Talk:List of Thor and Delta launches (2010–2019)

Orphaned references in List of Thor and Delta launches (2010–2019)

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of List of Thor and Delta launches (2010–2019)'s orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "spaceflightnow":

• From List of Atlas launches (2010-2019): "Spaceflight Now - Tracking Station - Worldwide launch schedule". Retrieved 2008-09-12.
• From List of Thor and Delta launches (2000–2009): "Spaceflight Now - Tracking Station - Worldwide launch schedule". Retrieved 2008-10-13.
• From Delta IV: "Tracking Station - Worldwide launch schedule". Spaceflight Now. Retrieved 2008-10-13.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 05:29, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Thor?

Is it time to take "Thor" out of the title? I don't think there has been a Thor in about 50 years. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:58, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

• The article relates to the Thor and Delta families, not to individual rockets. It is also part of a series of articles entitled "List of Thor and Delta launches", so consistency is an issue as well. And for the record, the most recent Thor launch was in October last year; an Extra Extended Long Tank Thor used as the first stage of Delta 357. --W. D. Graham 07:48, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, leave it as it is. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 17:22, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

The article is currently quite confusing, because the only "Thor" mention in the launch table is a comment on the final Delta II. The average reader doesn't know that Delta II has anything to do with "Thor". I suppose the confusion arrived when this list was split into decades. If Thor is in the title, it should be explained better in the top and the list. Greg (talk) 19:50, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Graph Colors?

I was messing around with some color ideas for the graph but nothing I tried looked particularly great. Can someone take a swing at a better color scheme? UnknownM1 (talk) 14:02, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for trying. To me, the logic of your color groups is odd. I'd suggest you use s range of light shades for the Delta II, another one for the Delta IV, and something stronger for the Heavy. For launch sites, a range of shades for East Coast pads, and another well-distinct range for the West Coast. Finally, red has a strong connotation of launch failure, I wouldn't use any red shades in the graph documenting rocket versions. The color schemes at List of Falcon 9 launches are a good start. — JFG ^talk 14:59, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

@UnknownM1: Color schemes look much better now, here and on Atlas launches. Thanks for all your work. — JFG ^talk 00:59, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Expansion

Can we work on expanding the information boxes. It is very light and bare-bones right now. Thanks! UnknownM1 (talk) 18:25, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Grouping these rockets into one big "family" doesn't seem ideal

It doesn't make much sense to list all the rockets made by a single "manufacturer"/manufacturing line in a single "List of ... launches", and then break that large list up into six or seven lists by decades.

(Yeah, I know that there were a bunch of company acquisitions and mergers along the way—McDonnell Douglas, Boeing, ULA—who all ran the manufacturing line and design bureaus that made Thor and Delta for the US government. But the "line" of contracted rockets to a particular government contractor, that just happened to keep the same meta-name for ease of gvmt contracting continuity, makes very little sense to the typical Wikipedia reader who might approach this topic today.)

It would make more sense to group similar rockets together into list of launches, even if they span a couple of decades. For example, something like:

• List of Delta IV and Delta IV Heavy launches (like we already do for List of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches, which span more than a single decade. All would be launched between 2002 and (planned) 2024)
• List of Delta III launches (~1998-2000)
• List of Delta II and Delta II Heavy launches (1989-2018, almost three decades and ~100 launches)
  • or, perhaps, combine Delta II and Delta III launches since they had the same launch facilities and same first stage/engine? (and there were very few Delta III launches from that particular cost-plus contract) List of Delta II and Delta III launches
• List of Delta I launches
  • or List of early Delta launches or List of Delta A–M and Delta I launches (many many Delta variations in the first two decades of the early government-sponsored spaceflight tech in the US) Launched c. 1962-1989.
• List of Thor launches (many many variations, over 300 all told, most in 1957-1972; but no sense breaking them up by decades when hardly any were flying later)

Pinging Bubba73, Greg, UnknownM1, JFG, User:CRS-20, and User:Keavon who I've seen working on these articles in the past few years. What do others think? N2e (talk) 17:23, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support. It seems to make sense to me. Perhaps Thor and Delta I could be together, since Thor Able looks the same as the first Delta. (I don't know enough of the history to know, though.) Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 18:22, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree with this proposal. I've always felt it's tacky to list "Thor and Delta" even though Thor ended decades ago. Splitting it up by rocket name, and doing away with the decades, would be cleaner in my opinion. It would unfortunately remove the overall evolution of the vehicle family, but maybe a single overview article with graphs throughout the decades would make sense. Keavon (talk) 18:23, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

I think Delta (rocket family) covers that history. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 20:58, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

That's a fair point. I would suggest that List of Thor and Delta launches has its nice graph moved into the Delta (rocket family) article then, as well as a similar graph that would list launches by vehicle variant. Keavon (talk) 06:10, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree with this proposal:

• List of Delta IV and Delta IV Heavy launches
• List of Delta II and Delta III launches
• List of Delta I launches
• List of Thor launches

CRS-20 (talk) 20:43, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

I can second this copy, as it seems most ideal. Although, I will definitely say that at the time the Falcon 9 page was made, there weren't very many launches. Let me know if this route is chosen and I can help out a bit. UnknownM1 (talk) 03:34, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Support per CRS-20. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 03:51, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support what CRS-20 proposed. --Soumya-8974 ^talk _contribs ^subpages 06:09, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
• I'm probably going to be the odd one out, but lumping II and III together feels a bit odd. Why not simply do away with Delta III in one of these lists since there were only three launches, merge them into the Delta III article (keeping the table format and moving the existing descriptions into the table), and then create a redirect from List of Delta III launches? — Huntster (t @ c) 07:02, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

• The Delta III has a list of its three launches, and that is probably sufficient. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 16:43, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

