Re: starship-design: crew

[jon_jay1@juno.com (Jonathan J Jay)]

I was looking through some old e-mails, and I thought this might be worth
talking about. 

On Sun, 22 Mar 1998 21:17:03 Lindberg  writes:
>I was thinking about crew distribution on a decades long interstellar
>exploratory voyage for which the crew would not hibernate.  Medical 
>and
>mental health services would obviously need to be totally
>self-contained.  Combatting boredom would be a major challenge during
>the entire voyage except the exploration of the destination starsystem. 
>maintaining excellent health would be imperative during the entire
>voyage, especially before arrival. 
>	with that in mind, i worked up a crew distribution chart for a 
>
>hypothetical crew with 1000 crewmen who are science, engineering,
>command, maintenance, and other "mission related" types. the following
>are the "auxiliary" crew.  
>8 surgeons, 15 nurses, 3 anesthetists
>1 oncologist (cancer may be a greater risk in spaceflight due to
>radiation, closed air systems, chemical exposure, etc.)

If you believe cancer could be a problem, I advise you take at least 2.
If there were 
any catastrophic damages, or otherwise, life threatening happenings on
the ship
and one was lost, you need another.

>2 internists
>2 dentists, 2 dental assistants
>1 veterinarian (because of the benefits to morale, physical health, 
>and mental health, i favor having pets on board...comments anyone?)

I would favor pets, also, but for storages sake, I believe we shouldn't
take
what we personally would not need, e.g. dog or cat food.

>20 psychologists/psychiatrists
>5 exercise coaches
>4 recreation specialists (this and the two above may be combined)
>3 nutritionists/chefs, 3 sous chefs, 15 commies (frequent social 
>dining alternated with meals in quarters will boost morale)
>3 barbers, 2 security guards, clergy as necessary. = total 1092
>	The above list has errors, omissions, excesses, and big flaws. 
>
>However, it is interesting to note that the "auxiliary staff" increased 
>crew size by 9%.  Accounting for the positions i forgot may add 
>another few %.  Reducing the number of auxiliary staff seems a
> worthwhile activity, but on the other hand, certain positions (such 
>as the doctors and nurses) must be redundant because the cost 
>of losing them is so high.  One solution is to have the existing crew 
>train others for their position during the voyage.  this has the
advantage 
>of increasing redundancy as well as relieving boredom a little. Perhaps
>other solutions exist as well.

It is agreeable that others should be trained during the voyage, but as
you
wrote earlier in the message, this is decades long. Taking others on the 
voyage would not be appropriate because, again, you would take more
food than needed. If you think they should stay out of hibernation during
this, most likely, many others will be born during the trip. A generation
ship
is more plausible because you could train the children when they become
of age. If they didn't want to work on the ship, well, it may help the
parents
with moral,or maybe not. It's a matter of opinion.

>Nels Lindberg

Jonathan Jay

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