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Well folks, following all our hard work recently, I have put the article up for FAC a second time at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/International Space Station. Please swing by and comment, and with some luck soon we'll have that elusive gold star! :-) Colds7ream (talk) 08:19, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I took the table of pres. modules out of the article. In my opinion it was duplicating a lot, and required a huge amount of ref hunting for statistics that most people won't even care about. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:41, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Aww... I rather liked that table (the fact that I made it probably has something to do with that... :-D). In other news, if anyone fancies helping me out with the citation search initiated by complaints at the FAC, please do - I've dealt with a lot of them myself... Colds7ream (talk) 19:08, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, but judging from Sandy's response AFTER I removed the list, I dread what response we would have seen with it still in. Are you also somewhat lost now? I'm kinda stumped on what it is exactly that we need to do now. You tried reviews, the league of copy editors, we weeded down stuff considerably, took some stuff out, including a lot that i had rather left in the article etc.. I'm not sure if I can do anything more for the article :/ prose simply is not one of my areas. I hope you still feel inspiration, but I'm fast approaching the stage where I feel I have to remove this article from my watchlist, because I have simply read the thing too damn often. BTW, ticked off my first GA last week on an astronaut bio. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:00, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

We could move the table to Assembly_of_the_International_Space_Station. Good idea ? --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 02:37, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't have removed the list. It was a good-looking list, interesting info, and fit nicely into the article. Offliner (talk) 02:50, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Well I liked it as well, but useful does not always mean that it is suited for inclusion in an encyclopedia article of course. I mean, the links were useful for me as a reader, since I doubt we will have a "Radiofrequencies to talk with ISS", but apparently, it was too much. Much as I don't like moving the links for sightings out of the sightings section, because I doubt people will still be able to find the external information, but a Wikipedia article is not a linking guide. Still it feels weird not being able to link to something while stating in the article that up to date/live information on the subject is available on the web. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:52, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I think we should remove Visiting spacecraft (at the very least in its current form). The same basic (shuttle,soyuz,progress) information is in the article, it's listy and why do we care about all the possible future spacecraft that might or might not visit ? All those articles already link here, I don't see why we need to link to them. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 02:23, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't see a reason why that list should be removed either. The "cancelled" section could be dropped, however. Offliner (talk) 02:50, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your response DJ about being lost. Interesting response we got... Looking through the history, the improvements, the copy edits from the two of us over at GOCE, a lot has been done to this article, and I just don't get it. Over the next few days, I will go through again and focus mainly on prose and em dashes per Sandy's suggestion... Hopefully this will help. Pax85 (talk) 06:19, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed - frankly I'm astonished at the... What's the right word? Hostility that we've got here - after the sheer number of procedures we've been through, I find it amazing that folks still see the need to tear us to shreds. What I find most ironic is that the we failed the last FAC due to issues which included such earth-shattering problems as non-standard reference date formatting... Still, this article deserves its star, and I intend to do everything I can to get it there... Colds7ream (talk) 10:45, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not hostility, it's people being in a hurry and overloaded with work. Like most of Wikipedia. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:37, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Went through every single dash in the article to double-check. Everything seems fine... Pax85 (talk) 17:22, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking that Major incidents could perhaps use something like this as an introduction? "Since construction started, the space station programme has had to deal with several major unexpected problems and failures. These incidents have impacted the assembly timeline, led to periods of reduced capabilities of the station and in some cases could have forced the crew to abandon the space station for safety reasons, had these problems not been resolved.((fact))" --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:07, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Seems a nice intro paragraph - though we'd better find a decent citation for it before moving it in... Colds7ream (talk) 23:24, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

OK folks, I've dealt with all the unreferenced areas of the article; the prose, on the other hand, I'm not going to be able to 'fix', as I wrote most of the 'problematic' areas and don't see anything wrong with them... Colds7ream (talk) 13:50, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking, perhaps it's an idea to rename Overview to "purpose" and then merge the Areas of research section under the Purpose heading? --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:07, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Todo

Some ideas I got from reading trough the FAC "review" and the article itself (it hurts my brain now :D )

1. deal with "also"
2. add sources for the table
3. possibly put more prose in the table, or take the prose out of the table and simplify it ?
4. add partner ideas about future of ISS, and point about critical role the US plays in any continuing of station operations
5. add something about crew being made up out of Commander vs. Flight engineer vs. "visitors" (will there be non-FE positions in the future during 6 people crews?)
6. rewrite "visiting spacecraft" into prose, scrap "cancelled", reduce info on "future". Add information on the flights that visited the ISS and add 2 of the lists currently mentioned in "see also" to that section. (move under station operations?)
7. we are totally missing proper info on MCC-H, moskou, COL-CC etc. (should fall nicely under "station operations" ? )
8. add something about frequency of re-supply (in visiting craft?) The ISS to Date link from NASA has a nice figure we could possibly use "6,000 pounds (2,722 kg) of supplies per Expedition" --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:32, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
9. we need booksources... (although I agree with Coldscream, that books published in 2005 or earlier are basically useless.) books from 2006 and later.

