starship-design: Numbers needed for Colonization

["L. Parker" <lparker@cacaphony.net>]

New comparison list incorporating changes by Kelly

(1)	Nuclear aircraft carriers can remain at sea for lengths of time
equivalent to the missions we are talking about. Few other vessels can.
(2)	Aircraft carriers are capable of significant maintenance and repair
while under way. However, aircraft carriers have shore support nearby in an
emergency, a starship won't. Even carriers need to come in to port for major
servicing ever few months (and have tons of spare parts flown out to them)
and every few years (usually ten to fifteen)they need a dry dock rework.
Carriers still aren't big enough to make all their needed supplies, parts,
etc. with their crew of 10,000.
(3)	Aircraft carriers have a similar size of crew complement. How many
barbers are necessary for a crew of ten thousand? Dentists? Grocers?
Seamstresses? Basically, we need to send a small city with all of its many
occupations.
(4)	The (dry) mass of the vessels is probably also comparable.
(5)	Unlike aircraft carriers, ALL water and food and spare parts must be
aboard initially. Kelly established that for the mission duration's we are
typically talking about, it was more economical to store all food rather
than plan on growing any onboard.
(6)	Carriers have fleets of craft, which would be needed to explore a star
system.

Lee