Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spaceflight/draftbox

Launch site merger

 * Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spaceflight

For quick collaboration I made draftbox. Any comments about the current spaceport merger? Please comment in there. --Usp (talk) 16:33, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Could you please explain somewhere the advantages you see to merging these separate articles? The topics are reasonably distinct from one another. Is expansion of the material on each topic's article another possibility? (sdsds - talk) 17:26, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * They say mostly same things in different words. I think one article which covers the basics of the topic (place where spacecrafts/rocket are launched, no matter what its called) is better than many overlappping articles. Is there any significant difference between spaceport and rocket launch site which the current articles lack to mention? --Usp (talk) 21:03, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Well of course the biggest differences are that rocket launch sites don't necessarily launch payloads into space, and spaceports don't necessarily involve any rocketry. The examples are e.g. model rocket launch sites on the one hand, and on the other the spaceports where the first "stage" of flight is propelled by means of aircraft engines, such as those which will be used on the Scaled Composites WhiteKnightTwo aircraft. Do those distinctions seem sufficient? (sdsds - talk) 02:47, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm aware of those differences, nevertheless they are all part of the same activity, space activity. And at least I would like to read about them in one generic article, with proper distiction between the types of launch sites. What is needed is good generic name if launch site in not acceptable. --Usp (talk) 10:52, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * You write above about a single "article which covers the basics of the topic." I think everyone sees the logic in that! For now, at least, the right name for that article is probably Spaceport. Perhaps by using the Main or See also templates you could expand the Spaceport article to include material on the other topics, using these templates to indicate where even more details might be available. Just because no editor has yet expanded those other articles doesn't mean a priori they should be merged, though! (sdsds - talk) 03:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Against original idea I end up to propose a new generic article Launch site or Space launch site. Any comments? --Usp (talk) 08:49, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I haven't had a long history of involvement with these articles, but I've been doing some maintenance on List of Spaceports and I don't quite see the merits of maintaining separate lists of locations there as well as in Rocket launch site. I can understand why a rocket launch site (for low altitude launches) wouldn't be called a "spaceport", but it seems that almost without exception a "spaceport" would be a "rocket launch site". As mentioned above, one exception would be aircraft-launched space vehicles, but is that enough to make maintaining the two separate lists worthwhile? I don't think so. I'd like to see one article that lists rocket launch sites/spaceports all together, categorised as necessary by the type of facility and type of launches that take place. The article could be called "List of rocket and spacecraft launch sites" or some such thing. 15:14, 3 November 2008 (UTC).

It quite clear that there is a lot of duplication between the article Spaceport and the text part of the article Rocket launch site. I propose that the later text material is merged into Spaceport. I am less convinced that Launch pad should also be merged into a common article. It contains a lot of details on different methods for transporting the launcher to the launch position, which fits in a more specialised article. Finally, it is clear that their is a lot of duplication between List of Spaceports and the list in Rocket launch site. These should be merged without loss of information. /216Kleopatra (talk) 09:06, 20 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I have now made the first merger as proposed in the previous paragraph. Thus, there is essentially no text left in Rocket launch site, but instead a series of listings. To merge those with List of Spaceports is the next step, in my oppinion, but that's a big job. What should the merged list be called? "List of spaceports" or "List of rocket launch sites"?  /216Kleopatra (talk) 10:06, 20 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The merging of the two long sets of listings in List of spaceports and Rocket launch site has now been achieved. The new merged article is called List of rocket launch sites. In addition, within the article Spaceport I have constructed two shorter tables for human launch sites and orbital launch sites, that complement the long set of lists. There is clearly more to be done, since List of rocket launch sites is still inhomogeneous and needs to be harmonised. /216Kleopatra (talk) 12:51, 26 May 2009 (UTC)