   I tried some random books, and most seem not to be available in Europe at all... :( --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:24, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

10. redo the research section. pay more attention to research results
11. "smaller power lines"
12. the overview section.
13. financial/political aspects section
14. non-US views in the Future of the ISS section.

This list looks good. I am taking a stab at number 6 in my sandbox, and will let you all know when it's ready so you can critique as you see fit.... Pax85 (talk) 01:35, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Have to take a break for a bit. If you like, take a look here. If you would like to make any changes, or work on it as well, by all means, go mess around in my sandbox. I'll be back in a while. Pax85 (talk) 03:45, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, per your suggestion, I rewrote and moved visiting spacecraft (see the article if you haven't already). I think I am going to give my eyes a rest from ISS for the night... :) Pax85 (talk) 03:59, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

You've got Lonchakov as CDR and Fincke as FE. This is a conundrum since those were their positions during the Soyuz transit, but they are reversed while onboard the station, i.e. Fincke is CDR and Lonchakov is FE. -MBK₀₀₄ 04:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. Thank you for catching that!Pax85 (talk) 04:28, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I rewrote some parts of it, because they were not as accurate as they should be. Also, I'm not sure what to do about the russian plans. Kliper is not likely to ever be built actually. The most recent plans indicate an upgraded 4 person soyuz, with then pharom and only then a "kliper"-like craft. That basically brings that thing in the direction of 2020 (which most consider the ultimate date for continued ISS operations). --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:12, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I expanded the list a bit. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:26, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Language issue needs to be resolved - can't imagine anyone would nominate an article about say HMS Victory written in US English! Jmdeur (talk) 22:06, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

FAC Closure

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-@ Colds7ream (talk) 23:28, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't beat yourself up about it. 3rd time will be a charm. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:51, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

there's an as of 2006 template, this could be updated or detemplated, Tom B (talk) 14:53, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Why should it be detemplated (since i doubt there are any sources that can uphold an update atm). --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:15, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

This section seems overly detailed and complicated. Probably 50% of the section could be trimmed away without losing any important info. The "hardware allocation" part seems unnecessary. The opening sentence ("As a multinational collaborative project, the legal and financial aspects of the ISS are detailed and complex — governing ownership of modules, crewing and utilisation of the station, and responsibilities for station resupply") is unnecessary and contains weasel words. The sentence "These MOUs are then further split, for instance into contractual obligations between nations and trading of partners rights and obligations" is badly written. It is confusing, a comma is missing, and "these MOUs" sounds silly.

In general, I definitely feel that the language of this article needs work, and the above is just one example. No offense to anyone. Offliner (talk) 04:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

What if we got someone to make a piechart of the information instead ? Is that a good idea ? --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:40, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

This section was much longer before most of it was moved to Political and financial aspects of the ISS - all it really needs to be is a summary. Colds7ream (talk) 13:19, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I am forced to agree with the tag on the Future of the ISS section... More viewpoints really need to be brought in. I love my country, but other nation's views should be in there as well if this is truly an international article. :) I like the pie chart idea too... I may need some help working on the image, but I am up for doing that. I'll let you all know when I have something put together... -Pax85 (talk) 19:59, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

All permanent station crews are named "Expedition n", where n is sequentially increased after each expedition.

As a CS student, I do feel at home with language like this. But more clear for the general public would probably be something like "...are named Expedition 1, Expedition 2, and so on."

Done --TheDJ (talk • contribs)

Expeditions have an average duration of half a year and are often considered synonymous with "Increments."

The whole "Increment" thing is quite confusing and the part is very badly written. I'd suggest saying something like "Expeditions have an average duration of half a year. Increments are almost the same thing. However, ..."

However, Increments are distinguished from Expeditions as the programme planning period for activities that are to occur during a particular Expedition's residence on ISS.

This is an extremely confusing sentence.

The definition of the Increment is in flux in preparation for 6-person crews that will be broken up into 3-person crews which overlap in their 6-month missions on ISS.

