What Was A 5-Year Mission?

The Iconic opening of Star Trek the Original Series makes reference to the 5 Year mission of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 to explore strange new worlds and so on. Under the command of Captain Pike, April and Kirk, we learn that the 5 year mission was something of a grand endeavour from Starfleet Command and entailed a lot of work for starships, so what exactly was it?

Chapters
00:00 Standard Operations
01:30 Developments in Technology
03:27 First 5 Year Missions
04:05 Premise
07:55 Mission Statement
08:42 Post Mission

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This Video is for critical purposes with commentary.

Outro Animation made by @icarogabriel17

[Cdr]

Bro actually justified “only ship in range”.

Biggest accomplishment of this video tbh

[MrARock]

I think something that I hadn't fully appreciated before was Picard's nearly throw-away line "we work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity" as a summary of humanity's post-scarcity "purpose." It seemed at first like such a vague statement that I was sure it was the kind of hand-waving non-answer that let the writers get away with having heroes be the unambiguous "good guys" without all the baggage of them upholding an empire or a capitalist machine of exploitation or any of the problematic historical structures we're still struggling with today. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered: Really what *would* a society based around enrichment of experience look like? How would people really behave in a post-scarcity society? And I realized that a whole species of beings who have been raised since birth to prioritize experimenting with their full potential to explore questions like "why are we here?" would absolutely have a kick-ass space exploration program. But space exploration would only be a part of humanity's goals. It happens that space exploration is one of the sexiest and best-adapted to adventure/drama television, so it makes sense why the franchise focuses on it, but there would of course be so many people working to answer these "big questions" in lots of other ways too: interspecies dialogue and exchange programs to discover how other species and their cultures see themselves in the universe; deep dives into Earth's own history to fully and honestly interrogate past humans' nature and desires and fears; imaginative story-telling and creative exploration, to attempt to touch all corners of humans' ability to see other possible worlds; and just generally deep reflection and meditation to learn how humans can conquer our own internal demons.

Space exploration looks the best on screen, and cleverly it makes sense that the people who have chosen that career path and way of life may necessarily have de-prioritized those other pursuits - explaining why our hero ship crews often seem like less than stellar examples of exemplary human art, communication, relationship, and self-reflection. But that just ultimately makes them more approachable to us, the audience, living in the crummy pre-utopian era of artificial scarcity and inequity.

This is obviously a stretch, but I'm pleased to be able to put their aspirations in a context that fits with canon without betraying the dream of the world they're supposed to live in. I hope we get there one day!

[jonmcgee]

I recall reading somewhere years ago. That the Galaxy class ships had plans to carry out 20 year missions. Hence one of the reasons why family members and other civilians were allowed on board the ship.

[Soguwe]

It's a mission that takes 5 years

[quentinking]

3 years in space, 2 years of paperwork, 20 years begging to go out again

[JohnDoe-whdd]

My thoughts are very similar to that of navy aircraft carrier, which is essentially a floating/mobile city. You build it with the best technology available at the time, send it out to patrol, conduct long term studies, or render aid where it is needed. The carrier can resupply at a friendly port or at sea and it continues on the mission.
Meanwhile, back at the home base they are always developing new technologies, improved reactors, more efficient propellers and building new ships.
Then when a new ship is launched it can replace the old carrier and the old carrier can be brought in and overhauled while the new carrier takes over. Then launch the updated carrier and bring in another carrier for upgrades. That way you always have a modern carrier in service.

The USS Enterprise (CVN 65) was in service for 51 years before it was decommissioned and one of the reasons it was decommissioned was it became a more economical to build a new one than have to speciality manufacture parts for one ship.

So, launch the Constitution class on a long term mission and in five years bring it back, update it with all the new advancements and send it back out again for another five years. Rinse and repeat.

[warwolf]

voyager did a involuntary 7 year mission i bet that was fun😊

[nekophht]

I like to think that the "5 Year Mission" is a case of "We think you're potentially ready for flag rank, so we're giving you a ship for five years to see if that's correct." Essentially, most ships did not have the same captain for that many years, but certain classes were "5YM" classes. So a captain getting a "5-Year Mission" would be a big deal, because successfully completing it to Admiralty's satisfaction would put you on the short list for flag rank. If you, say, did well on it but not necessarily well enough to get on the short list, that could be where the Commodore rank comes in and/or more 5YM assigned to a captain.

I would expect it "died out" during the Golden Age in name, though in practice it was probably still around in some form.

[antonycharnock]

To boldly go where no one has gone before?

[vortega]

Great stuff - and as to there being 5 Year missions i.e. long term missions even up to The Next Generation era. I would think the Deep Space Nine episode - The Sound of Her Voice - Episode 25; Season 6. A very haunting and beautiful episode.

