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» Flare Sci-Fi Forums » Star Trek » Starships & Technology » Large-Scale Interplanetary Evacuations, or, Dan Wastes a Sunday Afternoon (Page 1)

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Author Topic: Large-Scale Interplanetary Evacuations, or, Dan Wastes a Sunday Afternoon
MinutiaeMan
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Most of us probably are already familiar with the evacuation capabilities of the Galaxy-class starship, thanks to the TNG:TM's excellent and detailed specs on that subject. (For those not in the know: 15,000 people total, up to 1,250 people per hour, using all transporters and shuttlecraft.)

But as I was browsing one site about older TOS-era fandom ships this afternoon, I came across this very strange reference. Because it's from the description of the Mann class, I assume that it's a quote from the "Spaceflight Chronology."
quote:
"...the largest spacelift in Federation history, where the over ten million inhabitants of Bayard's Planet were successfully evacuated."
What the heck? How could this kind of massive migration be possible, even in a not-quite-urgent time scale (say, a month before the planet's core completely disintegrates or whatever)? Even if there were a suitable Class-M planet only 5 light-years away (an optimistic assumption under some circumstances), that seems like a pretty massive undertaking!

If we started with a Galaxy-class starship as a baseline, here's what we'd get:
  • 1.2 days, one-way travel at Warp 9 (TNG scale) over 5 light-years
  • 12 hours to bring evacuees aboard, at 1,250 people per hour and 15,000 person limit
  • 7.14 hours to deposit evacuees on receiving planet, at 2,100 people per hour (using one-way ship evacuation transporters at an additional 850 people per hour
That gives us a total round-trip figure of 3.2 days, for a single Galaxy-class starship.

But... what about the TOS era? Based on what we've seen in TOS, they required more people to run a smaller-sized ship. And based on FJ's deck plans (conveniently available online), there may not be as much space that can be set aside for evacuees. I'm going to go with the (IMO generous) assumption that a starship in Kirk's time could evacuate up to 7 times its crew complement (as opposed to the Galaxy's 15).

That means that a Constitution-class starship could evacuate up to 3,010 people per trip. Let's go back to those statistics I gave earlier, shall we?
  • 3.6 days, one-way travel at Warp 8 (TOS scale) over 5 light-years
  • 1.9 hours to bring evacuees aboard, at 1,560 people per hour and 3,010 person limit **
  • Less than one hour to deposit evacuees on receiving planet (using one-way ship evacuation transporters at an additional 3,960 people per hour
**Assumptions:
  • The ship's four 6-pad personnel transporters can handle one transport load every minute, for a total of 1,440 people per hour.
  • The ship's 6 shuttlecraft can each carry an overload of 10 people at a time, making a round trip in 30 minutes, for a total of 120 people per hour.
  • The three 22-person one-way evacuation transporters can handle a load every minute, for a total of 3,960 people per hour.
That gives us a round-trip figure of approximately 3.75 days for a single Constitution-class starship. But, considering the Constitution's much lower evac capacity, it would take 5 trips to match a Galaxy's capabilities.

Then I remembered FJ's Ptolemy-class tug with the double passenger pods. In that configuration, it would have an evac capacity of 8,540 people (3,500 in each pod, and 1,540 in the Ptolemy itself), and they could move an additional 4,320 people per hour with each pod's six independent personnel transporters. That would require 1.35 hours to beam everyone up (no shuttlecraft available), and again less than an hour to beam everyone down (since the evac transporters can again be employed, and there's access between each of the pods and the tug).

So, a Ptolemy so configured would only require 2 round trips to match a Galaxy's capabilities. With the same round-trip figure of 3.75 days (assuming that a Ptolemy can maintain Warp 8 with two overloaded transport containers, but just accept that for the moment) would mean 7.5 days to move 17,080 people.

Now, if we're moving a total of 10 million people, that will still require a total of 589 separate runs, back and forth to move everyone! Because I have nothing else to do on this lazy Sunday afternoon, I'm going to work out the various combinations of ships:

Time Required to Evacuate 10 Milllion People
Ships  # Runs   Total Days

1 589 2209 d (6.05 y)
2 294.5 1104 d (3.02 y)
3 196.33 736.25 d (2.02 y)
4 147.5 552.2 d (1.51 y)
5 117.8 441.75 d (1.21 y)
6 98.17 368 d (1.01 y)
7 84.14 315 d (10.5 mo)
8 73.625 276 d (9.20 mo)
9 65.44 245 d (8.17 mo)
10 58.9 221 d (7.36 mo)
Now, I think we can all agree that having the Ptolemys perform the evacuation may be extremely unlikely under certain circumstances. And that doesn't even account for the fact that this 10-million-person evacuation probably took place in the 2210's or so, almost fifty years before the Ptolemy came into service. Therefore, even with a whole raftload of ships, even if they had similar evacuation capacities and warp speed capabilities, it would take an incredibly long time to complete that evacuation!

