Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Space missions/archive1

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[edit] old

I will probably split the mission and program definitions apart as these now-likely-to-be-multiple Space WikiProjects materialize further. -- Pipian

One thing to consider: there is not always a 1:1 correspondence between a "launch" and a "mission" - especially the space station missions have one long term station crew, as well as visiting crews to exchange the Soyuz, or even a partial exchange of the long term crew. This can be seen e.g. by the fact that the ISS long term crew has their own mission insignia, additional to the Shuttle/Soyuz launch insignia. andy 12:16, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

This is true. I think ideally, we should mention crew changes on the space station, but we should keep them as separate missions from the actual spaceflights. It remains to be seen how it would be best to manage this in cases where there is no mission name for a long-term crew on Mir/ISS/etc. -- Pipian
Yes, this is going to become increasingly complex. What's really being described here are launches of spacecraft that have carried a crew on the way up and/or on the way down... This fits neatly with the numbering schemes adopted by the various players. Hmm - maybe the missions we're actually talking about are the missions of the spacecraft rather than the missions of the crew on board... synonymous in the early days! rlandmann
Pretty much. ISS missions at least have names (e.g. Expedition 1, etc. though none of these have pages as of yet.) -- Pipian

For the fact sheet - I don't like the colored background for the mission insignia. For one transparent images are not that easy to create (AFAIK IE has problems with transparent PNG, and JPEG cannot be transparent at all), it also looks better with a standard white background. I prefer the color in the table only for the caption rows. andy 12:16, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

So switch the colors to buff for the rows and white for the insignia? (as it currently appears) -- Pipian
I would suggest to do it similar like it is already in the few Space Shuttle missions already existing. We also should not make the fact sheet too long, especially when the article itself gets so much short then it looks just ugly. For example the crew listing can better fit into the text, especially when it has a backup crew, or a alternate Payload Specialist, or the ISS crew has the Mission Specialist # position during the ascent, and the ones returning from ISS will have that number on descent. If you want to fit this all into the fact sheet it will explode. As another example see Soyuz TMA-2 - it has a lot of data, but some of the data in the fact sheet there is IMHO a bit obscure for the normal reader. andy 08:33, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Alright. I'm not going to argue. Looks like someone else (Rlandmann) is standardizing the appearance of the table based on what already exists anyway, so I'm going to standardize more on that. Orbit data should be limited to Number of Orbits, in retrospect. Perigee, Apogee, Inclination, and Orbital period are nice, but too detailed for Wikipedia, IMO. Crew I guess can be listed in the article itself under the crew entry (Number of crew members could stick around though). -- Pipian 16:14, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I'm not sure I agree that it's a good idea to artifically limit the depth of a wikipedia artical. I feel more is always better. However it doesn't all have to be in one table. There could easily be a 'Crew' table in the article body somewhere. Audin 08:28, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

About the previous mission/next mission box. I think it should go, for example, Mercury 9 --previous Mercury 8, next Gemini 3. I think the way it is written you would rather have it go Mercury 9 --previous Mercury 8, next Gemini program. I don't think that is helpful. Besides there will be a link to Gemini program in the Gemini 3 article. Also will we skip Apollo 1 and Apollo 2-6 in the bottom box? Rmhermen 16:30, Oct 15, 2003 (UTC)

I meant for it to say something like:
Previous Mission:
Mercury 8		 Mercury Program Next Mission:
Gemini 1
(Gemini Program)
Whereas you would like:
Previous Mission:
Mercury 8		 Mercury Program Next Mission:
Gemini 1 (or perhaps Gemini 3)
Did I get that right? I suppose it's not a big deal either way, and yours might be cleaner. As for uncrewed test flights in the same program, perhaps it should be something like...


Previous Mission:
Mercury 8		 Mercury Program Next Mission:
Gemini 1
(Next Crewed Mission:
Gemini 3)
That sound good? -- Pipian 17:10, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Since the program link should explain any abnormalities in numbering I think we can skip the unmanned ones. (Of course the Mercury page doesn't explain why there is no Mercury 5 yet!) Also I found that the Apollo mision had a slightly different box already. Should we standardize? Rmhermen 17:20, Oct 15, 2003 (UTC)
That's what the talk page is for. Anyone else want to weigh in on the manned or unmanned issue? I'm personally comfortable with either, but there are some articles for the unmanned missions (e.g. Apollo 4) so I tend to favor pointing to them as next in the series in some fashion or another. -- Pipian
I prefer to add only the manned ones, whereas the project article can list both manned and unmanned in one table in their correct order. But if the majority thinks otherwise I have no problem with it either.
But it only have this clear projects for Mercury, Gemini and Apollo - for STS most missions actually stand for themself (but for example the Hubble Servicing missions are somewhat linked), and the Russian flights are numbered, but there is no "Soyuz project", especially no distinction between the "Soyuz project" and the "Soyuz T project". Instead it had e.g. the Apollo-Soyuz preparation missions, it had the lunar Soyuz testing missions, it had the Salyut-1 missions. And for Salyut 7 it even had two "projects", with the station being empty between the two. In these case we can either do a "next Soyuz flight" link, or a "next Soyuz flight in same project", which might not be the same. We can of course use the simple way of linking the next Soyuz flights in bottom and mentioon the actual project with its precursor and follow-up missions in the text. andy 08:33, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I would just link in strings of a single country in the order they were launched, not sequential in program. Rmhermen 16:08, Oct 16, 2003 (UTC)
Well, In terms of projects, I was thinking more by spacecraft design (Mercury was not the same as Gemini, which was not the same as Apollo)? But when I say spacecraft on the main page, I don't mean that it should link to Space Shuttle Discovery but rather the general Space Shuttle program -- Pipian
I'd like to see the unmanned flights listed. They are too often overlooked. Audin 08:28, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I disagree with one of the naming points, that is concerning astronauts. I would suggest using cosmonaut for Soviet/Russian ones and astronaut for all others. We certainly don't want to start uses 32 different names representing each country that has flown someone in space. I also doubt that either name for the Chinese astronauts will last in English. Rmhermen 17:04, Oct 16, 2003 (UTC)