Sorry, but I just cannot understand this. What does "is in flux in preparation" mean? It is possible, that my English just isn't good enough to understand that. However, I am 100% sure that this sentence (whatever its intended meaning is) could be written more clearly.

The increment mess has been dealt with - turns out we had the wrong end of the stick anyway: [1] Colds7ream (talk) 20:41, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

The ISS uses Coordinated Universal Time (UTC, sometimes informally called GMT) to regulate its onboard day.

Are you sure that "regulate its onboard day" is proper English? One could "regulate his daily activities", but "to regulate one's day?" Why not just say "The timezone used onboard the ISS is UTC?"

Done --TheDJ (talk • contribs)

The windows are covered at night hours to give the impression of darkness because it experiences 16 sunrises and sunsets a day.

Which "it?" The darkness?

Done --TheDJ (talk • contribs)

These are just examples, and I'm sorry to say that the article seems full of such confusing language. Offliner (talk) 04:24, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, sucks. I guess review was not as thorough as we anticipated. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:39, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Should this article be written in British, International or American English?

There are those of you out there that have changed this article's English format which originally was written in American English to British English without soliciting the opinions of the Wikipedia community at large. Changing this article from American English to British English because other space flight articles are written that way is not a reason. Secondly, some think that because the space station is "international" it should be written in British English. Sorry, folks that's not a reason either. The ISS started life as an American program and the US has been the largest contributor of funding for this program. Use of American English versus British English in an article such as this should respect the country that has had the most profound impact upon it. 70.170.125.247 (talk) 00:02, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

The issue was discussed, and the current format was chosen by consensus. --GW… 00:04, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps your consensus is wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.196.72.203 (talk) 21:26, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought I was helping when I was changing it into American English. My reasoning was that this was a primary US funded program. The article says use of facilities is "76.6% for NASA, 12.8% for JAXA, 8.3% for ESA, and 2.3% for CSA" where NASA probably uses primarily US spellings. UK funding for the station through the British National Space Centre is a subset of the European Space Agency funding. Total ESA + CSA use of the station is 10.6%, or 12.2% of the English speaking use of the station while the rest is from the US (that is assuming all ESA funding is from the UK). Since most of the ESA funding is not from the UK, and Canadian spellings have mostly adopted American English rather than the UK, it seems wrong under wikipedia guidelines to have British English for this article, especially when you consider Japanese generally adopt US spellings. Perhaps the consensus needs to be reviewed again. The best option to stop this bickering would be to write a ECMAcript program to automatically render articles into the language preferred by the user -- or to have this done server side using the browser request. I only am complaining about this article because we spent billions to put it up there, and using British English to talk about it strikes of UK cultural imperialism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.39.191.105 (talk) 02:44, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

This is a follow up on the last point. Going through the talk archives (specifically Archive 2 and Archive 4) seems to indicate that the UK withdrew from being part of the European Space agency work on the space station while initially being a member. The page Political and financial aspects of the ISS still lists them as one of eleven members of the European partnership, while this page currently says there are ten members but does not list them. However, if they are still a member, it is unlikely that they funded the *entire* ESA amount, and even if they did, the relative funding argument made earlier still stands. In any case one of the articles is wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.39.191.105 (talk) 03:30, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to keep editing. Only published science article I could find regarding UK participation was viewpoint in Space Policy (title="Promoting UK involvement in the ISS: a space station lifeboat?" doi="10.1016/S0265-9646(01)00039-X") from 2001 which was lamenting the lack of UK participation in manned spaceflight including the International Space Station. From other sources (Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/feb/14/spaceexploration.spacetechnology , British Space Center Website: http://www.bnsc.gov.uk/7203.aspx ) it appears that the UK government has a policy against funding any human spaceflight which started in 1986 -- although there have been four UK citizens who have gone to space ( http://www.bnsc.gov.uk/5561.aspx ) three of whom needed to get a US citizenship first. Why then are we using UK English for the International Space Station article?