• What I'm saying is merge the table entries with the existing text, a la:

Extended content

259 August 27, 1998 01:17 Delta III 8930 CCAFS SLC-17B Galaxy 10 700 kg GTO PanAmSat / Intelsat Failure The inaugural launch of Delta III ended in failure, when software adapted from the Delta II caused a guidance failure during first-stage flight. The failure and subsequent vehicle motion depleted the hydraulic fluid used for steering. Upon loss of control, the vehicle was destroyed. The Galaxy 10 satellite (Hughes HS601 HP bus) was destroyed. References

Either of them alone don't present the complete picture and data. — Huntster (t @ c) 17:07, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support the restatement/refinement of my proposal that CRS-20 listed above. (although, I would support any consensus formed on how to deal with Delta III: leave them in the name or out.) N2e (talk) 02:07, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support - as before. I also support that for List of Ariane launches. --mfb (talk) 00:26, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose for now - Hmm, seems like I'm the odd one out here, which is strange as I'm not the only one who classify rockets via their evolutionary trance (see Jonathan McDowell's excellent data base, or Ed Kyle's Space Launcher Report for some good examples on that). With the exception of Delta IV (which can easily be separated out), all of these rockets are related in their lower stages and it would be tough to break them down into different lists. I have always thought that a "master list" of sorts would help because most of the concerned rockets here are under "Thor" or "Delta" names.

Also the usual way of breaking down the Thor-Delta series is a little bit different than the one suggested above, see here for a full list of derivatives grouped neatly (if I am going to suggest how to break this list down, my suggestions would be Suborbital-Thor, Thor-Able, Thor-Ablestar, Thor-Agena, Thor-Delta (original Delta up to at least Delta II, maybe Delta III, and don't forget the Japanese license-built versions), Thor-Burner and Delta IV): http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/thorh.html

It's not that I don't think breaking down the list would be necessarily bad, but if you decide to break this one down, you would also have to consider other launch vehicles families first. Do we break down the Atlas list? (there's stage-and-a-half Atlas, Atlas-Able, Atlas-Agena, Atlas-Centaur up to at least Atlas II and maybe Atlas III, Atlas + solid upper stages and then Atlas V) How about Titan? And the huge R-7 series list where all rockets are clearly related despite being under many different names? What about Long March where quite a few different kinds of rockets under the same brand name are listed, which is almost all of Chinese launch vehicle launches?

I am about to start working on the final major satellite launch vehicle family's launch list still missing here (the Kosmos series, which I'm going to divide them in 2 according to their origins), but this sudden discussion is going to seriously affect my plans until you all can decide on which rocket goes to which list.

My suggestion - halt this division plan for the time being while we think of the criteria of how to group the master lists of launches by rockets until a consensus is reached first, then debate on how to divide them for each family. Galactic Penguin SST (talk) 16:59, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Edit: - After some consideration and re-thinking I decided to change to Support, pending further clarification. See below. Galactic Penguin SST (talk) 15:57, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

• Support CRS-20's proposal as is, even after reading Galactic Penguin's comment. Greg (talk) 01:23, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
• Support, pending further clarification - After further consideration I think CRS-20's proposal is OK, though I would suggest further guidelines as follows:

* Leave the List of Thor and Delta launches page intact, but re-organize the sub-lists as follows:

* List of Thor launches - All Thor missiles, Thor-Able, Thor-Able Star, Thor-Agena series and Thor-Burner, 222 orbital launches + 113 sub-orbital launches = total 355 launches

* List of Delta I launches - All Delta rockets from the original Thor-Delta to the Delta 6000 series, plus license-built versions in Japan (N-I. N-II, H-I), 210 orbital launches

* List of Delta II and III launches - Delta II (7000 series) and Delta III (8000 series), 158 orbital launches

* List of Delta IV launches - 40 orbital launches

However before going ahead with the re-organization, there is one major question I would like to ask: Do you all think any other launch lists need to be re-organized in such a way? One that might be affected would be the list for Atlas series with 583 entries, and I don't know if you all want to do that for Atlas too. If you all insist, I would suggest re-organizing it as such:

* List of sub-orbital Atlas launches - Atlas ICBM and sub-orbital tests, 255 launches

* List of orbital Atlas launches not using Centaur upper stages - Atlas-Agena, Atlas-Able, Atlas orbital launches with solid or no upper stages, 179 launches

* List of Atlas-Centaur launches - Atlas-Centaur including the evolutionary Atlas I/II/III series, 148 launches

* List of Atlas V launches - The Atlas V does away both the "stage-and-a-half" concept and balloon tanks, which makes most people I have seen classifying them as completely separate from the "heritage Atlas" series and should be done as such here too. 85 launches as of today.

* As with Thor-Delta, in this case I suggest leaving the index page as is, but re-organize the sub-lists

Note that however I personally think that Thor-Delta, maybe Atlas are the only lists that I would propose doing so, with them a. having substantial number of entries (500+) and b. the lower stages sharing the common origins changed so much in history that they are not too recognizable for the common reader. I would oppose doing the same for the R-7 series list, simply because it's hard not to see the common features between the rocket launching Sputnik 1 and the present Soyuz-2 series. Same goes for Proton. Meanwhile I think the number of entries for Titan, Ariane and Long March etc. are low enough (< 400) that there's no need to divide them by variants just yet, especially as only Ariane is current further divided by decades.

Any comments for my suggestions would be welcome. (paging N2e, Bubba73, Greg, UnknownM1, JFG, User:CRS-20, and User:Keavon) Galactic Penguin SST (talk) 15:57, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

If you want to reorganize the Atlas lists, you should bring it up on the appropriate talk page. What you propose sounds reasonable to discuss there. Greg (talk) 03:43, 21 September 2020 (UTC)