@forthegamer: The reason I suggested basing population density on a large modern military base - after incorrectly I think suggesting a ship - is because I figured its area and population numbers would actually already include some of the variables you're talking about: people who don't live on base, transient population who are moving in and out, civilians and military together, etc etc.
Another user suggested Naval Base San Diego (which, incidentally, my dad was stationed at in the 1970s!) which is an excellent suggestion. That kinda sounds like ESD to me
You are right concerning the military part, that it does quite sound like a good idea. I should've pointed towards your post and that other one.
What I was trying to get at, but never actually did last night and I blame that cough syrup. I was trying to showcase that ESD, 25th century and not before, would actually be more akin to a bustling port city of the 15th century. Many of these port cities originally started as a military and/or merchant ports, but due to everything passing through there, it would attract people to being there.
Hm, maybe splitting the density into two parts would be better.
Well, let's see if we can try equating it to a 15th Century port city, shall we.
Just did some Googling and came up with Venice. It was a major maritime power, had a fleet of 3,300 ships, controlled other nearby cities, had territory in Greece, etc etc.
At the end of the 15th Century it had 180,000 inhabitants. Finding the size of the city at the time is problematic. Today it is 414.57 square kilometers or 414,570 square meters with 271,000 residents. Just to get an estimate, I'll size the area down proportionally to the population (about 1/3 smaller). It comes to 273,616 square meters. Divide that by 180,000 and we get one person for every 1.5 meters.
I think that's far too dense for a space station, it's roughly the same number I got for the Las Vegas Convention Center, but for the sake of seeing the numbers through let's apply it to Taco's 944,990,460 square meters and we get the same 629,973,640 people, but if we use your 20 percent usable space estimate, we get 125,998,728 people.
I joked with Taco yesterday on Twitter that basically we had narrowed it down to somewhere between the population of River Falls, Wisconsin, and the population of Europe
P.S. if anyone can find an actual area figure for 15th Century Venice I could refine my calculations.
This is just me tossing out more stuff to think about. Here we go.
1,349,986 people is the number we get via my half brained guessing (20%) and utilizing drogyn's computation for density.
125,998,728 people is the number we get via my half brained guessing (20%) but using a port city's population density (or Las Vegas).
629,973,640 people is the number we get if we just go with the port city population density.
More or less how those work. I'm thinking up an idea, so again, if I'm wrong on something, let me know.
However, I'm beginning to thing all 3 of those numbers are correct in a fashion. Yup, I'll get to explaining.
DS9 is the only space station I can find numbers on and it is much smaller than ESD. It has a crew of 300 to 2000, with a non-emergency capacity of 7000. The 300 probably is the lowest amount of crew that is needed to keep the station manageable. The 2000 is the most crew possible for the station.
300 crew is roughly 4% of DS9's non-emergency capacity, with the 2000 crew being roughly 28%. This means that probably any station needs only 4% to run, while 28% is the maximum needed. I could also point to the fact that the Galaxy class functions like this as well. The minimum Galaxy crew is 1000 (and usually held 2000) while it can hold up to 15000 total people in an emergency situation. Take the average of those two and you'd get, 20%.
The ESD numbers we've come up with, kinda fall in line with this. The lowest number is probably the average amount of crew on hand, as it would be 1% of the second number we have for the amount of people.
That second amount could be maximum non-emergency amount of capacity the dock would have. It would be built with more capacity in mind, unlike DS9, which would explain why the crew number isn't 28% like DS9.
There's also the fact that ESD may need to suddenly take the people living on Luna (our moon) as well. During Star Trek: First Contact, its estimated that nearly 50 million people live on Luna. By 2409, that number is probably closer to 60-70 million. That's a lot of people to take in at any given notice.
ESD would likely need to take 70 million in at any time. Thus, it would need to go over its maximum capacity of 126m at an instant notice. Yes, you could probably transport them to Earth, but for the Lunarians (thanks Final Fantasy 4 for the term), they would probably rather be as close to home as they can be.
If a pandemic occurred in a certain part of the world, you could also transport a ton of people from that area up to the space station. So that 630m would function as an emergency number and be built with these functions in mind.
