Talk:Spaceflight/Archive 1

Merge (2006) Difference between sub-orbital and orbital spaceflights

 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

It seems that anything not covered in the orbital spaceflight and sub-orbital spaceflight articles should be placed here, rather than having its own article. Mlm42 15:14, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
 * SUPPORT--aceslead 21:32, 9 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I've redirected Difference between sub-orbital and orbital spaceflights to this article, after extracted what i believed to be all the usable content, and putting it in either orbital spaceflight or sub-orbital spaceflight. there were some energy calculation at the end of the Difference between.. article, but after trying to re-write them and put them in the sub-orbital spaceflight article, i found then rather dubious, and decided to remove them.


 * if someone is willing to reproduce those calculations, or make them clearer, feel free. they were an attempt to compare the energy required for a sub-orbital flight, and the energy required for an orbital flight. Mlm42 10:07, 10 November 2006 (UTC)


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Merging? (2006) Space exploration

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Some parts of this article (early flights, reusable spacecraft) overlaps with Space exploration article. I think it'd be good to exclude overlapping parts to separate articles. What do you think? --LeszekKrupinski 07:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Thumb image size
Manual of Style says,
 * Specifying the size of a thumb image is in general not recommended: without specifying a size the width will be what the reader has specified as preference, with a default of 180px (which applies for most readers). However, the image subject or image properties may call for a specific image width in order to enhance the readability and/or layout of an article. Cases where specific image width are considered appropriate include:


 * When a small region of an image is considered relevant, but the image would lose its coherence when cropped to that region

Bear in mind that some users need to configure their systems to display large text. Forced large thumbnails can leave little width for text, making reading difficult. Do any of these cases apply to the image in the lead of this article? Sdsds 09:08, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

transportation -> movement
In the lead definition I replaced "transportation" with "movement". That's because the spacecraft isn't usually being transported by something else. Of course a spacecraft which is still the payload of a carrier rocket is being transported. It would be good to get the word (and link to) "transportation" back into the article, because after all the purpose of spaceflight is to transport something (humans, cargo, scientific instrumentation, etc.) through space.... Sdsds 19:34, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

History
The section part could do with better flow and citations to sources (footnotes perhaps?) There are many historical references missing Librarian2 16:29, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Merge (2008) from Spacefaring

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I don't see any specific definition differences between spaceflight and spacefaring. And the two articles cover about the same content anyway. --Voidvector (talk) 19:29, 16 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Spaceflight is about mechanical things to do with flying in space, spacefaring is about the society that is able to achieve spaceflight. They're related but not the same thing.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 22:21, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Spacefaring is not the same as spaceflight at all. Although both involve something moving through space, spacefaring is less about actually flying through space, more about what to do when you get there. Spaceflight is accomplished by eleven countries; spacefaring (by definition of human transportation) has only been done by three.--MixMaestro (talk) 00:52, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

These are two different things, I vote not to merge them. Scapler (talk) 22:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Flight Definition
Is there any definition of what comprises a flight? Has this been considered or expanded upon elsewhere? I would like to raise an interesting question put to me last week elsewhere on Wikipedia. First, there is currently a geo-centic bias that all space flights begin and end on Earth. Clearly this will not and cannot be the case in the long term when flights are initiated from other established bases or colonies. It has been argued (not orginally be me) that the Moon missions involved two flights as they contained two landings and two launches. But it was put to me that a flight to a space station and then a return on a different space craft many months later is two flights. (Though does it necessarily need to be a different craft?) In the mission Soyuz T-15 the same logic would suggest there were 4 flights in this mission. (1) Launch and docking with Mir, 50 day stay on Mir); (2) trip Mir to Salyut 7, 56 day stay (trip took 29 hours) (3) trip Salut 7 to Mir, 20 day stay (trip took 29 hours) (4) trip Mir to Earth. Is there a distinction to be made between, "mission", flights", "trips". NASA only records the mission from and to the Earth in their biographies. Comments? Alan Davidson (talk) 01:18, 15 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Flight?GliderMaven (talk) 15:24, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Is there some official place that does defines this. This page does state that a spaceflight "typically begins with a rocket launch"; so can a non typical flight be intitiated after a stay in a space station? It does implicitly state that a flight ends on reaching "a planetary or lunar surface for landing or impact." But I am not sure the contributors to this section had in mind the specific nuances between missions, flights and trips. Alan Davidson (talk) 23:14, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Private Spaceflight
Probably just as good as part of the human spaceflight paragraph as being a separate sub-paragraph. Not every fact covering about 100 words requires a separate sub-paragraph.Inwind (talk) 17:07, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The article is still a bit stubby really. The editing strategy I've been using is more to create reasonable headings and then hope that people will fill them, rather than grow the paragraphs organically; this does mean you often get quite short sections though until they fill out.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 18:32, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