Well, in my opinion, there's a subtle difference between merely flying someone into space and using that name (e.g. France's spationauts, see Astronaut) and using a different name for each nation that has ORIGINATED crewed spaceflights (Only USSR/Russia, US, China). Let's use this section to debate the name however... Western media uses taikonaut, but the Chinese term is yuhangyuan. English articles from Chinese news sources say Chinese astronaut. -- Pipian
Actually, I've only seen taikonaut in use by space geeks (I include myself!!), not in the mainstream media. I don't think it will last, and I don't think it's a good idea for Wiki... -- rlandmann
Well, I certainly want to keep taikonaut mentioned on the astronaut page, with a link from taikonaut to astronaut (as it currently is), and I doubt anyone will disagree with me. I do like the "naut" ending, but it's not really official in any respect, so I do not really support its use for Chinese astronauts. Others may choose to disagree however, but I personally think it's a choice between astronaut and yuhangyuan. I prefer the latter, as it's hearkening to the Chinese term, rather than an English term (I do like the distinction), but on the other hand, we say cosmonaut, not the actual Russian kosmonaut.-- Pipian

Another naming point not directly related to the template discussion. Is it called manned or crewed? There seem to activist of both sides changing some of the articles back and forth, and such edit wars are not really productive. For myself I am much more used to the word manned, however as a non-native speaker I don't know what is the politically correct word now, or how much politically incorrect the other one is. We have an article called Crewed space mission which however does not explain which of the two terms is better, more NPOV and more common. I only know in German it is bemannt, and everyone except maybe a feminist activist will laugh if anyone would call it bemenscht. andy 12:27, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I am a native English speaker and I cannot ever remember hearing "crewed mission" anywhere but here. It is always "manned mission". Unless someone can provide some other evidence, of course. Rmhermen 13:38, Oct 17, 2003 (UTC)
On a personal note, I agree with manned over crewed (especially due to historical reasons), but in the interest of lack of sexism and so that we won't have strife, I decided that we should have crewed (as it's less likely to spart an argument than manned is). If we can come to an agreement that manned is perfectly acceptable, then I have no problems with changing the spec, but since I'm interested in keeping fights over this to a low roar, the official stance right NOW is to keep it "crewed". Feel free to debate until we agree (if we do) that manned is better. -- Pipian
In Talk:Shenzhou spacecraft there is a rationale for why the term manned is not sexist - and the article Crewed space mission has now been moved back to Manned space mission. But we should concentrate on creating good contents, not about changing one word back-and-forth. andy 18:28, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)
One entertaining way to do it would be to use the terms Manned, Womaned, and Crewed correctly for each mission. I don't think it makes much difference, though I did change some of the 'crewed's back to 'manned's a while back in the Apollo (I think) article while making other changes. I do like the renaming of Manned missions to Human spaceflights. Audin 08:28, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The following section has been moved from the Village pump:

After the successful launch of Shenzhou 5, and looking at similar pages (Mercury 3) for reference when helping to write/update/edit the article, it got me thinking (particularly considering the bottom of Mercury 3) that there perhaps should be a WikiProject standardizing the appearance of space mission entries. I'm not sure whether it would apply to both crewed and uncrewed missions, or just crewed missions, but I figured it might be a good idea to at least standardize on a footer to help navigate through the various missions, much like rulers of countries (e.g. George Washington and Elizabeth II) have a navigation system. It wouldn't hurt to standardize on a method of describing the location/time of launch, location/time of landing, crew names, and mission badges (if applicable). Anyone else agree? I'll lay out the template if people say it's a good idea. -- Pipian 02:58, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Go for it. Ark30inf 03:01, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)


There's a "de facto" scheme I've been trying to implement - look at the early Soviet pages - Vostok, Voshkod, Soyuz 1-12. But yes, I agree standardisation would be nice :) rlandmann
Please check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Space Missions then while I'm working on solidifying a possible standard. I'll probably adopt most of your existing one. -- Pipian
Please also, set up a standard for what we call the crewmembers. Someone removed astronaut and changed it to taikonaut. Someone else removed the Chinese (Yuhangyuan) because they said "it looks ugly". We need a standard. Ark30inf 03:53, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)