So from all that, my guessimations:
1a) The crew for ESD actually is 1.35m. This number is now likely how many people choose to live on ESD full time. Because otherwise, it doesn't match the other figures I've been guessimating with. Much to my chagrin.
1b) The 36,540 number that tacofangs provided, at the very beginning of all this, is likely the number of crew to minimally run ESD and is the skeleton crew number.
2) The maximum capacity of ESD is 126m. This is due to the fact that ESD needs to be able to evacuate Luna at any given moment and that now has roughly 60-70 million people.
3) The emergency capacity of ESD is 630m. Due to Luna and/or an pandemic that could (but likely won't) happen on Earth.
So we've got a minimum number of people, a maximum number, and a super-sized number. What numbers are we missing guessimations on? Well, we don't have an average number of people truly living on ESD, nor do we have number for the amount of people who would passthrough ESD.
20% seems to be a lovely number that keeps coming up in our computations. Guessimating that 126m is the capacity, this means the numbers would be 25.2m as how many people normally are on ESD at any given time. 25.2m numbers would probably also include anyone on ships.
So take out the 1.35m for crew and we're left with 23.85m to divvy up. Again, utilizing our seemingly always around 20%, this means that there are 4.77m people who would choose to remain on ESD. Be it family, dignitaries, tailors, merchants, army (like OMEGA), etc.
So for the TL;DLTR faction, guessimations:
Skeleton - 0.036m - thanks to tacofangs original work.
Crew - 1.35m - drogyn's number from my original guessimation work.
Residency - 4.77m - cut off the crew from average then 20% that.
Population - 6.12m - crew + residency.
Passerby - 19.08m - average - crew - residency.
Average - 25.2m - utilizing our 20% that likes to pop up and get 20% of 'max capacity'
Capacity - 126m - the most that can live on ESD with a bit of hassle.
Emergency - 630m - hassles abound, but max number of people possible.
I guess you could make ranges for crew, residency, population, passerby, and average by utilizing our favorite 20% in reverse (or is it opposite?) and take those numbers down to 80% of their value. But I've already probably said enough. Plus, someone probably needs to go through here with a validly comb and get some real truths out of it.
So enough guessimations from me. I'll let you big boys have your fun.
So for the TL;DLTR faction, guessimations:
Skeleton - 0.036m - thanks to tacofangs original work.
Crew - 1.35m - drogyn's number from my original guessimation work.
Residency - 4.77m - cut off the crew from average then 20% that.
Population - 6.12m - crew + residency.
Passerby - 19.08m - average - crew - residency.
Average - 25.2m - utilizing our 20% that likes to pop up and get 20% of 'max capacity'
Capacity - 126m - the most that can live on ESD with a bit of hassle.
Emergency - 630m - hassles abound, but max number of people possible.
It's been intimated to have been built late in the original 1701 Enterprise's 5 year mission under Kirk, completed roughly around the time of the refit.
How many ships did Starfleet have in service then?
From "When It Rains" in 2375, we know Klingons had 1500.
MARTOK
By tomorrow, we'll have fifteen
hundred Klingon vessels ready for
deployment.
ROMULAN
(dismissive)
With the Breen, the Cardassians
and the Jem'Hadar you're still
outnumbered twenty-to-one.
MARTOK
(sharp)
I'm aware of that, general.
Now assume Starfleet had an equal number. And it had 1 in 2151. A straight line regression suggests 800 in 2270. Roughly 344,000 serving aboard starships.
So this works against the idea that the station requires million plus crews. Starfleet's focus is on exploration. They were also running at least 27+ starbases... although, something to keep in mind... starbases built and used by Starfleet were not necessarily intended to be run by Starfleet.
K-7 was built by Starfleet and run by civilians, with a minimal Starfleet presence. Hm... Checking out Memory Beta now...
In addition to its military and traffic control functions, Spacedock also became a commercial focal point for the Sol sector. Starfleet leases office space, warehouse facilities, cargo transporters, and trade arbitration for many of the more important commercial corporations. Because of its value as a trans-shipment point for both passengers and cargo, Spacedock also developed a thriving tourist trade. Its kilometers of wide halls were filled with shops, vendors, services and restaurant facilities catering to a wide range of races. It would eventually rival the Rigel star system as a source of revenue. What made this remarkable is that this commercial aspect of Starfleet's Repair and Service Facility had developed in a span of less than five years.