I've reviewed the archives in the discussion pages and have not found were the change was clearly mentioned and voted upon 70.170.125.247 (talk) 00:09, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't even matter, because you change one word in the entire article. If you want to change the spelling in the entire article, than we can discuss it here. (Personally, i don't see the point in making a fit over this.) --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:22, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

The earliest version of the article that I can find uses British English in the word kilometre. The MOS says that the article should stay in British English unless there is a specific reason to change to American English. As this is definitely international, then there is no reason to change it. (There is one earlier version with no US or BR specific spellings). Martin451 (talk) 00:44, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Granted, I only came in as a copy editor a couple of weeks ago, and have not contributed near as much as some of the other editors, but I do agree with them. Currently, the article is in British English, and there seems to be no drive to change that fact, other than one individual. Sorry, but that is not consensus. It is fine the way it is, especially since it is international in nature. Oh, and I am not from Britain by the way. I am from California, which can have its own brand of English at times. Lol! :) -Pax85 (talk) 04:19, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

The notion of "this spelling was used first so we 'claimed' the article" seems absurd to me, one way or the other. While I have no preference, is there a way to have it say International English instead of British English? That tag in itself would be a justification to leave it as-is. Recognizance (talk) 21:48, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, the term "International English" is ambiguous. Some people take it to mean British English, others to mean American English, or even some hybrid of the two. --GW… 23:28, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Alright, then under the circumstances it's the best we can do. Arguing won't help build the encyclopedia (or should it be enycylopaedia?) at any rate. Recognizance (talk) 02:24, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I was under the impression that the espoused policy, at least, was that majority rules at Wikipedia. If a subject is predominantly American, then American English is used - If predominantly a Commonwealth subject, then British English should be used. As it is clear that the driving force and vast majority of funding for the ISS is American, then just as clearly the article should be in American English. Even if the argument is that as the station is international, British English should be used is incorrect, as the majority of native English speakers on the planet are using American English. In any case, the above individual is incorrect that only one lone dissenter is voicing an opinion that the article should be in American English if for no other reason as that is Wikipedia policy (not to mention the correct thing to do). I'll sit back for a while and see whether this correction is made. jmdeur 17:32, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I have checked this articles history, and found this article evolved primarily in American English. Furthermore, it has strong national ties to the United States as funding is primarily American. Also, there was never a popular consensus to convert this article to British English in the first place. Because this article should have never been switched in the first place, it should be switched back. This is completely allowable under the style guidelines. I know this whole language war is frivolous, but it seen=ms even more pointless that someone would change the article to British English. Also, this page seems to be written in mixed English anyways, so I can't think of any reason for me not to change it.69.204.97.101 (talk) 00:50, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I've checked that as well and dispute your claim. Looking at the very first entry, the only word that was flagged during my spell-check tests (in British, US and Canadian English) was the name of the shuttle Endeavour, which as it turns out uses the British spelling. (This is apparently due to it being named after James Cook's ship, the Bark Endeavour.) Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, the first place to indicate a difference is in the second edit, which introduces the international English "kilometre" as opposed to the US "kilometer". That would demonstrate an evolution with British English, as per views expressed by others above. --Ckatz^chat_spy 01:39, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

A thought from a third party: what form of English is used by the majority of the editors who do the majority of the work on this page? To me, this seems like the most useful and utilitarian way of picking a language: I don't write as quickly in GB, and I assume that Commonwealth folks likewise don't write a quickly in American. Awickert (talk) 18:26, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

As a matter of clarification, and to avoid replying to objections below since it's supposed to be a poll, wikipedia article content language is not dependant on the subject. That includes in this case, the official languages used on board, the language used by NASA, and the language used in the majority of articles or manuals about it. There are numerous cases of this throughout the en wikipedia. Articles on people are often written in one or the other regardless of the person's spoken dialect. Even country articles aren't dependant on the dialect of thier citizens. Great Britain and Australia are both written in en-us, for instance. aremisasling (talk) 18:56, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

• Comment what is International English? Since it is the International Space Station, I'd be inclined to support this answer, if I knew what it meant. But I think British English versus American English is a silly, pointless debate, on par with genre arguments about musical groups. Dlabtot (talk) 06:18, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Straw Poll

Further discussion

• Given that there has been no discussion in the last week, the RFC is now over, and no response was posted to my summary post, I have closed the poll. As I previously stated, the results indicate that there is no consensus to change the article from British English to American English. In the absence of consensus, the status quo should be respected per WP:ENGVAR. --GW… 20:50, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

• Agreed - now we've got that little bit of pointlessness out of the way, maybe we can get some real work done! :-D Colds7ream (talk) 21:04, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Over the next few days, I'm going to go through the article and focus mainly on prose, since that was an issue during FAC. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions, please let me know... -Pax85 (talk) 04:51, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Good luck with your edits, and thanks for all the hard work you're going to be putting into this! --Ericdn (talk) 05:08, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, and it's my pleasure. After that response at FAC, I want to see that gold star on the article. Hopefully I'll provide more help than harm. :) I just finished for the night, and will continue with scientific research tomorrow... -Pax85 (talk) 06:29, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Cheers for all this, Pax - turns out getting that star is harder than I thought, and your continuing help is very much appreciated. :-) Colds7ream (talk) 07:41, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Following the beating we got at the last FAC, I was wondering if anyone fancies adding a small, extra column to the right of each module in the table for us to put a citation in? Colds7ream (talk) 07:47, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