Alright. I might just make a whole groups of Space WikiProjects.... -- Pipian
Just commenting that the "buff" coloured background on the tables was already kinda standard from many of the Shuttle missions - might be worth reviewing those pages as well before settling on the final version of the template... not really an issue, of course! rlandmann
Quite some time ago I started with adding a factsheet to some of the space mission (I did e.g. STS-9), but never came to more then just a few when the next project absorbed me. As that was when I was new to Wikipedia I didn't know about the Wikiprojects yet, and then didn't find the time to return to the space mission except to add minor details sometimes. So it's a good idea to revive this project, and at first unify those space missions already existing. andy 11:59, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I have a book that covers early space missions and could add at least stubs on a lot of those that don't have them already. The book includes orbital parameters of the missions and I think that these should be added to articles whenever possible so I wanted to discuss their format here. Another interesting thing that it describes are mission achievements; most early missions have certain unique achievement (First satellite in orbit, first around Venus, first man on the Moon etc.) and perhaps this should be added to the template (I don't think in the table, but a standard paragraph would be nice). Nikola 22:09, 5 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, this wouldn't happen to be the Space Almanac would it? Because I happen to have that book, which I plan to use to fill out some stub data for articles... -- Pipian 13:06, 6 Nov 2003 (UTC)
No, it's a book in Serbian :)
I propose the following addition to the table, above "Number of orbits":
Satellite weight
Perigee
Apogee
Inclination
Period
For deep space missions there should also be infomation on the orbit around the Sun, for missions to other planets on orbits around them, for mission that landed landing coordinates. Nikola 09:35, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)
For satellites don't forget the official satellite number (e.g. 1987-16A) in the template... andy 09:37, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I'd rather like to keep the tables as clean as possible, and while I think knowing the perigee, apogee, inclination, and period are important, I don't think they're important enough for MANNED flights (which already have enough space taken up with the patch and so forth). I think those should go on satellites for certain though. -- Pipian 06:07, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Anyone else want to weigh in on this? Perigee, Apogee, Inclination, and Period can be obtained for any of the manned flights I believe... But still, my inclination is to exclude these bits of info in the interest of keeping the table short (unless it shouldn't be an issue)... We need to settle on this before I go ahead and start changing the Soyuz pages. -- Pipian 07:20, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I don't see why it would be important on unmanned flights and not on manned. Of course, sometimes the orbit was changing, so if it is impossible to follow the changes it should be dropped. Perhaps it could be the best to add data in a standard heading, not in the primary table. Something like this:

[edit] Mission parameters

A lot more could be added without any clutter. Including the launch vehicle. Nikola 09:55, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I'm going to start Wikipedia:WikiProject Space Missions/Sandbox as a testing ground. The text will be that of Vostok 1. -- Pipian
After consideration of the fact that Crew is listed in such a fashion after the main text of the article, I believe that mission parameters like that are fine, after the crew listing. Anyone else want to weigh in? I'm applying the change to Vostok 1 for the time being. -- Pipian 19:09, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I've decided it's better to change "Satellite Weight" to "Mass" to be more accurate scientifically, and ignore the satellite/spacecraft issue. -- Pipian
I think the addition of these parameters to the ends of the articles is incredibly ugly - we already have a (large) data table, which I think would be a far more logical place to put this data. Personally, I think that details such as perigee/apogee/inclination are probably too esoteric for the encyclopedia anyway... Hasn't this already been discussed somewhere? --Rlandmann 05:44, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I don't see any reason to limit the size of the table. The more information the better. Audin 08:28, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I'm just wondering whether the level of detail in these parameters is really encyclopaedic? But I'm not raising any really strong objection to it... I *am* suggesting, though, that if we're going to include them, we make them part of the table, which is not the case at the moment (see Vostok 1 and my suggestion below --Rlandmann 23:05, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)


Would there be any objections to the following modifications?

  • moving the current mission parameters in with the rest of the data table
  • replacing the "number of crew" row in the data table with a "crew names" row (as per the current mission parameters?)

--Rlandmann 00:58, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I like the idea of adding the crew names to the table, maybe also with their positions (CDR, LMP etc). Personally I don't like the idea of the mission parameters. Most missions have some orbit changes and on ISS-Shuttle missions there is usually a gradual raising of the orbit by maybe a dozen kilometres by the Shuttle. They just aren't hard and fast numbers. I agree however that we need to include a general idea of orbital height as Hubble-Shuttle flights are much higher than ISS flights, which in turn are higher than the later Apollo flights which in some cases were in orbits that barely would have survived a couple a orbits before decaying. --enceladus 23:33, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I do agree that data is nice, but too much data becomes useless for most people. That's why I haven't put Apogee and so forth in the table. Crew names would be helpful in the table, BUT they make the table far too wide in many cases. I'm pretty much for whatever the consensus is regarding the extended data (Though I've been gathering what I can for all the Vostok flights). -- Pipian

I worked on Apollo 17 but changed number of orbits to time on lunar surface. There are several other facts that could go in the box. Anyone want to give an opinion. Rmhermen 23:13, Nov 6, 2003 (UTC)

Yes. Orbits should be removed and replaced as needed. Especially with the lunar flights. Orbits are practically unnecessary for satellites, since they tend to have a large number of orbits before coming down. I would, however, recommend that "Time on Lunar Surface" be moved above EVA (where it logically follows that it should be placed) -- Pipian

Hi all new round here (I'm usually use E2 but its been down for the last couple of days so had to find somewhere else).

