A Space Crew

Ok so I have a starship whose job is to transport cryogenically frozen colonist to a new planet. The idea is that a crew will be awake to monitor the colonists and to prepare them for their job (creating new strains of wheat, maintaing terraforming equipment etc.) Now, because of the length of time it would take to reach said planet, the crew members work for as long as their contract dictates. For example, after a crewman serves his 48 months, they are placed in stasis and replaced by someone else who will serve their contract. Now with that out of the way just what would a crew for a starship like that look like?

A list I have so far includes:

• Captain - Master of the Ship

• First Mate, Executive Officer - Responsible for safety and security of the entire ship and crew, leads the first watchshift.

• Second Mate, Operations Officer - Chief Officer of the Deck Department, responsible for general day-to-day operations of the ship as well as managing cargo. Leads the second watchshift.

• Third Mate, Flight Officer - Chief Officer of the Flight Department, responsible for navigation, guidance, piloting & course corrections, atmospheric entries and flight planning. Leads the third watchshift.

• First Helmsman - Certified Flight Crew, Lead Pilot - Flight Department

• Second Helmsman - Certified Flight Crew, Assistant Pilot - Flight Department

• Navigator - Certified Flight Crew. Responsible for plotting courses, astrography, spatial positioning. - Flight Department

• First Engineer - Chief Officer of the Engineering Department. Responsible for structural & mechanical frames. Pilots EVA probes.

• Second Engineer - Responsible for Propulsion drives. - Engineering Department

• Third Engineer - Responsible for Power Generation, Storage & Distribution - Engineering Department

• Sensors Calibration & Flight Command Systems Technician - Does all the avionics work and manages the sensors. - Flight Department

• Information Systems Technician - Manages all the computer systems. - Engineering Department

• Communications Systems Technician - Runs the communications systems. - Engineering Department

• Environmental Control & Life Support Systems Technician - Does waste, water, air, gravity, heating, ventilation & cooling systems. - Engineering Department

• Data Collection & Management Technician - Controls all the data gathering systems and databases. - Engineering Department

• First Doctor, Chief Physician - Responsible for the health and well-being of the crew. Carries out routine medical checkups, diagnostics and surgery - Medical Department

• Second Doctor, Psychologist & Nurse - Responsible for the emotional and mental well-being of the crew. Assists in surgery. - Medical Department

• Security Officer - Responsible for the safety and protection of property, assets and crew. Deters illegal/inappropriate actions. Detains those commit said actions.

That works right? Is there anything I'm missing?

edited 17th Dec '12 7:35:38 PM by AtomJames

Chief of Security, Cabin Boy and Ship's Ho.

A few of these may actually be redundant, but redundancy is not a bad idea on a project like that. One thing that looks a bit problematic is pinning the EVA specialist role on the first engineer: That's probably the most risky job in the whole department, and I figure you'd want it on somebody who wouldn't leave a big hole in the ship's organization if anything happened.

Maybe you could make a dedicated duty station for that and add responsibility for telepresence systems to inspect and maintain depressurized sections or the outside of the vessel?

Natasel: Cabin Boy and Ship Ho aside, would a Security officer really be needed?

Matt: The redundancy does rub me the wrong way, especially since I'm planning to use this as an idea for a web show, though as you said its a good idea for something like this. As for the EVA Specialist, do you mean like a robot that could be controlled remotely?

"Expendables" sent out to do dangerous repairs or into combat seem like a good thing to have.

edited 17th Dec '12 3:44:14 AM by Natasel

Didn't really plan to feature combat but a very good idea nonetheless.

That's what I meant, yes. Doing things through remote-controled robots would be a lot more efficient and less risky than actual EVA. In addition, EVA time has to be strictly limited due to the radiation hazard. Even without solar wind, interstellar space has a nasty amount of cosmic radiation going on, and if your vessel is moving fast enough you'll get an even nastier effect from plowing through interstellar gas. So yeah, I'd rely on drones for any routine work and only get somebody into EVA gear if there's no other option.

Great! One storyline I can already use! The only thing worrying me now is whether or not to include scientists. I mean the only use I would have for them would be create crops and to farm. Luckily some of the crew members aren't human (androids designed to make sure that the ship is always monitored while the crew is in rotation) and so could actually double up on their own duties.

I don't think there'd be much call for a permanent science role, since science is about research and most research would be non-mission-critical and easier to do on arrival than in deep space.

Obviously however there'd be a full team of expert colonists and it would probably be a good idea to have a few of them ready for speed-defrosting in case anything unexpected happens in-transit. For that matter, there should probably be someone whose job it is to notice when something unexpected is happening, and work out who needs to be defrosted to fix it, though that might be a departmental thing, so if you're head engineering/medical/whatever officer and something happens you can't handle alone, you get to pick a team of specialists to help you.

I mean I'm not really thinking NegativeSpaceWedgies here, there might be a few radiation waves but I'm guessing most problems would have been brought with them, like pathogens evolving over the huge timescale, cumulative computer errors and unforeseen hardware interactions screwing things up in weird ways, stuff like that.

Also at some point someone's going to break the rules, whether it's being drunk on duty or a crazed ex-special forces soldier holing up in the computer core. There needs to be someone on-duty with the skills to detect and deal with that situation effectively, so I think security is probably a good idea. There also needs to be a contingency plan for the security officer or captain going insane, of course.

Speaking of which, I'd be inclined to give the 'Nurse' equal or greater rank to the doctor and put him in charge of mental and emotional wellbeing, perhaps even expanding it to cover aspects of recreation and socialisation, or make a separate role for that. Insanity is probably one of the biggest dangers facing deep-space operations and there needs to be someone who can spot pathological behaviour and manage it before it puts people in danger.

edited 17th Dec '12 1:07:14 PM by Kesteven

It's a bit of a tangent, but the idea of having a bunch of people in stasis, available to pick a team from as desired, might be one that companies would love: aside from maintaining life-support, there are few costs, one can keep working with proven employees over a large time-scale, and composing teams customised for each situation, reducing the issues involved with managing and hiring, and they (presumably) don't draw salaries while in stasis. There might be a story in such a concept, somewhere. ^_^

I now return you to your regularly scheduled space crew.

edited 17th Dec '12 3:39:20 PM by ArsThaumaturgis

Ok, list has been edited to expand the responsibilities of the Second Doctor and to include the Chief of security. In the event that a Captain were to lose it, the Chief of Security and the First Mate would then be granted the power to detain and demote them prior to being place in stasis. In between Captains, the First Mates is placed in command. The idea of having ready-to-defrost specialists on hand sounds great and is a great way of introducing guest stars.

Yeah, I can actually see the Oil Rigging or Mining Industries making a great use of it. Fuel for thought.

I've actually started to write some more on this idea and I have a weird question.

Now, the crew proper are themselves placed into cryogenic stasis till the ship, The Armstrong, leaves our solar system. Till then the ship is monitored by the Androids. After The Armstrong has passed its check point on the edge of the solar system, the Androids defrost the crew. My question is, who would they defrost first?

In my draft, the Captain and the two Medical Officers are the first ones out. My reasoning was twofold; the Medical Officers would have to be one of the first out in order to make sure that the rest of the crew are both physically and mentally healthy after being in stasis and the Captain would have to gain authority and seniority right off the bat.

Does that sound right?