This would seem to imply it is mostly a civilian installation.
But thinking back to other starbases in Trek, particularly ones in the TOS era, that's what they were. I had the instinct that it was more civilian than we were giving it credit for but the vast majority of its role may be civilian in scope.
DS9? Majority civilian.
K-7? Majority civilian.
Looking again... Vanguard did from the books has details:
I just did a quick estimate. Did a guess of the crew per volume there and multiplied it by a rough guess of the volume of ESD and came up with an emergency occupancy capacity of 2 million. And a full Starfleet crew of 75,000. Around 25,000 on duty at any given point in time and the other 50,000 off duty.
This would seem to imply it is mostly a civilian installation.
But thinking back to other starbases in Trek, particularly ones in the TOS era, that's what they were. I had the instinct that it was more civilian than we were giving it credit for but the vast majority of its role may be civilian in scope.
DS9? Majority civilian.
K-7? Majority civilian.
Looking again... Vanguard did from the books has details:
I just did a quick estimate. Did a guess of the crew per volume there and multiplied it by a rough guess of the volume of ESD and came up with an emergency occupancy capacity of 2 million. And a full Starfleet crew of 75,000. Around 25,000 on duty at any given point in time and the other 50,000 off duty.
When I made my earlier calculation using Naval Base San Diego, I used the base's whole "population" which included its civilian staff. On that base there are 20,000 military and 6,000 or about a 3 to 1 ratio. The user who suggested the base suggested (and I agree) that on something like ESD that ratio would be reversed.
So in my estimate of 1.3 million, I'd say 390,000 Starfleet (not all on duty at once) and 910,000 civilians. A lot of variables affecting those numbers though. Do they all live on the station, how many are full-time, how many part-time, does it include starship crews on layover, does it include personnel awaiting assignment off-base, etc etc.
When I made my earlier calculation using Naval Base San Diego, I used the base's whole "population" which included its civilian staff. On that base there are 20,000 military and 6,000 or about a 3 to 1 ratio. The user who suggested the base suggested (and I agree) that on something like ESD that ratio would be reversed.
So in my estimate of 1.3 million, I'd say 390,000 Starfleet (not all on duty at once) and 910,000 civilians. A lot of variables affecting those numbers though. Do they all live on the station, how many are full-time, how many part-time, does it include starship crews on layover, does it include personnel awaiting assignment off-base, etc etc.
Well, we do have examples of this.
In "Non Sequitur", Harry Kim was designing the Yellowstone Runabout while living in San Francisco. The runabout was on Earth Spacedock, and he stole it from ESD at the end.
So outside of maybe station security and ops (who may need to respond in an emergency), I'd venture that it's possible that almost none of the scientists or engineers live ON the station. It's probably the senior staff, ops, and security.
Whereas a merchant who isn't as tied in with the Federation or earth would be much MORE likely to live there. Because where else would they live. Even a non-human Starfleet officer is probably going to have much more attachment with earth since they at the least went to the Academy there. And with Transporters, I'd imagine commuting would be a PERK for anyone who isn't mandatory station personnel in the event of an emergency.
It also hits me that most people at Utopia Planitia are referred to as living AT Utopia Planitia but living ON Mars. Whereas people at DS9 prior to it moving, when it was in orbit were ON DS9 AT Bajor, and they lived on the station. Bajor would not have taken kindly to occupation. I'd have to recheck dialogue but I think Sisko was always said to be AT UP, ON Mars, whereas he was said to be ON DS9, AT Bajor.
So it could well be that when in orbit of an M class Federation world, non-essential (R&D, specialist) staff tend to live on the planet whereas stations tended to run with a security crew and majority civilian population, with the staff commuting from a more spacious planetary residence.
