Landing party

A landing party is the part of the crew of a ship that is assigned to perform special duties when going ashore.

In science fiction, the landing party is formed when a planet or another space ship are investigated. A landing party usually consists of a commanding officer, a science officer, a medical officer and a security team.

• Sheldon has formed a (hypothetical) landing party based on the characters from Star Trek: The Original Series, which he reveals to Leonard in 0209:

Sheldon: If you fail this relationship, and history suggests you will, then we risk losing the medical officer that our landing party has always needed. Leonard: What landing party? Sheldon: You're Kirk, I'm Spock, Wolowitz is Scotty, Koothrappali is the guy who always gets killed. And now we've got McCoy!

He is talking about Dr Stephanie Barnett being a part of their group when she was dating Leonard.

Note: He refers to the Enterprise's captain Kirk, science officer Spock, engineer Scotty and medical doctor McCoy. The reference to "the guy who always gets killed" is an homage to the "red shirt", the usually-unnamed security officer who accompanies a landing party only to be killed by whichever monster or evil alien the Enterprise crew is facing in the episode, thereby revealing the dangerous situation they're facing.