Season 1 Episode 1
Episode: "Encounter at Farpoint"
Technology of the 24th century has come a long way since the days of classic show; nothing exemplifies that more than the show's new ship: The Galaxy class USS Enterprise NCC 1701-D.
Much larger than the Constitution class starship Enterprise from the classic show, the Galaxy class project was born out of an era of unprecedented peace for the Federation thus enabling the development and commissioning of around half a dozen of these grandiose vehicles for long term deep space exploration assignments, capable of operating independently of starbase support for extended periods.
Most notable attributes of the Galaxy class starships are:
• Tremendous amounts of living and work space spread over 42 decks, designed to support a nominal headcount of over 1000 officers and staff, their families and civilians, including children; the ship is capable of sustaining a population of around 6000 if necessary.
• Faster than light travel is made possible through the use of the warp drive, a matter/anti-matter fueled system capable of warping the fabric of space and propelling the ship at speeds in excess of 1900 times the speed of light (Warp 9.6).
• Three shuttlebays: The main shuttlebay complex located in the ship's saucer section is supported by two additional bays facing aft on the secondary hull. Typical shuttlecraft inventory can consist of around 30 shuttlecraft and support vehicles.
• Transporters: A staple technology of Starfleet vessels since the earliest deep space exploration vessels of the 22nd century to enable rapid embarkation and disembarkation absent the need of support craft like shuttles. Galaxy class starships offer the services of no less than 20 transporter rooms. Over the last 100 years transporter technology has advanced considerably with the package size being significantly reduced to enable the installation of a matter/energy food replicator station in pretty much every room on the ship. Then of course there's the ultimate in virtual simulation technology, the holodecks which not only use transporter/replicator technology to 3D-render from a vast library of environments and locations for both recreation and crew training applications, but is also capable simulating characters with which the participants can fully interact.
• Defensive systems include phaser arrays, photon torpedoes, energy shields and deflector systems. What is somewhat more unique to the design of the Galaxy class is its ability to separate its saucer section from the secondary hull in times of significant danger, thus enabling the bulk of the crew, the civilians and their families to escape to safe harbour pending the close of the crisis.
• Computer resources are immense on this ship with three computer cores several decks high (amounting to about 28 decks in total) with all computer based services, facilities and user access managed through an optical data network, augmented by an artificial intelligence that will respond to both manual inputs and voice commands.
As a deep space vessel designed to operate independently for extended periods without support, Galaxy class starships boast a full catalogue of resources to facilitate the needs of its crew, not unlike that of a small town. More domestic resources aboard ship include schools/colleges, a complete suite of medical disciplines across all aspects of the field, there are zoos and cetacean labs, arboretums, gymnasiums, theaters and concert halls, numerous bar-lounges (the most popular being Ten Forward), salons and replicator resources to address the material requirements of any crew member.
The scope of the Galaxy class program was so ambitious that after those first few vessels were commissioned they would by and large set the standard by which all subsequent Starfleet space vessels would be compared to.