• I would prefer the citations to be in the table itself, next to the text that they verify. I think the same should go for the infobox as well. --GW… 08:07, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

• I'm not sure - personally I think that for tables it looks tidier if the citations are all in one place... Colds7ream (talk) 10:07, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

1. Ensure that absolutely every statement has a decent citation, and, if possible, that citations come from sources other than NASA/ESA etc., so they can't get us on poor referencing.
2. Run through all the prose and ensure we follow the WP:MOS to the letter, so we can't be failed on pathetic issues like using the wrong form of dash.
3. Total copyedit of prose to remove things that can be described as 'redundant sentences', 'repeated words' and 'listy prose'.
4. Globalise the Future of the ISS section to encompass RKA, JAXA and ESA viewpoints too.
5. Check all abbreviations have at least one entry in full, e.g. Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
6. Review of Pressurised Modules table to eliminate redundant information and improve descriptions. Add citations to each module too.
7. Add details of MCCs in the Station operations section.
8. Add details of resupply - frequency of flights, volume of logistics, etc.
9. Review of Scientific research section.
10. Merge Areas of research into Overview and rename that section as Purpose.
11. Rewrite & condense Political and financial aspects section.
12. Update vital statistics following STS-119.

Please feel free to expand this list as you see fit (at Talk:International Space Station/to do); please cross off items once completed; don't delete them. Colds7ream (talk) 13:29, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Regarding number 1, I have almost daily access to a large research library that is connected to other university libraries here in California. I also have access to the different databases that may be of use. If there is anything that we need (since web sources and NASA related sources were an issue at FAC) please let me know. I will start off by seeing what I can find, and maybe replace some of them...

Also, I'm still going to go through and do prose, copy-edit, etc. as we go, and then make one final run before we head out to FAC again...-Pax85 (talk) 18:21, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the mass of the ISS needs to be updated in the stats box on the right. I heard it weighs around 300 tons now, according to the BBC. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SaveTheWhales (talk • contribs) 04:47, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

You are correct. We need to find the right number though. Might be a while before we can confirm that. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:47, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

OK folks, I've merged the 'Scientific research' section into the 'Overview' section, and renamed it 'Purpose'. I also took the 'Scientific modules' section and merged it with the Pressurised modules table and part of the 'Purpose' section. That section, however, probably needs a good review, as some of the text is likely duplicated or untidy. Colds7ream (talk) 16:06, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Went through the scientific research section and attempted to work on it a bit. Meant to get to other parts in the article as well, but I got lost in researching a couple of things, and well, lost track. :) Be back later for more... -Pax85 (talk) 09:11, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the section '2009 – Near collision with orbital debris' from Major Incidents. It seems to be a violation of WP:RECENT. The event is not notable; conjunctions such as this one occur fairly frequently, and none of them are noted. The event had no operational impact to the space station, and therefore hardly seems to be an 'incident'. There was a conjunction in 2008 which caused the station to perform a debris avoidance maneuver; there is no mention of that in this section (as there should not be) despite the probability of collision being three orders of magnitude higher in the 2008 event, and the operational impacts being much greater (performing a maneuver vice moving to Soyuz for 10 minutes). Thus this event is not notable and doesn't warrant mention in the article. anonymous6494 14:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The incident did get a lot of media attention, and I think this is reason enough to have at least some kind of mention of it in the article. Offliner (talk) 16:51, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Anonymous: The reason why this one was different, I think, was the fact that an avoidance maneuver was not possible. The debris was found too late. So with this particular incident, there was a bit more of an unknown, than say for exmaple, the 2008 event. Also, like Offliner stated, it did receive a good deal of media attention... -Pax85 (talk) 17:15, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