It also hits me that most people at Utopia Planitia are referred to as living AT Utopia Planitia but living ON Mars. Whereas people at DS9 prior to it moving, when it was in orbit were ON DS9 AT Bajor, and they lived on the station. Bajor would not have taken kindly to occupation. I'd have to recheck dialogue but I think Sisko was always said to be AT UP, ON Mars, whereas he was said to be ON DS9, AT Bajor.
So it could well be that when in orbit of an M class Federation world, non-essential (R&D, specialist) staff tend to live on the planet whereas stations tended to run with a security crew and majority civilian population, with the staff commuting from a more spacious planetary residence.
That would depend on the size of the station and what the station was for.
That would depend on the size of the station and what the station was for.
And how nice the living accommodations are. On a station the size of ESD they could be pretty nice (like what we saw on the Ent-D at least). Given what we've seen of Utopia Planitia, I doubt it has a lot of nice living quarters, even on that main station, there just wouldn't be room.
Aren't we talking about the new ESD? I thought that was sort of what this conversation was about. I've always been assuming these numbers would be what is standard for our new ESD.
It's been intimated to have been built late in the original 1701 Enterprise's 5 year mission under Kirk, completed roughly around the time of the refit.
How many ships did Starfleet have in service then?
From "When It Rains" in 2375, we know Klingons had 1500.
Here's the thing though. ESD is not strictly for Starfleet only. There's transport ships, ships from other alien races within the federation and from out, medical ships that are not apart of Starfleet, observation ships, etc. If ESD is only for Starfleet, I would agree those numbers are a little high. However, with all those other types of ships passing through, it would be much higher than the numbers than 1500.
Its something that's always bugged me about Star Trek shows. Starfleet ships aren't the only ships, but we rarely hear about them. Unless they are in danger. It would be nice to know one way or another.
Also, ESD would serve as a place to showcase all of the Federation. Propaganda. And yes, Klingons (and the Klingon friendly), I mean that exactly how you would think. Therefore you would need more things about other worlds being there.
Actually considering the Klingon Empire is boosting up the races that are apart of it, this would likely mean that they'll eventually need their dock to become bigger as well.
This would seem to imply it is mostly a civilian installation.
I highly agree with this sentiment. Whatever numbers we feel are correct, it should be more civilian than anything else.
I just did a quick estimate. Did a guess of the crew per volume there and multiplied it by a rough guess of the volume of ESD and came up with an emergency occupancy capacity of 2 million. And a full Starfleet crew of 75,000. Around 25,000 on duty at any given point in time and the other 50,000 off duty.
To actually run the station itself, yes, the actual number is probably around one hundred thousand at most.
The other crew is the other people you need. Servicing all those different ships would require a lot of different types of personnel (remember, people coming here are going to want shore leave). You would need barracks for security purposes. You would need liaisons so as to help understand the people who visit the station. There would likely be scientists on board who would be able to help a study or two be moved from ESD to whatever the science place is on Earth or Luna and vice versa.
Different social places, be it residential, embassies, holosuites, bars, clubs, etc. all need crew dedicated to the repairs itself. I wouldn't think the crew of the station itself would want to put up with a hassle. If there are people living there, you'd need things like shops (tailor anyone?), schools, administrations for different purposes, etc.
There's also the fact that the Academy is below. If you want to do a practical, or live test, what better way than to have an actual spot on the station itself. Would it be big? No, but you still need people there. What about other such facilities based on the other executive branches? They would likely need people to run them.
Having stuff on the station would be a lot simplier than having someone beam down, wait a lord knows how long time and then finally get to see someone. Remember: humans still love red tape and the gift of gab. Also, transporters would likely put you into a public place other than the exact spot (like us with Starfleet Academy).
Also, with how much of the Federation is on Earth, I think you could expect everyone needing to go through ESD before getting to Earth. Yes, I know that we in the game can beam down to Earth (Academy) whenever we come into orbit, but I highly doubt in the real world that would happen. We'd need to go through ESD then Earth. Heck, I highly doubt you can actually beam onto ESD. You'd likely come up via a shuttle than be transported.
And I'm just naming stuff off the top of my head. Its probably also built like this to showcase "hey, we're all about peace, prosperity and in no way is Starfleet about military". Again, propaganda.