Anyway, I've been writing Soyuz articles for E2 and will add them as soon as I can get them from there. Just one thought though on early missions. I think that it should be mentioned in the articles that most of the patches on all the Mercury missions, Gemini 3 and most Soviet flights are not really patches that were created for the mission. They weren't worn by the crew and at the very most were just made into medallions. - enceladus

I'm looking into my Space Almanac again, and I was thinking... Should we add the launch vehicle used as part of the table (e.g. Vostoks with A-1, Voskhods and Soyuz with A-2)? Or should that to be left for the spacecraft articles? -- Pipian

I guess that there could be cases where same spacecraft was launched with different launch vehicles. Perhaps it could be a part of Launch field, then it wouldn't clutter the table:
Launch: (date)
(time)
(location, including link to site, if in Wiki)
using (launch vehicle)
Or, as I said above, into the standard heading.
Could I also ask you to link cosmodrome to [[Baikonur Cosmodrome|Baikonur]] instead of [[Baikonur]]? Nikola 09:55, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I'd also like to see the pad mentioned... Audin 08:28, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
It is, when known. -- Pipian

I've been writing up articles for all the manned Gemini missions. As part of this I've suddenly realised that all the Gemini missions except Gemini 3 used roman numerals instead of arabic numbers. As such I've moved all the pages to the right pages, ie Gemini 5 is now at Gemini V. This will not affect anyone greatly as the pages will automatically redirect if you type Gemini 5. - enceladus

Indeed the roman numerals were used once upon a time, but that was a long time ago, and arabics are now the most common (Google shows a 10 to 1 ratio), not to mention the part where roman numerals are harder to read. So your redirs are backwards. So as to preserve history, a sysop will have to delete the redir and move back. Stan 04:16, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)
No, as long as the redirect page has no history by itself it can be moved back by everyone, no need for admin power. If any of the redirects however has a history then I can offer my admin powers :-) andy 09:33, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Triggerhappy admins, wait a moment: if original name of a mission was Gemini V, the article should be at Gemini V, even if today Gemini 5 is more used. Nikola 09:36, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)
According to "On The Shoulders Of Titans", after Gemini 3 and the Molly Brown incident, NASA managers made a decision that all missions were to be referred to as roman numerals: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4203/ch10-5.htm (end of fifth paragraph). Now of course I can see where people are coming from in the fact that it more commonly known as Gemini 5.
If we started naming all the Gemini missions with roman numerals, we would then have to refer to STS-26 as STS-26R and all the Mercury flights as MA-6 or whatever. And Vostok 1 should be referred to as simply Vostok as that it what the Soviets announced it as.
So if there is a concensus that they should all be referred to as Gemini 5 instead of Gemini V, then I think we should revert them to their original states. - enceladus 00:36, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I would like them but back if just for consistency. Rmhermen 00:44, Nov 19, 2003 (UTC)
I like consistency, but I also like historical accuracy. Thus, even though Vostok 1 might not have had a number, I like it having a number. Perhaps we should go back to Gemini 5 and link Gemini V to it, and then mention in the article something like "Gemini 5 (officially Gemini V) -- Pipian

OK. All the Gemini missions are back to arabic numbers. However in the table it is referred to as Gemini V, and there is a commment that officially it was Gemini V. - enceladus

Question about the table at the bottom of the pages. Should it have the previous/next manned flight in the program or the previous/next flight around the world?

And somewhat related to this is whether some of the X-15 flights should be counted as spaceflights. All the flights below are over 50 miles (USAF definition of astronaut) while only two are over 100 km (FAI definition). Although an abritary limit is not desirable, personally I think we should go with the 100 km. The only other one close is Flight 62, which is still 5000 metres off, so we are not keeping anyone out who got to 99999 m.

Flight 62 - 95940 m.
Flight 77 - 82810 m.
Flight 87 - 86870 m.
Flight 90 - 106010 m.
Flight 91 - 107960 m.
Flight 138 - 85527 m.
Flight 143 - 82601 m.
Flight 150 - 90099 m.
Flight 153 - 81230 m.
Flight 190 - 85500 m.
Flight 191 - 81080 m. (Disintegrated after going into spin)
Flight 197 - 81530 m.

