How many starships does Starfleet have?

[Scooter]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Gatac has thought this through pretty thoroughly. We never really know the size of the Federation at any given point--small during TOS, large by Voyager?--but it's true, only the ships in close proximity to Earth could have arrived in time for Wolf 359. And Federation ships are not restructed to Federation space, since the Enterprise's portfolio is to explore strange [iost_uid0]new[/iost_uid0] worlds etc.; so however many ships Starfleet would need to patrol its existing borders, it would need more than that to explore beyond the Federation.[/colorost_uid0]