To put the risk in perspective, the debris passed within about 4.75 km www.nasaspaceflight.com of the ISS. Conservatively taking the size of the station to be about 100 m in all dimensions, and ignoring the obvious fact that it does not present a solid target disk, the probability of a hit would be something like the ratio of area of the 50m radius station equivalent target disk to the area of the 4.75 km radius miss circle, ie, (50²/4750²) = 0.0001108, or one in ~9000, which is significant but substantially smaller than the risk of a loss-of-crew accident on a Shuttle launch. If the kinetic energy of a 1 kg mass moving at ~5 km/s were completely converted into heat, the result would be roughly similar to the detonation of 3 kg of TNT: certainly not negligible, but not necessarily catastrophic either. Pricing the station at $100 billion, and (very) conservatively putting the danger of complete destruction of the facility at 10^-5, the expected cost of the incident was of the order of ($10¹¹ × 10^-5) ≈ $1 million. These are not terrifically alarming figures, probably not notable enough to make the article cut, except maybe to calm any media-stoked public hysteria about the matter. Wwheaton (talk) 23:19, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Just to let everyone know that I've proposed that the ISS assembly sequence article be merged into Assembly of the International Space Station, and you can comment at Talk:Assembly of the International Space Station#Merge proposal. Many thanks, Colds7ream (talk) 15:44, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

The result of the discussion was merge. Colds7ream (talk) 09:58, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

DJ: Thanks for catching that. I've worked on other articles that choose to use the spaced endash as a stylistic choice. It would be nice if the encyclopedia as a whole could choose one and stay with that, lol.

As far as the headings that have them, do you all think we should change to emdashes, or change the article to spaced endashes? -Pax85 (talk) 21:31, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I tried emdashes in those headers, and in my opinion it looked ugly as hell. I was thinking that it might be better to simply remove the year from the headers.. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:46, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

What if we put the year after the title of the header, and in parenthesis (without the dash of course)? How do you think this would look? -Pax85 (talk) 22:24, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Someone put "Serenity" as the name of Node 3 in the graphic. As the poll hasn't concluded yet and Node 3 has not been given any name, I think we should rather use the official image from the NASA website than a modified one which is incorrect. Themanwithoutapast (talk) 08:53, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I think someone indeed was a bit ahead in presenting the likely future :D On the other hand, the whole image is incorrect these days... Node 3 is now gonna be on Port side Unity instead of Nadir, and the whole russian side is still as much in limbo as it has ever been, but our image definitely does not represent the likely future for the russian side. Yeah, who is good at SVG ? --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:31, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Right, I think I've corrected all the problems with the image now - any more changes that need to be made? Colds7ream (talk) 08:56, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Just to let everyone know that I've proposed that the Criticism of the International Space Station article be merged into Political and financial aspects of the ISS, and you can comment at Talk:Political and financial aspects of the ISS#Merge proposal. Many thanks, Colds7ream (talk) 16:28, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

The result of the discussion was merge. Colds7ream (talk) 09:44, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm starting to think that we're beginning to violate WP:LENGTH with the sheer size of the article - I know my browser is starting to take a few seconds to render it, and I'm wondering what other folks think about removing a few sections? Colds7ream (talk) 17:25, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I think a prime section to be moved would be International Space Station#Future of the ISS, as it belongs, I feel in the Political and financial aspects of the ISS article rather than the main one (and, as a side note, this would eliminate our 'globalise this section' woes). Colds7ream (talk) 08:53, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the article is too long. The primary reason it takes long to download for you, is that you are logged in, thus you are getting a version that is not from squid. Personally, I don't see a violation of WP:LENGTH here so far. The topic is big, and by definition needs a lot to cover all the relevant information. Offloading that into subarticles is not always the best approach. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:43, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know - we're currently at 93kb, and, with the expansions we need to implement to meet the issues brought up during FAC2, it's going to grow some more - and WP:SIZE states:

> 100 KB

Almost certainly should be divided

> 60 KB

Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading time)

...so we're getting dangerously close to the upper limit. Colds7ream (talk) 23:40, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

That guideline is based on the length of prose, not counting all the tables, references, images, etc. I bet the article is under the 60 kb limit when you count only the prose. -MBK₀₀₄ 23:43, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

• Support reduction in size - We are blessed with many editors who are continuing to do excellent work making Wikipedia's coverage of ISS more and more detailed. All that material shouldn't be included in this one article. Instead this article can at best provide an overview of the articles available, and as editors we should take every opportunity to move material that is highly detailed (and certainly material that is somewhat speculative) into supporting articles. (sdsds - talk) 02:16, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed - personally I think the Future of the ISS section a) belongs in P&FA, b) is too detailed for this article and c) should be moved as P&FA currently doesn't have a section on it. The P&FA section of this article is supposed to be a summary with a link to the main article on the topic, not introduce new topics not mentioned there. Colds7ream (talk) 10:13, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

It's also just occurred to me that there is precedent in favour of splitting - look at Space Shuttle and Space Shuttle programme - in the main article, the spacecraft itself is described, and in the programme article, all the aspects not directly related to its hardware and mission operations are detailed. Colds7ream (talk) 12:54, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