-enceladus

I like the next flight in program as it is now. We could add a second box for next/previous manned flight. We also have a List of manned space missions chronologically. I would also list all X-15 flights over 50 miles with a notation of the different definitions and special notice of the two over 100 km. Rmhermen 03:17, Nov 21, 2003 (UTC)
I second Rmhermen. List it in lists of manned space missions, but not in the tables, especially as they aren't actual articles... -- Pipian
Really ambitious would be a multi-line table...Next flight in program...Next flight in country...Next flight period. Audin 08:28, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I agree. It would be ambitious, but I don't want the pages to be too messy with data and too lacking in text. -- Pipian

I added Crew to Apollo 16 and 17 but I didn't add Mission Parameters headers since none of them are applicable to lunar missions. And I should add that I think satellite weight is misleading. The common conpt of satellite does not include spacecraft. Coudln't it just be spacecraft weight? And for lunar missions which weight - total, lander, LCM, etc. Rmhermen 19:35, Nov 21, 2003 (UTC)

I could change it. I think it would be better if it were just plain "spacecraft weight", with the Apollo missions having italicised subcategories Lander, LCM, and Total. I mean, obviously some things have to be changed to work. Apogee and Perigee could still work, as Apoluna and Periluna (closest and furthest points from the moon, obviously) and orbital time around the moon, etc. I couldn't tell you if these data are known though. -- Pipian
IIRC the correct terms are perilune and apolune. And now for a stupid question - what was LCM stand for? - enceladus
I realized that when I tried looking it up on Google. And LCM (Lunar Command Module) is actually more properly known as the CSM (Command/Service Module) -- Pipian
Freaky. I have never heard LCM before.  :) Audin 08:28, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

How will the article Pioneer 6, 7, 8 and 9 fit into our format? Rmhermen 20:09, Nov 23, 2003 (UTC)

I think we should think about splitting that into four separate articles (although perhaps not immediately, because there's not yet enough in there to differentiate. However, I can't help but think that surely all four of these didn't have the exact same mission, regardless of how many similarities there may have been. - Hephaestos 21:33, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I second splitting them up, but I do not think there is that much that can be said for differences in the missions, other than basic mission data (launch date/time) -- Pipian
Should the various groups of Pioneer spacecraft (and other such generically-named programs) get their own pages? Audin 08:28, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Still not sure what Mission Parameters will work for lunar missions. All of the standard ones are to simple. For example for Apollo 17 you have 2 initial earth orbits at 93nm, then the trans-earth coast for 3 days, 7 hours. Then a CSM/LM lunar orbit of 170nm by 52.6 nm for four hours, then an orbit of 59 by 15nm for 18 hours, then an orbit of 70.3 by 54.3 nm. Then a separate LM orbit of perilune altitude 6.2 nm for 47 minutes. After leaving the moon, the LM reached 48.5nm by 9.4nm orbit for 45 minutes then went to an orbit of 64.7 by 48.5 nm then 62 by 62 nm for docking but I don't know when the CSM went to this lower orbit. It could have been there for most of the over 3 days it waited in orbit. Then 2 days 20 hours back to Earth and esentially one orbit before splashdown. Far to complicated. That doesn't touch inclinations or periods. Rmhermen 17:01, Nov 25, 2003 (UTC)

Shouldn't we add Launch Vehicle to the mission parameters. Especially as such vehicle often changed within a program for the early launches. Mercury and Apollo, for instance. By the shuttle launches it would not be useful though. I don't know about Soyuz. Rmhermen 16:12, Nov 26, 2003 (UTC)

For Soyuz, they all used the Soyuz rocket (just an R-7 basically) but there were slight variations through the program. According to astronautix.com from Soyuz 19 onwards they used the Soyuz 11A511U [1]. It also appears that the Soyuz 11A511U2 [2] was used as well as the Soyuz FG [3]. enceladus 21:37 Nov 26, 2003 (UTC)

Why isn't there an article on the Vostok program like the ones for Mercury program, etc. Right now each box on the bottom of a Vostok flight refers one to a disambiguation page. Not good. Should we change our link-in-the-box to Vostok spacecraft? Or write a Vostok program article and redirect to that? Rmhermen 23:50, Dec 8, 2003 (UTC)

Done :) --Rlandmann 00:58, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

How about agreeing on a standard for launch vehicle descriptions? There's a suggested template by User:Audin that s/he's already applied to the Saturn V and Titan rocket pages. --Rlandmann 07:25, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'll second this recomendation.  :) I feel that complete standardiztion of the table is difficult given the great variety of launch vehicles around (for instance, think of a table for Delta...), and I went a bit nuts with the Titan rocket table. Each of the Titans has a story that should be turned into a seperate page, so some day it'll get split up. I've also left some fields of the table blank when I couldn't find (trustworthy) values for them to provide some incentive for others to fill them in. I used the same table at Redstone rocket. Audin 08:28, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Maybe we should set up a Wikiproject for rockets and missiles. Although I agree that a complete standardisation is impossible, it would be nice to see the major rocket types with standardised table. I think that the Saturn V table would be a good template - a picture of the rocket just after launch, info about each stage and then payload to certain types of orbits. As for rockets like the Delta, we could have the Delta Rocket Family page that then linked to each of the seperate rockets. Even if these articles only had the table and a paragraph or two about each rocket it would be a start. And we have to remember that we have an 'unlimited' (well sort of) amount of space to work with. - enceladus 22:26, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Saturn V
Saturn V launch
Saturn V launching Apollo 15.
Stages 3
1 Engines
Thrust lbs
ISP sec
Burn time ~ sec
Fuels RP-1/LOX
2 Engines
Thrust lbs
ISP sec
Burn time ~ sec
Fuels RP-1/LOX
3 Engines
Thrust lbs
ISP sec
Burn time ~ sec
Fuels RP-1/LOX
Three stage version
Payload to LEO 118,000 kg
Payload to TLI 47,000 kg

This is what I'm currently playing with as a rocket table... I think the star background on the header looks reasonably sweet...but it's currently implimented in a non-clean way. I'd vote for black as a backup. User:Rlandmann suggested possibly placing the image along side the text, as rockets tend to be long and skinny. I think that would be expecially nice with a broken up image featuring each stage seperately, so the stage images would line up with the stage text. Obviously that doesn't work for all rockets, but i don't see any reason to stick exclusively to one type of table. It's good that the general features be similar (sameish information, similar order), but the layout can differ based on what imagry is available.