This is totally for retarded people only. Please respect the spazz's. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.8.206.140 (talk) 23:59, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Merge proposal (2010) Space transport

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I think the article Space transport should be merged into this one. I don't know if there is a difference between "Space transport" and "Spaceflight".. even if there is some subtle difference in these terms, I don't think they each deserve their own article. Mlm42 (talk) 17:02, 10 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi Mlm42. Thanks for initiating this discussion.  I was thinking that such a merge might make some sense, until that is, I've read more recently about the argument put forward by both Rand Simberg and Clark Lindsey that Space Transport is really the more correct term that should be used to encompass many other sub-terms such as RLV, TSTO, MHD propulsion, etc., etc.  I think they are on to something.  Space transport, carrying stuff (mass) and people (carbon-based, air-breathing mass) to orbit and across space is really the most sensible meta-term for encompassing all the myriad variations on technology types, devices, and so forth, just as "transport" is the encompassing term for other forms of transportation, whether air, land or sea.


 * Thus, I will OPPOSE the merge proposal, for the reasons given above. I do think this article needs a lot of work however.  N2e (talk) 06:54, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand your comment. Could you give a reference for Simberg and Lindsey's argument? I'm not sure we can base this decision on a single source.. are you suggesting we merge Spaceflight into Space transport? Would you say "Space transport" includes communications satellites? What are the differences between "Spaceflight" and "Space transport"? These are the questions that should be discussed regarding a merge. Mlm42 (talk) 19:49, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Semantics aside, the space transport article contains little or nothing that does not duplicate content in this article. We don't need two articles on the same subject, and spaceflight is definitely the common name. Support. -- G W … 20:13, 2 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Russians and sub-orbital flight
I've removed the claim that Russian's don't think sub-orbital flights are "spaceflights", as per this discussion. I don't know how to speak Russian, so I don't know how plausible this is; in any case it seems completely unsourced, so I've removed it. Mlm42 (talk) 18:51, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Merge (2011) discussion for "Point-to-point sub-orbital spaceflight"

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"Point-to-point sub-orbital spaceflight" its an extremely short article that seems like a marketing term for a type of sub-orbital spaceflight. I see no justification for it to be a stand-alone article at this moment, and the information should be here or into Sub-orbital spaceflight. Either one would do, in my opinion, but I rather proposed merger into the main article to allow for better discussion. --Cerejota (talk) 01:49, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It's different from Sub-orbital spaceflight and Spaceflight, because it's about transportation from one point to another, not so much about reaching space. Alinor (talk) 15:46, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Space-planes have been explored in Science Fiction (I think Heinlein used one in the Novel Friday, Clarke might have used it in the early chapters of 2001: A Space Odyssey) I see this information as useful in an encyclopedia, but I definitely think it should be merged into the Spaceflight article. Drxenocide (talk) 18:56, 15 September 2011 (UTC)


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NASA 2040 Plan
With the recent plan to set men on Mars by the 2040's, I was thinking about doing a series of articles on the missions proposed by NASA, starting with discussion about the 2020 rover, and leading up to the systems NASA has, and the systems they need. With the CRV program, it is likely that many private contractors will be involved in the development of the hardware for an eventual manned mission to Mars. I would like to publish an article about the technology and spacecraft which will be required for an eventual mission. I would like to tie into the current plans for the Block II SLS, as well as describing many concepts which have been circulating at Goddard and JPL for habitation and landing modules.

I am willing to collaborate with anyone interested in pursuing this project.

