Forum sections - should we reorganize the ESA section?

[Hobbes-22]

At the moment, we have a section "International Space Flight (ESA, Russia, China and others)". This has subsections for several countries (Russia, China, Japan, India), an "Others" category and an "ESA" category.

With the proliferation of launcher companies in Europe that are not part of ESA, this is starting to not match reality. The recent Miura launch is an example that has generated discussion on this topic:

Why is this on ESA section?

Do you mean it should go under:
1)  Suborbital instead? 
2)  Topic Heading align with all European Launches including but not exclusively ESA?
3)  Other Launchers (Korean, Brazilian etc.)?

4. Move it to Commercial Space Flight General like most other commercial companies?

please no commercial - that is just a collection of random stuff, where it is difficult to find anything (plus it is inconsistent which companies are there and which are not)... rename this section to "European Launchers" and move all european stuff here (e.g. RFA)

I think it makes sense to rename the section "ESA Launchers - Ariane, Soyuz at CSG, Vega" to "European Launchers" so we can discuss all European projects in this section.

[catdlr]

At the moment, we have a section "International Space Flight (ESA, Russia, China and others)". This has subsections for several countries (Russia, China, Japan, India), an "Others" category and an "ESA" category.

With the proliferation of launcher companies in Europe that are not part of ESA, this is starting to not match reality. The recent Miura launch is an example that has generated discussion on this topic:

Why is this on ESA section?

Do you mean it should go under:
1)  Suborbital instead? 
2)  Topic Heading align with all European Launches including but not exclusively ESA?
3)  Other Launchers (Korean, Brazilian etc.)?

4. Move it to Commercial Space Flight General like most other commercial companies?

please no commercial - that is just a collection of random stuff, where it is difficult to find anything (plus it is inconsistent which companies are there and which are not)... rename this section to "European Launchers" and move all european stuff here (e.g. RFA)

I think it makes sense to rename the section "ESA Launchers - Ariane, Soyuz at CSG, Vega" to "European Launchers" so we can discuss all European projects in this section.

If you set this up with a poll, I would vote yes.

[JEF_300]

Agreed.

[aga]

i would vote yes as well

[Hobbes-22]

I've added a poll.

[ulm_atms]

I am bumping this because I concur.

I went down the rabbit hole of looking at all European space companies both gov and corp.  I realized Hobbes-22 is right.  I wouldn't really know where to put private space companies in Europe type topics except the "Commercial Space Flight General" thread.  That thread is getting quite crowded and hard to follow and only getting worse quickly do to the amount of new space companies.  The other commercial entities in countries in the list with ESA are in their respective country's header, so why shouldn't Europe's be in Europe?  It'd help thin at least some of the herd on the general thread...

Now...

With that said, I'm more thinking to reorg the ENTIRE commercial section. We are not only talking about launchers in commercial anymore...we are talking about Moon, Mars, and beyond things that are now turning into commercial offshoots and startups.  The commercial sector of space is BOOMING! (yes, i made that pun)  Time to stop dumping it all in to that one poor thread as evidenced by above agree with Hobbes-22.  That's just one thing that could help clean commercial up some.  There's got to be more...

[trimeta]

Mahurora's recent post indexing all the threads for companies outside of the US, China, Russia, India, Japan, and Europe really highlights how for space activities originating from the first five of those six regions, there's a well-established forum section for discussion, but for Europe, there's no correct location. The "ESA" section needs to become the "Europe in general" section.

[jebbo]

Definitely should be renamed to European Launchers.

It also means that the random per country launch schedule threads (e.g. UK and Germany) can be moved from "Other".

--- Tony