Do people like the star background? If so I will talk to the developers about getting a bit added to the CSS so we can impliment it cleanly. It's a reasonably large background image (though still only 4k) so it could be used elsewhere without many problems. Audin 22:50, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)


I've created a project at Wikipedia:WikiProject Rockets. It needs alot of fleshing out and discussion but it is a start. I envisage it looking at IRBM, ICBM and space launchers (and of course there were crossover for all three catergories among some rockets). Anyone is welcome to add to the page or start a discussion. - enceladus

Is there a general wiki rule on throwing a categorization into an article name? Many of the rocket entries have '(rocket)' or just 'rocket' in their titles (ie: Redstone rocket, Centaur rocket). This seems useful in many cases, but is also inconsistant. I intend to go through at some point and add a bunch of articles on rocket engines, should I name them all similar to F-1 (rocket engine)? It seems a little silly. But who knows how long the categorization code will take to materialize. It's also a little weird in the case of the Centaur...it should really be Centaur rocket stage. Audin 08:38, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The "rules" are to be found at Wikipedia:Disambiguation and Wikipedia:Naming_conventions but are not hard and fast, and consistency comes from projects like this one. I think a good rule of thumb is that if the article name makes sense without brackets, then don't use them, e.g. Titan rocket but Mars (planet). Disambiguation is a Good Thing, especially with very undescriptive names like F-1, which should definitely be F-1 rocket engine to distinguish at least from Formula 1 motor racing and the Mitsubishi jet trainer! And very shortly we will need to distinguish between Saturn I rocket and Saturn I rocket stage... Agreed that the Centaur should be moved to Centaur rocket stage. Also Jupiter-C IRBM might need to be broadened? --Rlandmann 11:20, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
RE: Saturn I rocket stage This wouldn't be necessary as IIRC these were called S-I stage to distinguish them from the Saturn I rocket. But Saturn stage nomenclature is just plan nasty, with the Saturn V featuring the S-IC, S-II and the S-IVB. And the S-IVB was the second stage of the Saturn IB, which used a S-IB as the first stage. --enceladus 21:56, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Both names seem to have been used, with the "S" being short for "Saturn". S-I rocket stage would be the more normal nomenclature, but we really ought to have at least some disambiguation. --Rlandmann 23:28, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Units. In some cases I think it is important to retain the original units to which an item was built. Case in point: the F-1 engine. It was built to be a 1,000,000 or 1,500,000 (later) lbs thrust engine. Listing it only as 4,500,000 or 6,670,000 newtons leaves one thinking "why did they choose 6.67 million newtons?". I'd like to see the Saturn V page list "33,400,000 N (7,500,000 lbs)". Audin 02:46, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'll admit I was the one that changed all the lbs to Newtons. I've modified it as I realise now that it is important to include these numbers as in the early 1960s when the rockets were first envisaged they were described as 1.5 million lbs of thrust per engine. I've only added it back for the unupgraded specs as it would clutter up the table with too many numbers to include them for the upgraded versions.
Seems like a good compromise. The uprated thrust numbers aren't as round anyhow. Now it's clear that there wasn't any real deep reasoning behind the numbers, they were just ballpark big numbers. Audin 04:36, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Now just something unrelated but I've updated the pictures in the Saturn V articles. I felt the previous two were not the best quality. I managed to find the exactly the same image as the one in the table but was unable to find the picture of the Apollo 4 launch across the water. So I replaced it with the Skylab launch to show the two stage version of the Saturn V. --enceladus 03:15 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I'll admit to being the one who originally cropped and scaled down the nasa image. I felt 10k was about all i wanted to force a modem user to endure. I did link to the full-scale nasa image on the image page itself, however. The new image is ~80k, the old one was ~11k. Audin 04:36, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Agreed that where hardware was designed in imperial units, those units should be retained. I tried to do that on the Saturn rocket page. The great thing about the metric system is that zeros can be readily dropped to remove clutter... :) I guess the same thing can be done in imperial by using words. I think that 7.5 million pounds is somehow more meaningful than 7,500,000 pounds. And of course 33.4 MN is a lot tidier than 33,400,000 N (but then, maybe not so meaningful??) --Rlandmann 03:44, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Keep in mind though that non-American readers WILL be using the Wikipedia (and it is not to be targetted to Americans). I would at the least recommend linking to the definition of pound as a force? -- Pipian
I've linked the first instance of Newton and Pound-Force to their respective articles. - enceladus 20:36 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
(mission name)
Mission Insignia


