User talk:Huntster/Sandbox/2

Hi Huntster. Per your comment on my talk page, I will try to monitor your progress here and provide you with another set of eyes on the good work you are doing on the new cargo/crewed spacecraft template you are developing.

I like your idea of substantially reducing the template overkill that is in the existing template. I do tend to think that a good portion of the information in the bare URL tables for SpaceX Dragon, Dream Chaser, Orion Lite, Cygnus, the ESA Automated Transfer Vehicle, the Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle, and the Russian Progress spacecraft is useful; so we should try to capture the best of that in any new template. That information is rather more amenable to the specific sorts of spacecraft that move to and from space stations rather than the existing, and more general, {{Infobox_Spacecraft}} template.

I'm not sure how to do it, but I think it would be helpful if we could rationalize a very small set of templates, say the {{Infobox_Spacecraft ...}} set of templates that would cover the extent of current spacecraft plans. One might be generally applicable to a generic probe or orbital spacecraft while another could be applied to the somewhat more specialized/complex requirements of the other Human-carrying spacecraft and Unmanned resupply spacecraft. Maybe a {{Infobox_Spacecraft_General}} template for the vast majority of one-time-use, uncrewed, robotic spacecraft and probes, and a {{Infobox_Spacecraft_StationServicing}} template for the cargo or crewed vehicles that service space stations or other interplanetary/interlunar spacecraft by meeting up and docking with them. In my view, the second template should be able to deal with non-reusable and (potentially, in SpaceX plans) reusable spacecraft; viz, they should be able to be used to reflect the 2nd or 3rd mission of, say, a particular Dragon Crew craft, just as the Space Shuttle craft were reusable (albeit at a horrendous expense). N2e (talk) 15:20, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We probably should also think about cleaning up, or eventually deprecating, the existing {{Infobox cargo spacecraft}}, by whatever new template(s) you develop. N2e (talk) 15:27, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, so some free time is presenting itself, sorry about all the delay. My thought on this is to have two types of templates: A general class template and a mission template. The class template would be used for the main articles, such as Dragon, Dream Chaser, CST-100, etc, and would be relatively simple as it would present straight facts about the spacecraft, rather than orbital and duration information. The mission template, tentatively named {{Infobox transfer mission}}, would be used for individual Soyuz or Dragon flights. I would kind of like to see the shuttle flight template folded in somehow, using a name like {{Infobox spacecraft mission}}, but that's not a short term thing, and would require significant debate and consensus for implementation. I'll post a list of potential parameters for the mission template on the main sandbox page in a bit. — Huntster (t @ c) 02:37, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Missions template

Since this is template is, for the time being, intended for transfer missions and not extra-Earth-orbital missions, I've simplified several things. Primarily, Semi-major axis, Apoapsis and Periapsis have been done away with. Since most/all missions for now will be to space stations, the orbit will be fairly circular, so all that is needed is an average altitude or a simple range of altitudes in the given field. Regime can be excluded as well, since everything will be in LEO for the time being. Once we start moving beyond that, the field can be readded, but to have it now is to just clutter the box with pointless data. I'm not sure about the Contractors field and have excluded it...I would expect that information would be better placed in the Class template. The Crew size field can accommodate numbers or "Unmanned" - there's no need for a separate field indicating automation - but "0" should probably never be used unless there's a specific reason for doing so, such as the launch of an on-need rescue craft perhaps. The Docked1, Docked2 parameters are completely pointless for the infobox...such information is better left in the prose.

I would like to keep things pretty stable after this point. I'm still figuring out the most efficient and visually appealing method of display, but I think chronological order works well (in theory). If you have ideas for addition or removal, please present them, but do make solid arguments for or against. — Huntster (t @ c) 05:57, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Human-carrying/cargo-only distinction

