Talk:List of private spaceflight companies

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[edit] Previous discussions without headers

I'm not sure I agree with the removal of SpaceDev from the list. It may be publicly traded, but it is an important non-governmental player. I guess non-governmental had more been my intended target when creating this article. In order to head off serious debate over this issue, perhaps this article should be moved to 'non-governmental spaceflight companies' instead of removing SpaceDev. I think any list of companies pertaining to the 'New Space movement' that doesn't include SpaceDev has some serious gaping holes and I'd hate for this page to be categorized as such over the such a hair-splitting issues as whether or not it is publicly traded. Thoughts? aremisasling 03:38, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. However, a bigger issue seems to be what this article is supposed to be about. Is it a list of space tourist companies? Or a list of companies who can put stuff in space? If the intro explicitly states "manned spaceflights", why is there a need for a 'Manned Vehicles' section? — Jack · talk · 21:22, Wednesday, 29 August 2007

The original idea of it was to group non-governmental space ventures in an all-inclusive list. It seemed to be a missing view on the subject. I think a full picture is more useful than making it specifically tourist or manned oriented. As always with a wiki page, it's open to interpretation, but the content of the article hasn't ever been specifically manned or tourist programs even if the intro said it was. I took a quick look back at the history and the 'manned' and 'tourist' comments in the intro were put in place for NPOV because of the term 'solutions.' I suspect the redefinition was more of a clerical error in scope than anything. As it was a policy edit and not a substance edit I reworked it, though I'm not 100% satisfied with the wording of the non-government portion of it. That's my opinion, for what it's worth. aremisasling 23:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to take on adding references to these. It's always a fun task with a list, but it's definitely necessary. aremisasling 23:29, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Transplanetary Vehicles Section

I removed the transplanetary vehicle section due to a completely ridiculous claim. The company that is supposedly going to design this vehicle 'Sabrina Aircraft Manufacturing' just finished making their first two-seater private airplane, hardly qualifications for building a single-person interplanetary spacecraft. Furthermore, other than some kind of entry in the meta tags, their website makes no mention of such a plan. Usually I comment first before deleting, but this claim seems so patently absurd that some kind of justification needs to be made to include it even tentatively. aremisasling (talk) 19:10, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

An unregistered user just dropped a message on my talk saying I should check the referenced page's code for info. As I said, it's a tiny blurb in the script of the page mentioning the spacecraft. There are NO, and I repeat NO references anywhere that I can see other than a hidden note on the company website. Supposedly, according to the person who posted, the craft will be registered in February. If by March I still can't find any reference to it, it's gone. I know I don't own the page, but come on, this seems totally ridiculous. aremisasling (talk) 22:46, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I did a search based on the one name I found on the page. Apparently this person is, by my calculations from an essay she wrote for O'Hare Airport, in late middle school to early high school. She is a gifted student by all appearances and is also apparently quite well off. She has two aircraft co-registered to her and another individual I couldn't find. One of those aircraft she apparently designed and built herself. The spacecraft mentioned in the article is not registered. While a gifted student with the aptitude to design and build her own aircraft at such a young age is remarkable, it is still far too early to say that she's got the slightest chance of building a spacecraft.

Even if she is planning to do so, there is still no record of this craft anywhere I can find. The transponder code search came up empty on three sites and no registration or application came up under her name. I can't find any notes by anyone or to anyone about it. The only reference I have is the O'Hare essay that says she has made it her life goal to go to Mars and the aforementioned blurb in the code on her website. I don't want to discourage her or discount her claims simply because she is apparently so young, but there is insufficient evidence that such a craft exists or has any serious chance of ever launching. The best of luck to her, and to the editor who made the entry, please do come back and enter the spacecraft once there's some kind of concrete evidence that it exists. aremisasling (talk) 00:01, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not the 'powers that be,' am I? If so my statements aren't to be taken as orders for page content. I just want the editor who keeps entering the information to back his/her claims a little bit since there is far more information readily available on every other craft listed here than there is on SAM. aremisasling (talk) 21:37, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Formatting of the transplanetary vehicles section

"Passenger" is confusing. ICAO uses souls on board. A craft such as spaceship 1 had one required crew member and could carry one passenger, but instead carried dead weight. Spaceship two will carry two crewmembers and ? passengers. Souls on board counts the crew with the passengers. If a web visitor see's NO passengers, they might assume it is unmanned, yet it may have 1, 2 or more required crew members, especially during the test flight phase. Good luck... You might want to add tail numbers for the craft too? -unsigned comment moved from User talk:Aremisasling

I don't have the tail numbers. That's part of the problem. The only thing we've got is the transponder code, and I've looked that up on a few sites and found nothing. If you've got better sources than I do, please provide them. Due to the lack of records that I could find, I don't know that it should have a place here yet. Additionally, this is simply a list of planned, developing, and current spacecraft. N numbers, transponder codes, registration, or serial numbers are not relevant to the article. It is supposed to document the model, not the specific craft. If you feel that information would be useful, and I actually do think it would be, my suggestion would be to put that in a page dedicated specifically to the spacecraft or at least to Sabrina Aircraft Manufacturing. I would do it myself, but I don't know much about the spacecraft or the company due to the paucity of actual information out there on either.

As for the 'souls on board' designation, generally on wikipedia the passenger capacity of spacecraft is considered to be the total number of people that it can carry. It certainly makes no difference whatsoever how many people are actually carried, only the number of people that could be carried. The Souls On Board designation, while it may be used in the tech specs of the aircraft, is likely a confusing term for most readers. Furthermore, it's not in keeping with the rest of the list. If a case can be made to change all of the passenger capacity column titles to souls on board, then that change should be made universally in this list and likely others throughout wikipedia. aremisasling (talk) 17:46, 12 February 2008 (UTC)