(image of insignia)
(Larger image link if applicable)
Mission Statistics
Mission Name: (mission name)
Call Sign: (call sign)
Spacecraft Name: (spacecraft name)
Crew: (number of crew members)
Launch: (date)
(time)
(location, including link to site, if in Wiki)

Linkup with ISS:		 (date)
(time)
(location)
Landing: (date)
(time)
(location, including link to site, if in Wiki)
Duration: (duration)
Orbits: (number of orbits)

Shrink width of space mission table... I'd like to suggest changing some of the wording on the mission table to make it a bit narrower. Specifically, I would change "Number of Crew Members" to "Crew" and "Number of Orbits" to "Orbits". This results in a table like that at right. A good example is to make the changes to the Apollo-Soyuz table. I think the page renders much nicer with the skinnier table. Audin 23:06, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I went ahead and made this change experimentally while playing with the layout of Apollo 17. Audin 23:18, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Why do we list a Spacecraft Name in the template right after call sign? I haven't seen anyone use it. Should it just be eliminated from the template? Rmhermen 00:12, Dec 12, 2003 (UTC)

Because the place I see it most used would be STS missions. I mean, theoretically (and I believe this is true), Columbia, Challenger, and so forth would be call signs as well, but it would be more appropriate to put it in under spacecraft name. In essence, I believe it should be call sign for all non-space shuttle flights, and spacecraft name for Space Shuttle flights (unless there's proof that there are different callsigns for space shuttle flights, in which case you would just use both. You could always use spacecraft name for those little detailed data pieces (like Soyuz-TM OK #37 or whatever it says on Astronautix) -- Pipian

I did a count of List_of_human_spaceflights_chronologically and found that we have articles for only 80 of 256 missions listed (30%). And some of those don't follow the template yet (Mercury). Just an update. Rmhermen 14:30, Dec 18, 2003 (UTC)

Has a decision been made as to the way that we are dealing with visting crews and permanent crews to space station? Do we deal with them as Salyut 6 EP-1 (First Visting Crew to Salyut 6) or as the Soyuz 27 spacecraft and what happened to that. To me the logical is the former as it ties up lose ends as to what happened to that particular crew.

If we went with the latter we would end up with alot of repeating eg [[Soyuz 26 article would mention that it launched the first permanent crew to Salyut 6 who returned to Earth in Soyuz 27 and that the crew of Soyuz 27 returned to Earth Soyuz 26. It also doesn't make sense as the spacecraft doesn't mean that much. Sometimes a permanent crew could have over three different escape craft docked to the station.

At the moment I've written the Soyuz 27 article from the point of view of making it about the Salyut EP-1 crew (It makes more sense if you read the article). Just my 0.02. What do other think? - enceladus

[edit] Navigation bar

It makes no sense to insert a navigation bar for sole missions in a program (e.g. Shenzhou V). The navigation bar is intended to be of some use. --Jiang 04:17, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Yes it does make sense -every article has it -it is a standard format -something we are striving for to improve consistency and professionalism on Wikipedia. Rmhermen 14:55, Dec 20, 2003 (UTC)
Answered on Talk:Shenzhou 5 that this is a unique situation. We also insert the footer for various world leaders, but it makes absolute sense to leave it out in one-man regimes. Not every situation warrants the inclusion of every element of the template. The template is designed to include information that is found in all articles of the set under the same formatting. When an article lacks this information, it's logical to leave it out. --Jiang 15:07, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Coloration

There has been comparison of project tables at Wikipedia:Taxoboxes, and it has been revealed that, horror of horrors, this project uses the exact same color in its table as Wikipedia:WikiProject Compounds. I am reasonably certain that the compounds table has been implemented in more articles than this project's table, so I think this project should switch to something not already taken. I'd be willing to do the labor of changing the table where it already exists, if the list above (or another one somewhere else) is complete so I can find them all. Tuf-Kat 02:50, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)

Tuf-Kat - see the proposal above with the starfield background. I think it fairly rocks.  :) - Hephaestos 05:38, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Oh, that's good too. In that case, this is a reminder to change Wikipedia:Taxoboxes when the background changes. Tuf-Kat 05:53, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)
I think it would rock better if the text wouldn't display in black as well - at least in Mozilla 1.5 it shows just a black bar with a a few white dots. andy 09:05, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Does that change help? (I put in a redundant font tag; it may be that Mozilla isn't recognizing the css that was there.) - Hephaestos 16:59, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Yes, better. I did check the previous version with IE earlier, there it showed of course. I hate these browser incompatibilities. andy 17:04, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)
The list in the middle of the page is not up-to-date. All of the Gemini missions also have the box. I didn't check the Russian ones. Rmhermen 22:25, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)
The space shuttle ones have the box too. Rmhermen 18:59, Feb 7, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Commercial and unmanned military use of space

We seem to have fairly good coverage of manned missions and scientific satellites and probes but there is very little and that widely scattered on commercial satellites or spy satellites. Even Timeline of artificial satellites and space probes doesn't include very many and none recent. What we have are stub articles based around satellite. Any good ideas on how to expand it? A separate list of commercial satellites, list of spy satellites? Rmhermen 19:28, Feb 7, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Cosmonauts

As now quite a lot of biographies of cosmonauts are created I uploaded a list of the names in cyrillic spelling, which then can be added to the articles - I already did for those articles I noticed. See User:Ahoerstemeier/Cosmonauts for the list. The names in latin are in the german transcription, but it is not too much different from the english one. andy 21:20, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Template:SampleWikiProject

Hey, Ive been filling in Space shuttle missions that are blank with templates. See STS-47 for an example. Does this look good for a standard shuttle mission template?Theon 18:08, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Unmanned space missions?

