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