only in the event ofatmospheric pressure loss, power loss, certain Red Alertscenarios, and only if personnel within that contiguous compartmentare protected with environmental suits.ABANDON-SHIP SCENARIOSResources available for abandon-ship scenarios include:• Ability to transport up to 1,850 persons per hour from theship via personnel transporters, including the use of emergencybeam-out-only transporters.• Availability of five personnel shuttlecraft on immediatestandby and up to six additional shuttles available on twelvehournotice. Additional shuttle vehicles may be available dependingon other mission requirements and maintenancestatus. Total transport capacity of these vehicles varies withWe were consulting with writer Lee Sheldon, who wanted to know how long it would take the Enterprise to evacuate the entirepopulation of a planet for the episode "Devil's Due." Based on maximum rates mentioned here, we estimated that thetransporters and shuttlecraft could bring approximately 1,250 persons per hour to the ship. It would therefore take about twelvehours to bring up 15,000 people, the theoretical maximum. If they were taking these people to a planet five light years awayat Warp 9, it would take about forty-eight hours for the round trip. Adding twenty-four hours for loading and off-loading, thiswould a verage out to about 200 people an hour. If the planet had four billion inhabitants, it would therefore take the Ente rpriseabout 1,900 years to evacuate everyone, assuming they lived that long. (Melinda Bell points out that things would be madeeven worse if they had children.)