Hi Huntster. I'm not very familiar with the WP template ecosystem, and can't really tell the practical effect of what some of these templates would look like, nor how they would work on a spacecraft page, from the Missions and Class info on the User:Huntster/Sandbox/2 page. I wonder if you might be willing to flesh out one or two examples as part of the process of sandboxing the template. Maybe the examples could go on a User:Huntster/Sandbox/2/Examples page? I think that would be real helpful, and then we could ask for some other eyes from the WikiProjectSpaceflight project, or somewhere else, to take a look and comment before we roll the template out to a lot of articles. Whadayathink? N2e (talk) 21:19, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'll try to work on that this evening. To be honest, I didn't do this already because I was wanting more input on the parameters themselves, so it would be less work in terms of changing things around. But if the visual approach is more desired, then that's fine too. — Huntster (t @ c) 10:30, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. And if you give me a blank copy of whatever draft template you create (say on yet another User:Huntster/Sandbox/2/Examples page?, maybe one called Dragon, I will volunteer to attempt to create a filled-out template for the Dragon spacecraft. I think that will be an interesting test case for your template as it is BOTH a crewed (personed?) AND a cargo transfer spacecraft. In addition, on the mission flights, it can be used-once-and-thrown-away (like all return spacecraft to date) OR be reused; that will make for another good test of how flexible your template is. Cheers. N2e (talk) 16:54, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, not sure, but it might be good to think about the now widely used "manned vs. cargo" or "crewed vs. cargo" terminology. We used to say "manned" but that has evolved to the more gender-neutral "crewed" over time. But crewed is not, I suspect, the final solution as it implies a working staff for the spacecraft carrier company, or in the days of the macho-Air Force pilots, for the national monopoly space programs, and carries the impression that "the crew" were really operating the craft (to be fair, there were some emergency and task initiation work that "crew" have historically done before the spacecraft computers took over). However in the future, it seems possible, indeed quite likely, that at least some flights will carry humans who are really and literally merely passengers on their way to a space station or transfer vehicle. So the question arises, might a better descriptor be in order? ... maybe "human-carrying" would be a better adjective for the spacecraft than either "manned" or "crewed." N2e (talk) 17:08, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, notice that I'm specifically not drawing any distinctions between the two. I thought a lot about this, and about various ways to visually distinguish between them, and realised that it just wasn't worth the extra code, visual disruption, and extra article space the infobox would take up. When you get down to it, there really isn't that much of a difference; like you said, even manned vessels are becoming increasingly automated. The shuttle was an enormously complex device that mixed automation and manual manipulation, and previous spacecraft simply didn't have the computing power to be fully automated. Modern craft can mostly fly with or without crew, and everything can be controlled from the ground. Even so, I believe the term "crew" will continue to be used. For the purpose of these infoboxes, the simple parameter "crew" is fully sufficient and self-explanatory. — Huntster (t @ c) 23:17, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I see. That works for me, sort of. The one thought I would add is that "crew = 0" in a template conveys a very different meaning than "uncrewed". Is there any way that a single parameter ("crew = n") might present a number (n) if n=1 to 100, and present the English word "uncrewed" if n=0? N2e (talk) 00:09, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That should be possible, though I do plan on placing instructions in the documentation that "0" should not be used, and to use Unmanned or Uncrewed instead. — Huntster (t @ c) 01:29, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting thought regarding the Dragon test. That'll definitely complicate things, and I'll have to contemplate how to adapt, and whether the extra complexity is even worth it from a usability standpoint. — Huntster (t @ c) 23:21, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My two cents: It's worth it! Elon Musk has already said (in the post-Falcon 9 December 2010 press conference that he/SpaceX would gradually come to have a warehouse full of used but usable Dragon spacecraft that they would be waiting on a customer/insurer who wants to use one of the preflown Dragon capsules on a second (or third or fourth) mission. That seems like a pretty strong statement of both design and business plans, so I would think we ought to reflect that reality in the template at design time. We show many more things in various spaceflight articles that are merely based on future plans (albeit active plans) of various organizations for future spacecraft or missions. N2e (talk) 00:09, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

True, though again, given that Dragon and DragonLab are fairly distinct, the class template's crew parameter could simply say "Dragon: 1-7 <br /> DragonLab: Unmanned" and that would get the point across just as well as something more complicated. I'm just thinking about ease of interpretation from a reader's standpoint. — Huntster (t @ c) 01:29, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Great. With that example I see exactly how the crew data could work for Dragon, and that is one of the more complex spacecraft (from a crewed/uncrewed point of view) on the table right now. Net: your suggested approach works for me. Let's get on with some subpages where we can begin to flesh out the actual look (presentation) of the draft templates for a few representative spacecraft. N2e (talk) 01:45, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Scope of templates?

Can we clarify what the scope of these templates are intended to be - i.e. which pages they are intended to go on?

Is the "missions" template, for example, intended for use on articles like Soyuz TM-8 (which is about an individual spacecraft, but currently uses {{Infobox Space mission}}) as well as articles like Mir EO-5 (which is about the mission associated with Soyuz TM-8; it currently uses {{Infobox space expedition}}? And would the "missions" template also cover the 800+ articles that currently use {{Infobox spacecraft}}?