Does anyone have any more about this "Bayard's Planet" incident they were talking about? I ran a quick search on Google, and the only reference I found was in Alex Rosenzweig's non-canon timeline, which gives a date of 2197 and attributes the reason for evacuation to a supernova shockwave (a real-life threat), which certainly could give the ships sufficient time to evacuate. But, conversely, the ships would need to take the evacuees a LOT farther away to escape the supernova's shockwave. (Confusingly, that timeline also says that the Zakdorn had to evacuate their homeworld, which had to have had a MUCH bigger population than just ten million! Yeesh, that's why I'm not fond of most fandom works... except the ones I like, of course. [Wink] )

At any rate, this seems like a case of sci-fi hyperbole taken to an illogical extreme. Or am I just screwing up my calculations? Alternative opinions would be appreciated.

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Grokca
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They only managed to get 2 babies and a dog off Krypton. Oh and a shunken city, perhaps they shrank all the inhabitants.

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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
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they used Rigellian ships to help.. they were huge..

fandom helps itself out

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Mountain Man
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Possibly the planet in question had a fleet of commercial star craft of its own. Converted ore haulers, private cargo vessels, even research ships.
They might also have used tractor beams to haul away habitat type life boats made from cargo containers.
Also alien allies from nearby systems could have lent a hand. I don't think the Federation Fleet in one sector could do the job by itself but their powerfull ships, including the tugs and cargo vessels, could help by hauling away the container lifeboats and other interplanetary cargo craft.
I'm not sure but I think as long as another vessel is within the Warp field it can be towed a Warp speed at least for a relativly short distance.

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Jason Abbadon
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Little known fact:
The inhabitants of Bayard's Planet were successfully evacuated because they were all the size of GI JOE figures (3.75" tall).


Another possibity is that several Mann class ships were used in tandem to transport the inhabitants to the nearest planet in that system (say as close as Mars to earth).
At high warp speeds and using transporters, it could be done.
It all depends on the timeframe, number of ships used, location of the nearest planet and he nature of the emergency.
A asteroid could be detected months or years in advance for example. [Wink]

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Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering.
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Mountain Man
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Damn all my G.I. joes are the Big ones.One foot tall. I guess I'll throw them away since they are out dated and too big for transporters.

They have that backward thumb to. They must be defective. All those uniforms and accessories will have to go also since they won't fit the late model Joes.

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Masao
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I think the big time waster in this situation is the 5-ly round trip to drop people off. The main thing is to get people off the planet. Once they are in space, they can be moved around much more easily.Once I got people off the surface, I put them someplace safe, perhaps a large space station or transport containers parked closer than 5 light years. Any natural phenom is not going to move faster than light speed, so putting everyone a light year away will give you plenty of time to get away later.

If I were moving 10 million people I'd use any many ships as I could find.

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Mountain Man
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Hey Masao that is one very nice web site. I've seen it before. great information and pictures. Good job!
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Jason Abbadon
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Mann class ship names include:
USS You The Mann
USS Big Mann
USS Superman


Ah, I can hear the cries of the people of Bayard's Planet now: "Save us Supermann!!!"

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Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering.
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Masao
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quote:
Originally posted by Mountain Man:
Hey Masao that is one very nice web site. I've seen it before. great information and pictures. Good job!

Thanks. I aim to please.

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Mark Nguyen
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But there are lots of phenomena that can move faster than light in Trek. Rifts, nexii, giant space lemons...

Mark

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Timo
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Agreed with Masao that round trips aren't the only way to calculate this. Just get the people off the surface. If the evacuation is going to take a year or more anyway, it would probably be best to *build* a lot of ships, each capable of the minimum speed needed to run from the Space Bogie and holding together for the duration of the evac trip, nothing more.

I thought the Ptolemies would be introduced in the 2220s already? Or the 2240s, if we want to maintain they were contemporary to the first Constitutions, and those in turn were launched when Okuda sez. In any case, I trust Vulcans and others would have comparable or superior vessels aplenty.

Timo Saloniemi

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MinutiaeMan
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Well, the question would then be whether Starfleet can afford to divert so many ships, even for such a massive humanitarian mission.

I really don't think that anything other than a round trip would be practical, because that means so many more ships would be needed. And a space station just wouldn't be practical -- unless you conveniently had one positioned just in the right spot, there'd be no difference between it and a planet anyway. Besides, unless it were one of those big Spacedock-type stations, I sincerely doubt that it could handle such a huge influx of refugees.

I'm thinking about an obvious analogy, the Berlin Airlift of 1948-1949. Why was it considered one of the greatest movements of cargo in history? Probably not because of the actual volume of material moved (I'm not too familiar with the actual logistics, but compared to the shipping in World War II itself, probably not quite that much), but rather because of the length of time that it went on and the political reasons for its launch.

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Jason Abbadon
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Put all those people into EVA suits, beam 'em into space, use the tractor beam to give them some velocity towards their destination and let starships pick 'em up them before they starve or asphixiate.

Kinda the sporty way to do it. [Wink]

With top notch starship crews, you'd only lose mabye 50-60,000.
No one'll even miss 'em! [Big Grin]

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Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering.
-Aeschylus, Agamemnon

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Masao
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quote:
Originally posted by Jason Abbadon:
Put all those people into EVA suits, beam 'em into space, use the tractor beam to give them some velocity towards their destination and let starships pick 'em up them before they starve or asphixiate.

Kinda the sporty way to do it. [Wink]

With top notch starship crews, you'd only lose mabye 50-60,000.
No one'll even miss 'em! [Big Grin]

I think we have a winner!!!

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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum

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