Talk:List of Launch Systems and Vendors

ok, thanks for setting this up J. Charles F. Radley 15:42, 11 January 2007 (PST)

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Any time :D -- Jarogers2001 15:44, 11 January 2007 (PST)

Real and paper

Cool. This might be a bit more useful if it were separated into historical, existing, and proposed-- it's not really fair to compare something that is launching today with something existing only on paper. Geoffrey.landis 13:32, 12 January 2007 (PST)

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The "status" field is meant to denote that difference. The way I have the table set up, it is possible to color code the first cell in each row if necessary. However, there is a whole plethora of things that can go into that field. cancelled, discontinued, in use, suspended, proposed, under development, etc etc. Should we make a standard key to avoid confusion about status? My only concern with coloring is that it is buggy and tends to look bad. Jarogers2001 14:15, 12 January 2007 (PST)

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I just don't think proposed vehicles shouldn't be in the same category as existing ones. I just put in a draft version where the boosters are separated; take a look. Yep, separating cancelled,discontinued, etc, also should be done. Another categorization might be suborbital vehicles. Geoffrey.landis 14:21, 12 January 2007 (PST)

Hi Geoff,

Thanks for your many contributions (both here and elsewhere!). Yes, I would like us to agree on some key-phrase statuses (stati?), rather than give a complete history of each vehicle. The key-phrases I suggest to standardize on are:

- Currently in service
- Future Development
- Orbital Launch attempted
- Suborbital Launch Attempted
- Retired

So by those criteria, Energia would be Retired

What do y'all think?

Charles F. Radley 14:22, 12 January 2007 (PST)

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Hi, Charles,

Yes, those are good distinctions. I do think, though, that the distinction between "doesn't exist yet" and "has been launched" is a very fundamental one. I agree, Energia is retired (although only recently Energia was still trying to sell it!) I did want to list it because several Lunar and future space mission proposals have suggested using it as a low-cost HLV. Ultimately, I think suborbital vehicles should be a separate entry in the Lunapedia; they are different in basic nature from orbital launchers (just as orbital boosters are different from in-space vehicles) Geoffrey.landis 14:34, 12 January 2007 (PST)