My initial impression about the situation is that we should have three templates:

Spacecraft class - for groups of spacecraft which are (nearly) identical (manned and unmanned), like Soyuz-TM, and everything currently covered by {{Infobox Spacecraft class}}
Spacecraft - for individual spacecraft - manned and unmanned, including {{Infobox space station}}, {{Infobox space shuttle}}, and everything currently covered by {{Infobox spacecraft}}, {{Infobox space telescope}}, {{Infobox cargo spacecraft}}, as well as individual Soyuz spacecraft (such as Soyuz TM-8).
Space mission - Basically the same as {{Infobox Space mission}}: all manned missions, such as missions to the moon, space shuttle missions, and also including long and short duration space station missions (i.e. include {{Infobox space expedition}}), but excluding Soyuz taxi flights (such as Soyuz TM-8, which would fall under Spacecraft)).

This essentially amounts to merging the already existing spaceflight templates. What are thoughts on this? Mlm42 (talk) 16:56, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My initial thoughts were that "Spacecraft" and "Space mission" could be folded together, but the more I think about it, I see that probably isn't the case. You've made some good arguments. Okay, so after revising my thoughts, I believe any given transfer spacecraft article should be able to fit within the "Class" or "Spacecraft" templates. I would really like to see some way to draw a dividing line between individual spacecraft, STS or Soyuz missions, ISS expeditions, etc, yet still have them sort into either a "spacecraft" or "mission" template. I'll have to continue thinking about it. So, the preliminary lineup of templates I would like to eventually see, sans rocketry-related templates (that's a whole other mess):

{{Infobox spacecraft class}} - would cover articles on generic spacecraft models (Soyuz, Dragon, etc). Could potentially be used for satellite bus articles as well, though I haven't really been thinking along those lines yet, but no reason it couldn't work.
{{Infobox spacecraft}} - would cover articles on individual spacecraft and the orbital mission they participated in. Intended for individual STS mission articles, your Soyuz TM-8 example, probably for articles like Falcon 9 Flight 1 as well. It could potentially fold in {{Infobox space shuttle}}, but that might take some work.
{{Infobox space station}} - would obviously cover articles about space stations, and the same template could cover individual modules with a simple "module=yes" parameter, or something similar.
{{Infobox satellite}} - would cover any permanently orbiting spacecraft, excepting space stations.
{{Infobox space expedition}} - would cover individual long-term expedition articles.

— Huntster (t @ c) 01:40, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, you're suggesting using {{Infobox spacecraft}} for missions in reusable vehicles such as Space Shuttle missions? It seems more natural to classify these as "missions" not "spacecraft". Also, consider short term missions such as Salyut 6 EP-1 which were launched with one spacecraft (Soyuz 27) and landed with another (Soyuz 26). One way to think about it is that the "mission" articles should follow the astronauts, while the "spacecraft" articles should follow the actual hardware. Unfortunately, there are still many articles which are trying to do both at the same time, and confusing the matter. Mlm42 (talk) 01:59, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I'm not quite sure "permanently orbiting spacecraft" actually exist! Everything decays. I think it would be unnatural to separate satellites from other spacecraft for the purposes of infoboxes.. Mlm42 (talk) 02:34, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, "following the hardware" is my intention. The Expedition or Mission template, whatever it ends up being, can follow the wet cargo. I see the STS articles as primarily being about the hardware, not the people, whereas an Expedition article is entirely about the people. As for the satellites, of course they decay, but I'm speaking of 'permanent' missions, rather than missions where reentry is a desired outcome, rather than just a function of time. That said, if all useful parameters already exist in the proposed Spacecraft template, then perhaps there's no need for it. Again, I just haven't looked at that side of things extensively. — Huntster (t @ c) 03:35, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just to let you guys know, there's a Template:Space station module infobox template which could probably be absorbed. Colds7ream (talk) 08:15, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, thanks. I'd mentioned that in a version of my previous reply, but forgot to add it back in when I revised it, lol. I'd eventually like to get around to merging the two, it's just not a short term project. — Huntster (t @ c) 10:27, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent. Yes, there could be a lot of work involved in merging the templates. But probably one of the first things we could do is to modify the {{Infobox spacecraft class}} template so that it can be used on articles like Soyuz-TM and Dragon (spacecraft) (which currently don't use any template at all). Does that sound like a plan? Mlm42 (talk) 22:38, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, that's what I'll be working on. And I do apologise in advance for moving so slowly, but real world issues affect how much time I can provide to this...for example, while I'm at work, I can do little things around Wiki and Commons fairly easily, but I really need solid chunks of free time for this. — Huntster (t @ c) 23:47, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For missions, could we have 'flight up' and 'flight down' parameters? Colds7ream (talk) 17:34, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"endurance / consumables"