Thoughts?

HarderResearch (talk) 15:09, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

First reusable spacecraft?
The article states that Buran was the first automatic reusable spacecraft. What about TKS (spacecraft)? Details are sketchy but the WP article says it was reusable, as do other sources. Andyjsmith (talk) 08:00, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Merger (2013) with unmanned spaceflight

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I think it would be a good idea to merge Unmanned spaceflight here. The majority of spaceflights are unmanned, and there are very few things to be said about unmanned missions which do not apply to spaceflight in general. Most of the article's current content could go into the "Types of spaceflight" section, and the section on the benefits of unmanned spaceflight could be included here and balanced by contrasting it with the pros and cons of manned spaceflight. Having a separate article for such a closely-related concept doesn't really make sense. -- W.  D.   Graham  10:57, 5 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Support the merge. Insufficient differentiation from "spaceflight" in general (of which 90%+ are unmanned anyway) to warrant a separate article.  N2e (talk) 23:20, 10 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Spaceflight is primarily unmanned, as n2estated. Merging the articles would allow an increased ease of access to the information HarderResearch (talk) 15:38, 13 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Opposed The unmanned spaceflight article is a stub, and I think if it was unstubbed, it wouldn't be suitable to merge. Inspite of the name, unmanned spaceflight is more a branch of robotics and telepresence and science whereas spaceflight is more about the mechanics of space travel.Teapeat (talk) 19:59, 13 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Support Unless someone can add extensive information to that article such that it needs to stand alone as its own separate subject, there is no reason it can't fit in to Spaceflight as another section. Cadiomals (talk) 20:30, 17 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Opposed: If you agree with this argument, then you have to merge Human_spaceflight with Spaceflight. (Note: "Insufficient differentiation from "spaceflight" in general (of which 10%+ are manned anyway) to warrant a separate article." ;-)) 77.21.56.15 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:44, 17 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Support - The article to be merged into this article has been around since 2004 with apparently little improvement. I see no reason for the stand-alone article of Unmanned spaceflight. Guy1890 (talk) 02:40, 16 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Support -- We need to make the same mention at Unmanned spaceflight to foster discussion there... if anyone is active enough to watch it. While I would normally not want to bloat an article that is already pretty large, I see no reason to continue Unmanned spaceflight because it isn't exactly something likely to be typed into a browser search. I like to saw logs! (talk) 06:28, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * There's already a merge tag on the "Unmanned spaceflight" article (I think since August of 2013). I'm pretty sure that's how I found this discussion here in the first place. The talk page there also appears to be pretty much dead. Guy1890 (talk) 03:46, 18 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Support No one's going to be searching for "unmanned spaceflight." No edits there in over 9 months. Anythingcouldhappen (talk) 09:33, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

As of today, two years after the proposal and one year after the last vote has been posted, the article Unmanned spaceflight is now merged into Spaceflight and redirects there. The result of final vote has been 8 : 2 (counting all participants, including me). --  R fassbind  -talk   13:48, 22 July 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

"Crewed" vs. "manned"
There recently has been a trend in changing the terms "manned" or "unmanned" to "crewed" and "uncrewed". I argue that there is no reason for this, as manned is already a gender-neutral pronoun and is standard use by NASA, while crewed has limited use. MeanMotherJr (talk)
 * I agree, but this point has previously been thrashed out in WP and "crewed" or "human" wins out because of MOS:GNL. "Manned" has definitely been unofficially extended to include women and I use the term myself, but I shouldn't, really. Imagine this was about colour, not sex - you could hardly argue that white astronauts nowadays included non-white astronauts. Andyjsmith (talk) 21:26, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

It's not an "unofficially" extended definition, the definition itself according to Oxford is "having a human crew", as seen here:http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/manned There is no term "womaned" specifically for women-only operations. MeanMotherJr (talk) 21:31, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
 * This is absurd. This is not a gender issue; stop with the PC crap. Man is a verb and as such has no gender. Nobody on earth uses "crewed" and "uncrewed"; it is both incorrect and sounds just awful. I am reverting this nonsense. PS: there is no consensus to change, as alluded to. FoCuS contribs ;  talk to me!  21:54, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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