The fact that the character they were talking to - who stated that she did not realize that Star Fleet was at war with the Dominion and no one on the Defiant questioned this shows the distance that some Star Fleet ships took.

[ZGundam]

I seem to remember in the episode 'Court Marital', Commodore Stone had a screen that showed Constitution class vessels that were in for repair and the time frame for it.

[blockmasterscott]

That’s a really good question, what was the 5 year mission?

In Picard era Star Trek, the Federation had a ton of ships, but in Kirk’s time the fleet was a lot smaller and the galaxy was less well known, so I can see a ship being told to explore for five years and come back.

[Marinealver]

The show was supposed to be for 5 seasons, but we only got 3.
The ship would be on mission for 5 years and afterwards will return to port for reassignment, refit, or sold or scrapped.

However I real 5 year cycle wouldn't be out of place. A flagship/Cruiser can go with a armada group of escorts, at various rendezvous points they meet up with resupply convoys as crew and escort ships ae switched out and the cruiser remains. And in 5 years the cruiser should return to it's starting point.

[ToddWaters_tw]

Since Strange New Worlds started, I've wondered why they say they are on a five year mission, when they haven't been. They've been close to earth and in contact with with the Federation. I think that's different than TOS. And in TNG, of course, they've said on a Continuing Mission.

[PhantomObserver]

I would argue: five years is the length of time a major class ship was assigned to its commanding officer. It was the captain who was given the mission along with a series of assignments, not necessarily tied to a particular sector of the quadrant to explore. The CO’s senior ship’s company (medical officer, XO, engineering, etc.) could be working with the CO for the same length of time, with junior members assigned for shorter periods (ie six months) and rotated as required.

[STho]

Desilu talent contracts were for 5 years. Then the show, if it survived without network cancellations would be reevaluated.

Beyond that the special mission was Roddenberry basing it on the inteo soliloquy from the original executive cut of WNMHGB...where Kirk says A NEW MISSION where they are finally leaving the patrol area of Earth to explore the vast unknown. They didn't intend to air the pilots, but used them as foundations for the contributing writers.

GR wrote up the familiar intro at the last minute while editing the first three episodes for broadcast (source: Solow and Justmans memoir book)

Since WNMHGB was aired, that very crude intro exposition segment was removed, and the normal titles added...as well they removed the Quinn Martin style Act titles.

So if you consider that, Kirk's mission was the 1st long range mission into the unknown (the Barrier and Corbomite), however they fell back to patrols amd checking on Earth colonies every 3rd episode.

[Malforian]

I honestly thought when you started the 5-year mission statement it was just going to be the opening lines of the TV show 😆

[Deltarious]

To me it always seemed like the five year mission was almost *entirely* decided upon by the captain in terms of where they went, when, and why, with *approval* from Starfleet but not too much actual input or even oversight in the TOS days. It would make sense in that format as having highly discretionary missions with a relatively large and extremely capable crew means you can get the most value out of the ship. If the captain is an expert at charting courses as part of the command requirements for the class anyway and they have all the info required of places Starfleet is interested in then to me it makes sense that one of the primary tasks of the command staff would be using that data to actively figure out where to go next and submitting it for aproval, which would almost always be granted, with Starfleet then 'overriding' that mission when the ship was needed and near enough to respond.

It makes more sense that way too if you consider it a singular and continuous mission, for which time your captain has a mandate to take the ship and explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before. It's a whole 'period' where the captain has nearly unlimited discretion and control over the ship's actions to give them proper freedom to explore which is why it's a continuing mission and not broken up into smaller assignments where they come back for shore leave and repairs etc. They *do* all those things, but it's continuous because the captain still has that freedom assigned to them the whole time so they're *choosing* when and where to come back themselves, just with loose approval

So in summary to me the 5 year mission is a period in which a captain is almost entirely free to set their own mission with large amounts of control and independence, under the primary mandate of exploration, so long as they stick within established guidelines. It's applying for and being granted 5 years of independence to explore

[UGNAvalon]

For some reason, I’m imagining it like the “main quest line” of Skyrim, which would take you across the region as needed, and occasionally taking you back to familiar areas, but your path inevitably allows you to encounter numerous random side quests or points of interest that could temporarily detour you from your main mission, or could happen to occur concurrently to it.

Or maybe it’s more the storyline of Pokémon Arceus? You’re supposed to explore & catalog, but can advance the story as quickly or as leisurely as you like while doing other activities.

[nealwhaley]

If you’re going out for that long, you’re among the top tier, so you’ll be doing whatever is necessary. Patrol, peacekeeping, law enforcement, hospitality, search and rescue, emergency response, civilian escort, etc. And on slow days, you do charting, research, technology troubleshooting, and serve as ambassadors for the Federation when attempting to extend its boundary.