The current draft has "endurance / consumables" as a single line within the Specifications subsection of the Class definition. How do you envision this parameter being used? I would see the two as separate, but related, specs. E.g., duration: 10 days, consumables nn units of RCS fuel or mm Wh of electrical energy storage of xyz (battery, nuclear, whatever) form. How do you see it? Perhaps you could include examples in the hypothetical examples I asked for previously. Cheers. N2e (talk) 02:15, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Example

Hi Huntster. I started an example page here: User:Huntster/Sandbox/2/Dragon (spacecraft)

I think it is self explanatory. But I think I need your help to flesh it out and get it working with your new templates. Can you take a look? N2e (talk) 07:54, 27 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Spelling

If the new template were to use "Operator" instead of "Organi[s/z]ation", and "Rocket" instead of "Carrier rocket" or "Launch vehicle", we can avoid the issues with British vs American spelling in the template. --G W… 11:32, 27 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, good suggestion, I'll implement. Sorry again for delays, very busy right now. — Huntster (t @ c) 12:07, 27 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Altitude

Could I suggest that you remove the "altitude" field, and replace it with separate "apoapsis" and "periapsis" fields. Since orbits are rarely circular, a single field will merely encourage dumbing down and inaccurate reporting of the orbit. I also think that a field for orbital regime would be a good idea, to put the spacecraft/mission in context. --G W… 21:06, 27 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have an alternative suggestion. After reading this

Concerns were also raised that the existing infoboxes were not well-equipped to handle spacecraft which operated in more than one orbit, or whose orbits changed over the course of their missions (which in practise is most of them).

in the Feb 2011 edition of the Downlink (just out today), it occurred to me that perhaps orbital detail should be left out of the infoboxes completely. Rationale: it is not something that is strictly amenable to the sort of abstraction that Infoboxes are good for. Moreover, these things (as they exist in various spaceflight Infoboxes) are virtually never well-sourced, so I tend to ask for ^{{{citation needed}}}, which often gets the claim deleted if no one shows up to source the hyper-specific "347 miles" assertion that is in the infobox, and as the Downlink points out, is typically never correct for most spaceflight missions.

Alternative proposal: If we think some orbital information is appropriate for infoboxes (and I do), then let's think-up/develop a single broad parameter for it that abstracts the orbital detail into an Infobox-appropriate quarter-line of text with the essence of the info only. This should, in my view, fit into a single-short-line (i.e., single parameter) of an infobox, preferably with no carriage return required. That is the main idea. What do others think of this?

(detail, for later, only worth discussing after we get consensus on step 1.) Once we get to consensus on the main idea, we could work out a single line parm (maybe a constrained list) of what would we would use here. For example, if orbits are LEO, MEO, HEO, Earth-Ln, Moon-Ln, heliocentric, interplanetary, exo-solar-system, etc.—and variations within some (e.g., LEO/MEO/HEO) are low-inclination, high-inclination, polar, and equatorial—then we might see a fairly short abstraction for orbit that would look like: high-LEO, polar-MEO, equatorial-HEO, Earth L2, etc. The point would be to make it an abstraction of whatever detail might be appropriate for the prose in the article body. And of course, each of the elements could be automagically linked to the appropriate WP page that would explain "MEO", or "high inclination" for the typical Wikipedia reader. N2e (talk) 00:58, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In addition to the above, perhaps the current "Altitude" parm might be retitled "Orbital regime". I think that would cover Earth-centric, heliocentric interplanetary, planetary or moon-centric, and Lagrangian possibilities. Doesn't really cover interstellar but we could leave that for v2.0. N2e (talk) 21:11, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is a difficult one; I definitely feel that some sort of record of the altitude should be in the infobox, but I'm not sure what. For deorbited spacecraft I'd suggest a mean average apogee and perigee (like for Mir), and active spacecraft the most recent values? Colds7ream (talk) 17:33, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]