How about splitting off Sections 1.1, 4.9, 5 and 6 to a new article about operations of the station. Martin451 (talk) 13:38, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Not so sure about that - I think the sections on dy-to-day operations of the station should stay in the main article, as with other space station articles, but sections regarding political aspects definitely shouldn't (such as Space Shuttle programme). Colds7ream (talk) 17:21, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I've boldly moved the Future section to the Politics article - any flames should be directed to my talk page. :-) Colds7ream (talk) 16:33, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Just to let everyone know that I've proposed that the Station-to-Shuttle Power Transfer System article be merged into Electrical system of the International Space Station, and you can comment at Talk:Electrical system of the International Space Station#SSPTS Merge. Many thanks, Colds7ream (talk) 10:32, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The result of the discussion was merge. Colds7ream (talk) 11:28, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Has anyone by any chance come across some updated statistics for the infobox? The only ones I can find are the dated sources we're using already... Colds7ream (talk) 23:10, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi everyone! Just to let folks know that I've proposed that the Political and financial aspects of the ISS article be renamed to International Space Station programme, and you can comment on this idea at Talk:Political and financial aspects of the ISS#Requested move. Colds7ream (talk) 10:40, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

To quote from the ESA website:

"The first European to serve a tour of duty on the ISS, Umberto Guidoni, went on mission to the ISS in April 2001."

Hence, Guidoni (not Thomas Reiter) was the first European to serve on the ISS.

94.196.234.117 (talk) 09:39, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

He visited the station during STS-100, but was not a member of a permanent Expedition crew. Colds7ream (talk) 10:12, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Anyone fancy drawing us up an SVG map of the MCCs? Page 3 (68) of this would probably be a good starting point: [3] Colds7ream (talk) 15:46, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it shuold be left to the readers to choose the language they wish to read the article in. you can type it out in GB or american, but in the end it is the reader's choice that matters. My apoligiesShreenidhi 15:28, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

if there are any mistakes in my statement  —Preceding unsigned comment added by P.M.Shreenidhi (talk • contribs) 15:28, 3 May 2009 (UTC) 

I've noticed that several small edits have come to this and related articles from ip address 77.239.14.54 - I'm not familiar with the subject, but suspect that the edits may be subtle vandalism. Would someone who knows more than I do about this please verify that those edits are constructive? If they are, then perhaps this person should be invited to create and use a username. ...but what do you think? ~B F^izz _(talk) 04:41, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

The edits made here look OK to me! :-) Colds7ream (talk) 07:28, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

It makes up a lot of the main ISS article at the moment. I think the content of that section should be shortened and the details be transferred to its own article. Themanwithoutapast (talk) 12:36, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing the other week. It's important, but it is also quickly dated information, that is getting a bit of undue space atm. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:48, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Fair comment - International Space Station incidents? Or possibly International Space Station major incidents? Colds7ream (talk) 13:18, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the main article is just going to keep getting bigger, so we should do this. I favour "Major incidents"

IceDragon64 (talk) 23:25, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

• Split as per TheDJ, and named Major as per ICEDragon64 Martin451 (talk) 00:02, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
• Partial support, whilst I support splitting, I don't really like either of the proposed titles. I would prefer putting the "major incidents" before "International Space Station", with a word connecting the two in between, which would be better from a grammatical point of view. (ie "Major incidents [???] the International Space Station"). Perhaps "involving" or "aboard" could be used as the connective. --GW… 14:55, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

• I'd say the Major incidents involving the International Space Station would probably be the best of those two, but it seems a bit ungainly... Colds7ream (talk) 15:20, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Job done. Colds7ream (talk) 10:01, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

This Map is incorrect.

There are many other countries are missed out primarily European countries, such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal and Greece could someone change or remove the map. Thank You Lemonade100 (talk) 15:46, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

From the article: "Ten of Europe's member states are participating: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Austria, Finland, and Ireland chose not to participate, the United Kingdom withdrew from the preliminary agreement, and Portugal, Greece, Luxembourg and the Czech Republic joined ESA after the agreement had been signed." Colds7ream (talk) 16:38, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Im confused. If the UK withdraw from the preliminary agreement, why is the UK flag on the agreement for the ISS? Maybe this could be elaborated somewhere. Also, does this mean that no money from the UK goes into the ISS, even through the ESA? 146.87.4.56 (talk) 15:44, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

