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Alought Historical background mentioned the history, not mentioned the root of the space shuttle, silbervogel. Is necessary to add it? Berkeley8 ( talk) 20:33, 30 March 2023 (UTC) reply

Within this article, there's no description about the requirements to be a space shuttle crew. If there's one, I think it would help readers understand the rigorous selection process and training that astronauts undergo to become part of a Space Shuttle mission. I'm thinking about adding these two links with some explanation for each of them: [1] [2]. What do you think? Moonlight6928 ( talk) 14:37, 31 March 2023 (UTC) reply

Support Vehicle, there isn't any mention about An-225, so we want to add some pieces of information about how An-225 supports space shuttles and briefly introduce now the status of An-225. I am going to refer to these two links: Antonov An-225 Mriya [3]

Please comment on if there is any concerns regarding my plan of changes. Thanks! Sir.Deai Bian ( talk) 13:47, 1 April 2023 (UTC) reply

The An-225 was designed and used as support vehicle in the Russian Buran program, as linked in See also. I don't see any reason to feature it prominently here. -- Zac67 ( talk) 14:09, 1 April 2023 (UTC) reply

The An-225 is related (or connected) to Buran (spacecraft), not the US Space Shuttle. -Fnlayson ( talk) 03:43, 29 December 2023 (UTC) reply

Greetings, I am from Chinese wiki. When editing the Chinese pages related to space shuttles, I find the pages quite unorganized, and have some questions that could be better answered by the English community.

1. What is the relationship between Space Shuttle program and Space Transportation System?
   1. Did the STS become the space shuttle program, or are they separate
   2. Can they be treated as the same thing or put under one page (there was a Chinese page about STS that was not a Chinese version of the Space Transportation System, it only contained information about the space shuttle, and I merged it into the Chinese Space Shuttle program page, a Chinese version of the STS page never existed)
2. When referring to names like Atlantis and OV-104, do they refer to a space shuttle or a space shuttle orbiter?
3. When linking from other pages, when do you link to space shuttle and when to space shuttle orbiter?
4. Is it correct to say that
   1. a space shuttle is a spacecraft system, not a spacecraft nor a spaceplane
   2. a space shuttle orbiter is a spacecraft, spaceplane, and part of a space shuttle

Sohryu Asuka Langley Not Shikinami ( talk) 08:05, 4 May 2024 (UTC) reply

1.1 STS (the wiki page) refers to the early development and exploration efforts of space systems to succeed Apollo. These efforts led to the Space Shuttle program, in which STS refers to the full Shuttle stack (RSRB + Orbiter + ET + SSMEs) and Shuttle missions (e.g. STS-1).

1.2 They are different things.

2 OV-x can refer to more than just Orbiters as some of the test articles followed a similar naming scheme with varying prefixes. See Space Transportation System by HAER ( https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/tx1106/). Names refer only to the actual Orbiters.

3. Link to Space Shuttle when referencing the shuttle stack and link to orbiter when discussing the orbiter.

4. Yes, technically although plenty of people use "space shuttle" to refer to both. RebirthNA ( talk) 22:33, 28 June 2024 (UTC) reply

Thank you for your reply. Just to confirm, STS (system) in this program means the entire spacecraft system, or the missions(STS-x), correct? And I noticed that the second sentence says "Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS)......", does this mean the official program name changed and remained as "Space Shuttle program" or is it past tense because the Space Shuttle program has ended? I am asking this because in Chinese we don't have tenses, and our article gives the impression that "STS" was and had always been the "official program name". Sohryu Asuka Langley Not Shikinami ( talk) 23:34, 28 June 2024 (UTC) reply

STS previously referred to the initial development exploration which lead to the Space Shuttle program. Down selection to the Space Shuttle concept we known today (referred to as Case 404, Thrust Assisted Orbiter Shuttle in early NASA documents), happened in the early 1970s but President Nixon formally announced that the program develop a "space shuttle" in 1972 [4].

Thus after 1972, you can think of STS as no longer referring to the initial development program, but instead as the Orbiter + RSRB + ET + SSME combination (aka the Shuttle stack). Said program is now called the Space Shuttle Program.

In my prior reply I used past tense because the program is over. RebirthNA ( talk) 00:21, 29 June 2024 (UTC) reply

Thank you for the clarification, some information is indeed lost in translation in the Chinese article, I will adjusting them when I have time. Sohryu Asuka Langley Not Shikinami ( talk) 00:41, 29 June 2024 (UTC) reply