[Sa'ar Chasm]

I wonder if Hornblower and Kirk really have any simularities.

Hornblower shared Kirk's isolation, and he did bed the odd beautiful woman (adulterously, no less), but there weren't any three-breasted green aliens. Hornblower also suffered from a lack of self-confidence and self worth: he achieved great things through his native intelligence and wit, but he never felt he deserved rewards and praise for them, thinking he was only doing his duty.

So you're a "re not er" fan. I'm on the fence.

I'm Canadian. I'm a fan of spelling things properly.

Hey, I'm sure any field you can major in at Starfleet Academy can have missions associated with it. We just never see them because sloshing chemicals from one flask to another is kinda McCoy's schick, and we don't want to be stepping on his toes, do we? Besides, how dramatic is "boldly going" to the lab?

Well, doing research in chemistry can be done much more efficiently from a permanent address, rather than a mobile starship. It's not something that requires access to deep space facilities, and would actually be hampered on a cramped ship with limited space for equipment and storage that routinely gets knocked around "like a bunch of fireflies in a rambunctious toddler's jar."