They just didn't take it out. I guess no one felt like redoing the artwork of the ISS agreement. And yes the UK government spends no money on the ISS at all. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:39, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Much to the embarrassment of Brits such as myself... :-( Colds7ream (talk) 12:47, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

And much to the pleasure of Brits like myself. What's your point? Modest Genius ^talk 13:22, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry? :-S Colds7ream (talk) 13:34, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I was startled to see here that the projected term of operations of the ISS is only until 2015. This immediately raises the question, is there any proposed replacement on the drawing board, or do we just expect to abandon long-term operations in Earth orbit six years from now? -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 17:57, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, there's talks going on to extend the station's life out 'till 2020, by which point most of the space agencies will be getting focussed on Lunar operations, so I guess LEO won;t be high on government's lists of priorities. Colds7ream (talk) 21:14, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Correct. Although I would like to add that any type of design for a "followup" to ISS will take about 10 years in design. Most lunar work is still only conceptual. This raises the interesting point that when ISS is no longer operated, we are likely to be at least 5 but more likely 10 years without a presence in orbit in the western world (based on the experience that governments dont' get serious about stuff like this until the last one stopped flying). It is possible that either China or India or something might construct a spacestation in that timeframe. Let's hope so, that might give the other governments a bit of a push to actually get some work done as well :D —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:17, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

The decision of extending ISS operations to 2020 or beyond that date is going to be made later this year. NASA is in talks with the Obama admin and of course also with the other ISS partners about the extension and it looks pretty likely it will happen. As to successors, there are a variety of proposals, but none from NASA. NASA's current focus for the next decade is Constellation. There are no plans for LEO operations after the ISS program ends for NASA. The Chinese space agency will put together a precursor space station (Shenzhou-8, Shenzhou-9, Tiangong 1) in 2011 which shall be operated for 2 years. Tiangong 2 and Tiangong 3 shall be follow-up Salyut style spacestations in the next decade. That being said, it appears there will be LEO operations even after the ISS operations end, if by nobody else by the Chinese space agency. Themanwithoutapast (talk) 13:03, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

China is apparently planning for Project 921-2 / Tiangong 1 / Tiangong 2 / Tiangong 3 to be operational circa 2010-2015. As I understand it, this would represent a considerable cutback in scale from the ISS, let alone from what we're supposed to have by now.  :-( -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 17:06, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

There is another suggestion posted recently on Flightglobal (20.5) about an ESA-Russia successor to the ISS. Apparently there will be a study on that subject: [4]. Should we put a section into the article about the possible future of the ISS and successor programs respectively competitive spacestations? 77.116.35.205 (talk) 19:28, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

No, all too speculative as far as I'm concerned. Some terse information may be added to International Space Station program#Future of the ISS perhaps. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:47, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Reading the article, seems taht this ISS will be destructed. Well, why not to put rockets in this ISS and sent it to the Moon or even to mars?Agre22 (talk) 19:11, 23 May 2009 (UTC)agre22

The materials of which the station is constructed have a maximum lifespan. The radiation and small elements at high velocity that continuously pound the outside skin will make it wear out in 15-25 years. Since the core elements of ISS will be 22 years old in 2020, it will be "un-safe" to use it after that time. (Though the russians are a bit more lax with stuff like that in general). And secondly, the ISS requires close support from earth in supplies and life support (air/water). Thirdly, it can probably not handle the type of acceleration and braking required to move it from earth to moon/mars (At least not with that happening in an acceptable timeframe). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:34, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Such a strategy has been suggested with Bigelow modules. But with any design, it would need to be built for that purpose from start to finish. There are also proposals to send modules to the moon and build a station there, but they'd be designed for it and sent piece by piece. aremisasling (talk) 15:42, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

In the top right box, "Atmospheric Pressure" : perhaps should indicate that this is inside rather than outside pressure; should have additionally mmHg, with which many readers must be familiar.

Drag is mentioned, but no figure is given, which seems a pity. Web http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/gravity2.htm#EDOB has a calculator (which should be checked) for this, pre-loaded with current data from the Article; it gives 0.133 N. That force should be within the capability of a modern ion engine or two, without using too much power.

82.163.24.100 (talk) 12:24, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

As it is a scientific article, the primary units should be SI. Living in the UK I would have said that inHg and mbar are more common that mmHg (torr). To me it is obvious that this is the internal pressure, do you think most non-scientists would realise that?. Martin451 (talk) 21:51, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

So a wind 234 times hurricane speed meeting an acre of spacecraft that could almost not possibly be more unaerodynamic causes a force equal to the weight of 5 pennies.. NGC 2009 (talk) 00:03, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

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