I'm willing to admit that perhaps those numbers are a little on the high side and perhaps are the maximums of each thing.
So it could well be that when in orbit of an M class Federation world, non-essential (R&D, specialist) staff tend to live on the planet whereas stations tended to run with a security crew and majority civilian population, with the staff commuting from a more spacious planetary residence.
I would suspect that would be highly true for any other station than Earth Space Dock. I actually think ESD is more the exception than the rule.
Comments
What I was trying to get at, but never actually did last night and I blame that cough syrup. I was trying to showcase that ESD, 25th century and not before, would actually be more akin to a bustling port city of the 15th century. Many of these port cities originally started as a military and/or merchant ports, but due to everything passing through there, it would attract people to being there.
Hm, maybe splitting the density into two parts would be better.
Just did some Googling and came up with Venice. It was a major maritime power, had a fleet of 3,300 ships, controlled other nearby cities, had territory in Greece, etc etc.
At the end of the 15th Century it had 180,000 inhabitants. Finding the size of the city at the time is problematic. Today it is 414.57 square kilometers or 414,570 square meters with 271,000 residents. Just to get an estimate, I'll size the area down proportionally to the population (about 1/3 smaller). It comes to 273,616 square meters. Divide that by 180,000 and we get one person for every 1.5 meters.
I think that's far too dense for a space station, it's roughly the same number I got for the Las Vegas Convention Center, but for the sake of seeing the numbers through let's apply it to Taco's 944,990,460 square meters and we get the same 629,973,640 people, but if we use your 20 percent usable space estimate, we get 125,998,728 people.
I joked with Taco yesterday on Twitter that basically we had narrowed it down to somewhere between the population of River Falls, Wisconsin, and the population of Europe
P.S. if anyone can find an actual area figure for 15th Century Venice I could refine my calculations.
1,349,986 people is the number we get via my half brained guessing (20%) and utilizing drogyn's computation for density.
125,998,728 people is the number we get via my half brained guessing (20%) but using a port city's population density (or Las Vegas).
629,973,640 people is the number we get if we just go with the port city population density.
More or less how those work. I'm thinking up an idea, so again, if I'm wrong on something, let me know.
However, I'm beginning to thing all 3 of those numbers are correct in a fashion. Yup, I'll get to explaining.
DS9 is the only space station I can find numbers on and it is much smaller than ESD. It has a crew of 300 to 2000, with a non-emergency capacity of 7000. The 300 probably is the lowest amount of crew that is needed to keep the station manageable. The 2000 is the most crew possible for the station.
300 crew is roughly 4% of DS9's non-emergency capacity, with the 2000 crew being roughly 28%. This means that probably any station needs only 4% to run, while 28% is the maximum needed. I could also point to the fact that the Galaxy class functions like this as well. The minimum Galaxy crew is 1000 (and usually held 2000) while it can hold up to 15000 total people in an emergency situation. Take the average of those two and you'd get, 20%.
The ESD numbers we've come up with, kinda fall in line with this. The lowest number is probably the average amount of crew on hand, as it would be 1% of the second number we have for the amount of people.
That second amount could be maximum non-emergency amount of capacity the dock would have. It would be built with more capacity in mind, unlike DS9, which would explain why the crew number isn't 28% like DS9.
There's also the fact that ESD may need to suddenly take the people living on Luna (our moon) as well. During Star Trek: First Contact, its estimated that nearly 50 million people live on Luna. By 2409, that number is probably closer to 60-70 million. That's a lot of people to take in at any given notice.
ESD would likely need to take 70 million in at any time. Thus, it would need to go over its maximum capacity of 126m at an instant notice. Yes, you could probably transport them to Earth, but for the Lunarians (thanks Final Fantasy 4 for the term), they would probably rather be as close to home as they can be.
If a pandemic occurred in a certain part of the world, you could also transport a ton of people from that area up to the space station. So that 630m would function as an emergency number and be built with these functions in mind.
So from all that, my guessimations:
1a) The crew for ESD actually is 1.35m. This number is now likely how many people choose to live on ESD full time. Because otherwise, it doesn't match the other figures I've been guessimating with. Much to my chagrin.
