Template talk:Shuttle stats

Source
What's the source for this information? I would update the table myself, but I'm not exactly sure where you guys came up with this information. Should I assume it's from the NASA website? If so, where exactly? --Bark (talk) 13:24, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * NASA used to document these figures much better than they do now. Now, they round off or omit info altogether, and it has become very difficult to get accurate numbers for any mission. I have reverted the last update, because it was obviously incorrect - the days in space for Endeavour increased, but the orbits, mileage, and km traveled decreased, which is obviously an error. I would suggest that updates be discussed here, with source URLs for whatever info anyone finds. Not all information out there is accurate, or up to date. I think one of the best sources would be the CBS demographics page, and stats page but they are not broken down in the same way, and may not translate well to this template. Ariel  ♥  Gold  09:59, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I will work on getting the stats redone. I will place it in the sandbox so others can see it and if it looks good then we can move it into the article.--Navy blue84 (talk) 01:44, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I have done some revisions. I still can not find complete stats for orbits, crews, EVA, ISS/MIR dockings, so if anyone has somewhere that it can be located either let me know or add it. If you want to check out what I have you can see it in my sandbox here: Sandbox.--Navy blue84 (talk) 03:14, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It will need inline citations to source your changes. (And as mentioned, you cannot use other Wikipedia articles as sources.) Also, you changed the information in the first column, but you do not explain what it means. The first column is days. If you added hours/minutes/seconds (which I doubt could ever be verifiable down to that precision, nor is it necessary per the manual of style) then the column would have to specify that. But it is of no use to update the days, if you cannot find the information to update the orbits, mileage/Km, etc. These are all tied into the same overall use of the shuttle. Ariel  ♥  Gold  05:59, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It is explained at the bottom and I will add an astrik to denote how it is laid out. I will add the nessacary citations. It is a work in progress and just wanted to get some feed back as to if I am on the right track and if it looks good and could fit in with the wiki style. I am going to work on it more over the course of the day as time permits. I will have to look around and maybe NSF has some more detailed shuttle stats the CBSnews does.--Navy blue84 (talk) 14:26, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * We're going to have to find a new, verifiable, external source. I am also curious what the old source was.  (I have a feeling it was NASA itself, but what was the old link?)  We may also have to change the columns, adding and deleting some, if we find a source that has most but not all of the information we are currently trying to track.  I looked for some other sources yesterday without much luck.  The search continues.  --Bark (talk) 16:59, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that NASA no longer publishes the information this template is trying to track, especially to this level of precision. They normally will round up the miles traveled as a small note in the landing blog, ("wrapping up their 5.7 million mile journey") but they do not give the level of precision this template is attempting to give, and they don't always give the total days in orbit in days/hours/minutes/seconds, etc. (Although that isn't too hard to figure out, if one cares to do the math, but again, overly precise, minutes/seconds are not necessary.) Some sites occasionally get the precise mileage information, but they do not always publish it, and even if they do, there's no way to know if it is actually correct. Anyone who has listened to NASA TV knows that PAO often gets statistics horribly wrong, especially with time-tracking stats, and they also often contradict themselves. For example, the EVA statistics that the PAO gives on NASA TV rarely match the official statistics that are given in the daily ISS reports. Honestly, unless someone can go back, starting with STS-1, and start doing all the math for the orbits, and days in space, this template can never be trusted to be accurate. And I really think that trying to track the mileage and Km of each shuttle traveled is an exercise in futility. Nor is that kind of precision warranted in the manual of style.

I've also searched, and there is no source out there that provides this information the template is trying to provide in one place. I think that the only items that can be (fairly) easily confirmed would be: Number of flights, Longest flight in days, EVAs, Days in space, Crew (see note below) and Orbits. The other columns should be removed, unless someone can find a source for every single shuttle flight since STS-1 that gives the exact miles traveled. Items that can not easily be confirmed with sources are the MIR dockings, Satellites deployed, (some DOD payloads were classified, there is no way to accurately track this, nor is it really very relevant) and Km/Miles traveled. Additionally, the "Crews" column is misleading. I assume from the numbers, that it intends to count the number of people who have flown on each shuttle, but the column should be renamed to "Crewmembers" because "crew" basically means "all the people on the shuttle", which would be one per mission. Ariel ♥  Gold  05:55, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe I agree with everything you've added except "Crews". More on that later.  I've been looking on and off for a while now with no luck.  Space station dockings, satellites deployed, and distance travelled are either not notable or problematic to confirm.  As far as crews (or crewmembers) go, we would also have to keep in mind repeat astronauts.  Do we count one person twice if they flew on the same shuttle twice, or do we just count them once?  Do we count the same person twice if they flew on more than one shuttle, and if we do that, would that not mislead a reader into believing that many more astronauts have flown on the STS program when they just look at the raw numbers?  I think we could do without the "Crews (Crewmembers)" column too.--Bark (talk) 18:46, 15 October 2008 (UTC)


 * For the miles/KM what if we took the numbers and rounded them all? I would be willing to take sometime each day to work on it and add numbers if it is agreeable to round them. I agree we can do with out the Sattelite and crew columns. It is easy enough to go through the shuttle history pages on NASA and find out what shuttles went to MIR. Also some simple math would be 9 NASA astrounauts went to MIR(I belive is the number) so that would mean 18 shuttle missions to MIR. As for sattelites, what actually constitutes a sattelite? There were several payloads that were tetherad to the shuttle but were free floating, do we considere those to be sattelites? EVA's might be a little more tough. It will be easy to find out how many were done but not amounts of time.Navy blue84 (talk) 22:35, 15 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I think that's a lot of unneeded work. Although, I do find your commitment inspiring.  :-)  I see a problem with miles/kilometers in that depending on the shape of the orbit, that figure would change and could be inaccurate.  The more I think about it, the more I think we should just find really good, reputable, user-friendly sources first, and then decide what information to have on this table here.  --Bark (talk) 23:35, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

"final flight"
I've changed the heading "last flight" to "most recent flight." Given that the shuttle program is winding down, "last flight" is more ambiguous than it used to be. I suggest that when all the shuttles are retired, we change this to "final flight." TJRC (talk) 02:13, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Doublecheck
I went back and recalculated the numbers for Atlantis, based on the data for the 33 separate flights, and found some considerable errors. I would guess that a similar doublecheck on the other four orbiters would find mistakes as well. RandomCritic (talk) 11:39, 21 July 2011 (UTC)