Talk:SpaceX Starship (spacecraft)

Development Section Bloated

It seems to me the Development section is bloated and unwieldy, especially Block 1 launches (S24–S38) and below. Yes, there is relevant information, but the pedantic detail of 'stacked, unstacked, restacked, moved, (minor) test completed, repaired, scrapped, etc.' makes the section difficult to read. I do not know if this section needs to be split or just revised, but I believe it may not adhere to Wikipedia:TOPIC, Wikipedia:RELEVANCE, and/or Wikipedia:INDISCRIMINATE.

I only want to bring this to attention of this article's editors, and do not wish to participate in the resulting discussion/decisions due to my unfamiliarity with the topic and process of handling this. Sapiann (talk) 08:38, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. This is due to extensive and ongoing original reaserch by a single editor who does not stop that nonsense and spams pages with excessive details. As IPs are neglected, please you go forward and set a few templates, and make complaints. 47.69.102.202 (talk) 13:19, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

"This is due to extensive and ongoing original reaserch"

False accusation. Sourced statements are not WP:OR.

The amount of information listed per vehicle (moves, tests, ect, ect) is consistent with the SLS core stage for Artemis I. Redacted II (talk) 15:45, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

There's already a path forward. The List of Starships is the best place for the bulk of the Development section.

However, some editors have suggested holding back the split.

I propose moving the wikitext to the list and embedding it back here, making editing less laggy, until those concerns are met.

The same goes for the List of Super Heavies. HLFan (talk) 22:36, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

SUPPORT.

There are more than enough vehicles to justify this split. Removing development entirely from this article would be best. Redacted II (talk) 22:41, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Also, what do you think of merging the three test article sections into a separate list?
I don't think it's a great idea to let the two redundant tables (1, 2) of general test articles diverge again over time.
Since you undid my previous, less impactive attempt, what's your word on this?
Maybe now it'd be a good time if we're already splitting the articles. HLFan (talk) 18:56, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I undid your previous attempt because 1: templates are, IMO, more difficult to edit, and 2: several editors had duplicated test articles from the Super Heavy and Starship related article's lists.

It might be best to have one article: "List of Starship vehicles", having: a List of Starships, List of Super Heavies, and List of Test articles (divided into General, Starship, and Super Heavy). Redacted II (talk) 19:00, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

You mean, what the SpaceX Starship development article was without the SpaceX Starship design history?

Sounds great to me, but the proposal to distribute the article content in the first place had plenty of supporters, so I'd like to hear their opinion on this, too. Preferably before I move SpaceX Starship development to List of Starship vehicles. HLFan (talk) 20:18, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes.

@J.pshine5t, @Cocobb8, @Jadebenn, @CactiStaccingCrane, @Sub31k Given that this may come into conflict with the May 6, 2023 consensus to merge SpaceX Starship development and SpaceX Starship, what are your thoughts? Redacted II (talk) 20:55, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Also asking @Gtoffoletto, @CodemWiki HLFan (talk) 21:14, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I am fully in favor of cutting down minor content (stacking, restacking, minor tests) from the pages SpaceX Starship (spacecraft) and SpaceX Super Heavy.

But I oppose the idea of creating an all-in-one article which lists Starship boosters, Starship stacks and Starship ships.

It doesn't make sense for someone reading about Super Heavy boosters to have to go to the section of another page to get information about a specific one. Same goes for any given Starship ship. Meanwhile, a list of Starship vehicles is already redundant on List of Starship launches since a vehicle is an association between a booster and a ship, and those may vary unpredictably for each new launch.

For readers, it's inconvenient. For editors, it incites to keep the bloat and hoard it on this new catch-all page rather than trim it and make it flow within the booster/ship's original article.

The most natural solution is to trim the bloat, and keep the list of individual rocket stages on their respective pages as it is done now. Eventually, if SpaceX has built hundreds of individual boosters/ships, then the two separate lists List of Super Heavy boosters and List of Starship ships may be forked from their respective article. In the meantime, just leave it as is.

TDLR: The catch-all triple list article is not good idea for multiple reasons. Just trim useless content and keep the lists on their respective article (Super Heavy and Starship (spacecraft)

J.pshine5t (talk) 14:59, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

In my opinion, we should cut down all the details about every ship. It's really not important to have such details as "when the ship parts were first spotted" or all the specific dates of all the tests that the prototypes had. Only notable mentions should be said about a ship. Note that we are not a fanbase, but rather an encyclopedia trying to summarize the important information about a topic. Cocobb8 (💬 talk • ✏️ contribs) 22:36, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Agree we currently have way too much content here at a crazy level of detail. It feels Wikipedia:INDISCRIMINATE. I think the solution is to delete a lot of it and to provide a concise summary rather than moving it elsewhere. {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 19:45, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I've copied the Dev sections of both articles to my Sandbox, and have begun trimming them (1.6 kilobytes removed so far, but I've only done B7, B9, and B10) Redacted II (talk) 22:07, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I've let these comments sink in while working on deduplicating content and come to a different conclusion.

Without the Design and Development sections — let's say the transcluded design section is moved to the stack article and the dev section elsewhere — the two stage specific articles are stubs. These articles are already the lists. The time to make separate lists is not dependent on how many vehicles are in the lists, but when there's enough content just concerning the individual stages that can't be put in SpaceX Starship so that after the split there's a significant article left, if ever.

However, an isolated 3-in-1 list of test articles (general, Starship-based and Super Heavy-based) still makes the most sense to me, as that section seems already more like a sidecar to me, and it wouldn't disrupt the flow of the article either. HLFan (talk) 00:50, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Even without the lists, Super Heavy is still a 22.9 kilobyte article. And it could likely be expanded to maybe 50 kilobytes by adding sections dedicated to well-documented systems like the Engine Shielding ([1]) and Fire Suppression System ([2]).

Starship is even larger (haven't checked to see how big it is without the list), and could likely be expanded as well.

Keeping these articles separate from SpaceX Starship is essential: merging the three articles and removing the lists would create a 250+ kilobyte article.

Which would inevitably be subdivided. Redacted II (talk) 01:43, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Starship would be a 32.9 kilobyte article without dev section. But that size could likely be doubled. Redacted II (talk) 19:35, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Land on earth using a tower and arms to catch the spacecraft

I added this to the lead since I believe it is important for understanding of the starship: Starship is designed to land on earth using a tower and arms to catch the spacecraft. Source: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2021/10/starship-orbital-launch-pad/ Quote from the source:

The integration tower is going to have a unique piece of hardware. Mechazilla, as named by Elon Musk, should be 145 meters tall when completed and will have the job of not only stacking the booster and Starship but also catching them as they come in for landings. Mechazilla will do this using two arms which will lift/catch the booster from hardpoints that are between the grid fins, and the Starship will be lifted/caught from hardpoints right under the forward flaps.

Someone claims that the text fails verification. What verification? Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 04:59, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

The source is fine. Redacted II (talk) 12:34, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

24.1?

Was S24.1, as described here, different from S26.1? If so, it needs to be included in the Starship test articles section. Redacted II (talk) 14:23, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Replace pictures with those of V2 prototype

Now that Ship 33 has been rolled out, it's visibly different from the pictured ships, we need to find licensable pictures if this ship. Abdullah Ali 4z5 (talk) 03:13, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

I wish those existed. Redacted II (talk) 14:22, 6 November 2024 (UTC)