Talk:Space probe

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See also: Talk:Robotic spacecraft

[edit] Page moved

The old "space probe" article covered lots of missions that weren't really space probes in the traditional sense. Recreation of this page, after moving that old article to robotic spacecraft, will hopefully alleviate the confusion. Sdsds 20:00, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] wikify or expand?

I have just now replaced the wikify template on this article with an expand template. The article is already heavily wiki-linked. (It is also already marked with an appropriate stub template.) Whereas I agree there should be more structure, does it make sense to do that before very much space-probe material has been moved here from less appropriate places, or written specifically for the article? Sdsds 21:30, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I was the person who added the wikify tag. Expand might be better than wikify in this case. Or, we might just want to redirect space probe to Robotic spacecraft. --ASDFGHJKL123=Greatest Person Ever+Coolest Person Ever 22:52, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The trouble that was experienced with the prior combination of Space probe and the precursor to Robotic spacecraft was that there are so darn many robotic spacecraft that aren't space probes. Every satellite, to be precise. The defining characteristic of a space probe (that it leave the environs of Earth) was lost in the article that combined the two. It's reasonable to assert that coverage of space probes could be carried out as a sub-section in the robotic spacecraft article, but that would be a lame admission that we haven't covered all the great space probe missions that have and are being and will be conducted. There are plenty of those to fill an article! Sdsds 23:09, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, one thing that is for certain, is that the interwiki links are one hell of a mess. --Harald Khan Ճ 17:18, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

At least it was; it is fixed for now (took it's time). --Harald Khan Ճ 18:51, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Best definition and best article scope

I am no longer convinced the definition of "space probe" currently used in this article is best. I believe early spacecraft, even some on merely sub-orbital flights, might have been called at the time "space probes". Thus scoping this article to include a flight only if it "leaves the gravity well of Earth and approaches the Moon or enters interplanetary or interstellar space" may be unduly restrictive. The differentiator between a "space probe" and a "robotic spacecraft" may simply be one of intent, i.e. scientific discovery versus commercial use. (sdsds - talk) 19:45, 6 January 2008 (UTC)