I'm a bit confused whether the scope of Wikipedia:WikiProject Space Missions really includes unmanned exploration, and I see User:Sennheiser has created Wikipedia:WikiProject Space which includes two "To be created" projects, one for manned and one for unmanned. Is the idea that Wikipedia:WikiProject Space Missions is for Manned space missions only, or will there be a name change or what? I'm actually interested in both, but I can't see the template for manned really fitting well for unmanned. Wikibob 21:19, 2004 Mar 7 (UTC)

I agree with you that the space missions is basically manned space missions. I second the need for a seperate wikiproject to standardize unmanned space missions. My only disagreement is that term "exploration" he used. I'd like a more generalized template that can include all unmanned spacecraft, those for scientific purposes and those for exploration. Ryjaz 18:36, 2004 Mar 21 (UTC)
Created new project for this at Wikipedia:WikiProject Unmanned Space Missions Ryjaz 04:10, 2004 Mar 23 (UTC)


[edit] Template namespace

For testing the template namespace, I create Template:Infobox Spacemissions on Test-Wikipedia ( http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_3 , http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_4 ). Possibly you want to use it. -- User:Docu


[edit] Mir missions

We have dates for the various flights to Mir listed in three locations Mir, List of human spaceflights, 1987-1999, and in the individual mission articles like TMA-11. But the dates don't agree with each other. For example, for Soyuz TM-9

  • from Mir: - February 11 - August 9, 1990
  • from the List: February 11, 1990 - July 17, 1990
  • from mission article: February 11 - August 9, 1990

This occurs on several missions. Which dates are correct? Rmhermen 21:17, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Using the succession box template for our own purposes

Over in the biography-oriented Wikiprojects there have been a number of "succession box" templates developed for putting little tables at the bottoms of pages to keep track of who held what titles and offices over time. I'm thinking that we could easily use those templates for space missions, too. For example:

Preceded by
Soyuz 16		 Soyuz programme
1975		 Succeeded by
Soyuz 18a

If not this, then we could create our own template based closely on this to maintain a common look-and-feel as well as common coding practice across Wikipedia. (if you're wondering why the "start box" and "end box" templates at the ends, it's to allow multiple succession boxes to be combined. See for example Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston for a huge aggregate of succession boxes, including one in which two titles wind up held by the same successor. Not sure if there'd be anything nearly that complicated in space missions). Bryan 00:27, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mercury Mission Numbering

Hi,

I think that the numbering of Mercury flights with a single number is problematical.

NASA never numbered the Mercury missions this way. Instead there were separate number sequences based (primarily) on the launch vehicle. So launches involving Mercury spacecraft were numbered as:

BA-n for the Beach Abort Test(s) which didn't really use a launch vehicle per-se but rather just the escape tower rockets. It's unclear whether there was more than one Beach Abort test, one source claims that there were three, but I've only found one mentioned in the official NASA project summary report.

LJ-n for the Little Joe test flights which primarily tested the Mercury escape system. Some of the Little Joe test flights had letters added to the number when a test had to be re-flown after a failure e.g. LJ-1A, LJ-1B

BJ-1 for the single Big Joe flight which was used to test the heat shield. The Big Joe was really an Atlas.

MR-n for the Mercury Redstone flights. In the case of MR-1, which failed in the famous 'pop gun' abort depicted in the movie "The Right Stuff" the reflight was MR-1A.

There was also an MR-BD (for Booster Development) flight which was inserted between MR-2 (which carried Ham) and MR-3 which was the first manned Mercury flight, because the Redstone on the Ham flight overperformed. Since this was a booster test, the payload was a boilerplate capsule, not a production version.

MA-n for the Mercury Atlas flights.

The flight order of these "sub-programs" was interleaved, at least until the manned flights started.

MA-1 (which was overall flight number 8 ignoring the two questionable Beach Abort "flights") actually preceded the first MR flight, which was overall flight no 10. I'll put these overall flight numbers in parentheses below, but keep in mind that NASA never used sequential overall numbers.

MR-1 (10),and 1A(11) were unmanned. MR-2(12) (Ham) was a primate flight. MR-3(18) (Shepard), and MR-4(19) (Grissom) were the two manned Redstone flights.

MA-1(8) ,2(13), 3(16), and 4(20) were unmanned, MA-5(21) (Enos) was a primate flight. MA-6(22) (Glenn), MA-7(23) (Carpenter) MA-8(24) (Schirra), and MA-9(25) (Cooper) were the manned Atlas flights.

I have a mediawiki site which is focused on the Mercury program for modelers. For a full list of Mercury flights see: http://www.denhaven2.homeip.net/wiki/index.php?title=Mercury_Spacecraft_Modeling#Mercury_Flight_Order

--Rick 21:39, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)