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The human colony on the planet Argo has long explored and exploited the technology left behind by an extinct alien race. But then an archaeology team accidentally activates a terrible weapon...
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What Personnel Are Needed on a Spaceship Exploring Strange New Worlds?
July 11th, 2012
I like to write stories set in outer space on space ships, and I think a lot about stupid things like what is the necessary crew size and their expertise. There are some guides based on long duration seafaring, but those are somewhat imperfect in the space environment.
So far, we haven’t had space missions of the kind I’m thinking about — ones that take months to years that don’t have options for quick escape or rescue.
From a fictional standpoint, as well as a practical standpoint, minimizing crew size is important.
While it’s possible to assume improvements in our technology that would allow computers or robots to fill in for certain duties, it’s not clear when or how exactly those will occur. It’s also possible to assume aliens exist, but it’s not clear that they do or that we’ll encounter any of them any time soon.
So, imagine a spaceship on a mission to visit a nearby star system, like one of the missions proposed such as Project Icarus. What group of humans of minimal number is realistically needed?
I believe you need:
1. A commander. Someone capable and trustworthy in charge whose word is law. A small group of people light years from home is not a place to practice democracy in an emergency.
2. A doctor. People get sick and injured — people who cannot be replaced.
3. An engineer. Ships and their equipment get damaged — equipment that cannot be replaced unless you bring spares.
4. A scientist. Someone needs to know about stars, planets, the space environment, and, if the mission is exploration, data taking and analysis. Someone needs to locate objects of interest in the star system and prioritize them.
5. A pilot. Someone needs to know how to move the ship around and get to the objects of interest.
If you don’t have other information, like the presence of aliens, intelligent or otherwise, I think this is the minimum skill set. Of course it’s possible for one person to have multiple skills, but you want some redundancy. It’s possible that the ship and science goals are too complicated for 1-2 people each and a larger team is needed.
Have I forgotten something critical? Again, we’re assuming no known aliens. Aliens would require an additional complement to the crew concerning communication, defense, negotiation…perhaps even space lawyers, ugh!
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Assuming you’re not in a universe where everyone speaks English, I think a linguist would be a good idea.
I also think it’s good to have more than one person for most of these roles. For example, what happens if the doctor gets injured? Ideally, you’d have two or three people who could do each job, just in case something happens to one of them.
That might make the crew considerably larger than you’d want, so you might have people have a secondary skill set. E.g. the scientist knows some basic medicine, the engineer is a passable pilot, the pilot knows how to do maintenance, etc.
If you’re talking exploration of unknown planets, you’ll probably want more than one generic scientist. I’d assume biologist, chemist, geologist, etc. Plus someone who specialises in weird Star Trek spatial anomalies.
I have also thought about necessary crew members because my latest novel takes place on a multi generation spaceship. I think you missed someone to take care of the food supply. Either you are going to grow your food aboard the ship or you are going to get food from planets you are visiting (whick can be hard depending on the speed you travel in). In both cases someone need to know how to secure the food supply and cook it.
Do you agree?
Some interesting input. Yes, secondary skills should be a must.
I’m assuming that everyone speaks the same language and no aliens, so no linguist.
I am very worried that there’s no such thing as a generic scientist or engineer anymore, and several will be needed at a minimum. On the engineering side, electrical engineers know little mechanical engineering and vice versa. Not much overlap in the sciences, either.
As for food, I had envisioned canned/freeze dried types to be reheated, like what is done now with space missions and was done in the past with long ship journeys. I suspect that the cook was a very valued member of those longterm shipping journeys however…
I was wondering, too, if a longterm space mission with a small crew under cramped conditions wouldn’t also realistically require a psychologist.
Trouble is, once you start doubling up on the skills, and you’ve added a cook and a shrink, a hydroponics specialist or two, a few generalists and some extra science and engineering specialists (and how about an entertainments officer, IT specialists, navigator, and resident writer?) Your crew is starting to become large enough to require a second tier of management (first officer, team leaders) and the ship is becoming big enough to require cleaners and other dog’s bodies for maintenance.
My advice? Just send a robot probe.
Graham, in reality I agree with you. Makes for poor fiction (usually) unless you’re very, very clever. And I want the human element in space, but must admit that for science goals it isn’t cost efficient, but feeds other needs I have.
Thinking of the movie CONTACT, the ship needs a poet!
Couldn’t agree more! Where do I sign up?
In terms of crew size I imagine it would be a dividing line pretty much between whether you can develop ‘hypersleep’ish technology or not. If you have it you can cut down on food stores and the like tremendously which would probably let you bring a few extra crew members. If not you would ration your crew down as much as possible almost certainly with VERY specific mission goals based on data gathered from robot probes. If we’re talking exploring multiple planets (something maybe akin to more Star Trek where you leave and you explore multiple worlds as opposed from leaving planet a to go to planet b) I would think that would still apply. Just probes would be with the ship or sent ahead. Well I suppose if you had near-instantaneous FTL you could have a large crew without hypersleep but all current science pointing to that being less likely than hypersleep tech at this point anyway.
I’m kind of curious as to what kind of circumstances you would need some kind of security team. Common media of course paints it as a neccessity but I’m kind of torn. If you knew for a fact you were going to a planet with life but lacking advanced society (as you were aware of it) would you really go with a security detail? Or to me it would seem more likely that you would train the people going to handle themselves if the maximum risk of danger is probably the alien equivalent of bears.
The one circumstance where I would think some kind of trained armed team would be welcome would be colonisation. Just read Legacy of Heorot based on a friends recommendation that its an ‘alien-esque horror’ (its not) and I was kind of amazed that in the story that theres only really one trained guy there who (naturally) gets ignored. If your going on a long one way trip to another planet to stay there (and it is one way for these people) I would think that having people of that skillset would be a requirement for settling on an alien world.
If you want to get where it is you’re going and then back home afterwards, a navigator would be good to have around.
Not entirely sold on a doctor for a 5 person crew, and “scientist” or “engineer” seems a bit broad and non-descriptive.
I would assume they wouldn’t just use people with existing specialties, but rather, train them for what’s needed. You also have to consider how much time every task needs. I guess most work will consist of preparing the food and cleaning up.
With stasis/sleep technology you could take a fairly large crew and only have a few awake at a time. Perfect for TV where you can then have many guest and recurring actors.