1b) The 36,540 number that tacofangs provided, at the very beginning of all this, is likely the number of crew to minimally run ESD and is the skeleton crew number.
2) The maximum capacity of ESD is 126m. This is due to the fact that ESD needs to be able to evacuate Luna at any given moment and that now has roughly 60-70 million people.
3) The emergency capacity of ESD is 630m. Due to Luna and/or an pandemic that could (but likely won't) happen on Earth.
So we've got a minimum number of people, a maximum number, and a super-sized number. What numbers are we missing guessimations on? Well, we don't have an average number of people truly living on ESD, nor do we have number for the amount of people who would passthrough ESD.
20% seems to be a lovely number that keeps coming up in our computations. Guessimating that 126m is the capacity, this means the numbers would be 25.2m as how many people normally are on ESD at any given time. 25.2m numbers would probably also include anyone on ships.
So take out the 1.35m for crew and we're left with 23.85m to divvy up. Again, utilizing our seemingly always around 20%, this means that there are 4.77m people who would choose to remain on ESD. Be it family, dignitaries, tailors, merchants, army (like OMEGA), etc.
So for the TL;DLTR faction, guessimations:
Skeleton - 0.036m - thanks to tacofangs original work.
Crew - 1.35m - drogyn's number from my original guessimation work.
Residency - 4.77m - cut off the crew from average then 20% that.
Population - 6.12m - crew + residency.
Passerby - 19.08m - average - crew - residency.
Average - 25.2m - utilizing our 20% that likes to pop up and get 20% of 'max capacity'
Capacity - 126m - the most that can live on ESD with a bit of hassle.
Emergency - 630m - hassles abound, but max number of people possible.
I guess you could make ranges for crew, residency, population, passerby, and average by utilizing our favorite 20% in reverse (or is it opposite?) and take those numbers down to 80% of their value. But I've already probably said enough. Plus, someone probably needs to go through here with a validly comb and get some real truths out of it.
So enough guessimations from me. I'll let you big boys have your fun.
That makes some sense.
Is it still a lot of people? Yup. Won't deny that.
Think about the age of the station.
It's been intimated to have been built late in the original 1701 Enterprise's 5 year mission under Kirk, completed roughly around the time of the refit.
How many ships did Starfleet have in service then?
From "When It Rains" in 2375, we know Klingons had 1500.
Now assume Starfleet had an equal number. And it had 1 in 2151. A straight line regression suggests 800 in 2270. Roughly 344,000 serving aboard starships.
So this works against the idea that the station requires million plus crews. Starfleet's focus is on exploration. They were also running at least 27+ starbases... although, something to keep in mind... starbases built and used by Starfleet were not necessarily intended to be run by Starfleet.
K-7 was built by Starfleet and run by civilians, with a minimal Starfleet presence. Hm... Checking out Memory Beta now...
This would seem to imply it is mostly a civilian installation.
But thinking back to other starbases in Trek, particularly ones in the TOS era, that's what they were. I had the instinct that it was more civilian than we were giving it credit for but the vast majority of its role may be civilian in scope.
DS9? Majority civilian.
K-7? Majority civilian.
Looking again... Vanguard did from the books has details:
http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Vanguard_(station)
I just did a quick estimate. Did a guess of the crew per volume there and multiplied it by a rough guess of the volume of ESD and came up with an emergency occupancy capacity of 2 million. And a full Starfleet crew of 75,000. Around 25,000 on duty at any given point in time and the other 50,000 off duty.
When I made my earlier calculation using Naval Base San Diego, I used the base's whole "population" which included its civilian staff. On that base there are 20,000 military and 6,000 or about a 3 to 1 ratio. The user who suggested the base suggested (and I agree) that on something like ESD that ratio would be reversed.
So in my estimate of 1.3 million, I'd say 390,000 Starfleet (not all on duty at once) and 910,000 civilians. A lot of variables affecting those numbers though. Do they all live on the station, how many are full-time, how many part-time, does it include starship crews on layover, does it include personnel awaiting assignment off-base, etc etc.
Well, we do have examples of this.
