Quick question about science labs

[ROXunreal]

If I have a science lab on a station and store science from cleaned instruments in it, in order to collect that science without transmitting, do I need to bring the whole thing down to the surface or can I move the science from the lab to a pod and go to the surface with the pod? Obviously I would need to do this a few times due to the pod's capacity. Basically I'm trying to figure out if I need a docking port between my science lab and the rest of the main module of my station, or whether to include the lab into the main module as a monolithic part and not as a separate module.

Edited January 20, 2015 by ROXunreal

[KSK]

If I have a science lab on a station and store science from cleaned instruments in it, in order to collect that science without transmitting, do I need to bring the whole thing down to the surface or can I move the science from the lab to a pod and go to the surface with the pod? Obviously I would need to do this a few times due to the pod's capacity. Basically I'm trying to figure out if I need a docking port between my science lab and the rest of the main module of my station, or whether to include the lab into the main module as a monolithic part and not as a separate module.

Provided your R&D facility is at level 2 or higher (or you're playing Sandbox or Science modes), you can transfer data to the pod and get it to the surface that way. No need to make your science lab detachable.

[linuxgurugamer]

I think you can also use a Kerbal to "take" the data from the science lab to the pod.

[ROXunreal]

Awesome, that's all I needed to know. Thanks.

[NASAHireMe]

I've found that it's less hassle to quickly assemble a cheap rocket with a lab+parachutes to recover all the data in one go, rather than transferring to pods. As you know, you can only take one copy of each data inside a pod, meaning if you want to maximize collection, you've got to land several pods... or just one lab. You can lift a lab, a probe core, and a few parachutes to orbit with a couple cheap SRBs and maybe a small liquid stage. I've saved this as a craft called "Lab Lander" and it only costs a few dozen thousand funds.

[tadswana]

I'm getting confused about how science is run now, once the experiment is done, do you have to EVA and manually retreive data and then store the data to get the full points?

I haven't been doing the EVA really...

[KerikBalm]

You have to manually move the experiment results from the instrument to the pod, or recover the instrument

[FlyingPete]

I pretty much always leave the lab in orbit. For example, I have a station at Minmus that contains a lab. The lander detaches, does science in a couple of biomes, then returns to the station for refuelling/experiment processing. When I send a new crew/supply ship, the old crew brings all the data back to Kerbin in their own ship. Any duplicate data which can't be stored in the pod gets transmitted.