In "Non Sequitur", Harry Kim was designing the Yellowstone Runabout while living in San Francisco. The runabout was on Earth Spacedock, and he stole it from ESD at the end.
So outside of maybe station security and ops (who may need to respond in an emergency), I'd venture that it's possible that almost none of the scientists or engineers live ON the station. It's probably the senior staff, ops, and security.
Whereas a merchant who isn't as tied in with the Federation or earth would be much MORE likely to live there. Because where else would they live. Even a non-human Starfleet officer is probably going to have much more attachment with earth since they at the least went to the Academy there. And with Transporters, I'd imagine commuting would be a PERK for anyone who isn't mandatory station personnel in the event of an emergency.
So it could well be that when in orbit of an M class Federation world, non-essential (R&D, specialist) staff tend to live on the planet whereas stations tended to run with a security crew and majority civilian population, with the staff commuting from a more spacious planetary residence.
That would depend on the size of the station and what the station was for.
And how nice the living accommodations are. On a station the size of ESD they could be pretty nice (like what we saw on the Ent-D at least). Given what we've seen of Utopia Planitia, I doubt it has a lot of nice living quarters, even on that main station, there just wouldn't be room.
Aren't we talking about the new ESD? I thought that was sort of what this conversation was about. I've always been assuming these numbers would be what is standard for our new ESD.
Here's the thing though. ESD is not strictly for Starfleet only. There's transport ships, ships from other alien races within the federation and from out, medical ships that are not apart of Starfleet, observation ships, etc. If ESD is only for Starfleet, I would agree those numbers are a little high. However, with all those other types of ships passing through, it would be much higher than the numbers than 1500.
Its something that's always bugged me about Star Trek shows. Starfleet ships aren't the only ships, but we rarely hear about them. Unless they are in danger. It would be nice to know one way or another.
Also, ESD would serve as a place to showcase all of the Federation. Propaganda. And yes, Klingons (and the Klingon friendly), I mean that exactly how you would think. Therefore you would need more things about other worlds being there.
Actually considering the Klingon Empire is boosting up the races that are apart of it, this would likely mean that they'll eventually need their dock to become bigger as well.
I highly agree with this sentiment. Whatever numbers we feel are correct, it should be more civilian than anything else.
To actually run the station itself, yes, the actual number is probably around one hundred thousand at most.
The other crew is the other people you need. Servicing all those different ships would require a lot of different types of personnel (remember, people coming here are going to want shore leave). You would need barracks for security purposes. You would need liaisons so as to help understand the people who visit the station. There would likely be scientists on board who would be able to help a study or two be moved from ESD to whatever the science place is on Earth or Luna and vice versa.
Different social places, be it residential, embassies, holosuites, bars, clubs, etc. all need crew dedicated to the repairs itself. I wouldn't think the crew of the station itself would want to put up with a hassle. If there are people living there, you'd need things like shops (tailor anyone?), schools, administrations for different purposes, etc.
There's also the fact that the Academy is below. If you want to do a practical, or live test, what better way than to have an actual spot on the station itself. Would it be big? No, but you still need people there. What about other such facilities based on the other executive branches? They would likely need people to run them.
Having stuff on the station would be a lot simplier than having someone beam down, wait a lord knows how long time and then finally get to see someone. Remember: humans still love red tape and the gift of gab. Also, transporters would likely put you into a public place other than the exact spot (like us with Starfleet Academy).
Also, with how much of the Federation is on Earth, I think you could expect everyone needing to go through ESD before getting to Earth. Yes, I know that we in the game can beam down to Earth (Academy) whenever we come into orbit, but I highly doubt in the real world that would happen. We'd need to go through ESD then Earth. Heck, I highly doubt you can actually beam onto ESD. You'd likely come up via a shuttle than be transported.
And I'm just naming stuff off the top of my head. Its probably also built like this to showcase "hey, we're all about peace, prosperity and in no way is Starfleet about military". Again, propaganda.
I'm willing to admit that perhaps those numbers are a little on the high side and perhaps are the maximums of each thing.
I would suspect that would be highly true for any other station than Earth Space Dock. I actually think ESD is more the exception than the rule.