Talk:Space Race

You have my sword. (I already beefed up the moon race stuff before realising this was a candidate for article collaboration of the week.) I'm going to be away for another week, though, so while I'll be reading up on spacey topics, editing will alas have to wait. --AlexG 15:30, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Had a big play around - resectionised it all and added images already available. violet/riga (t) 16:54, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Not just US and USSR // The new space races

Though there is a small mention of China perhaps there is scope for other countries in the space race (past and present). The following articles mention the UK ventures:

• BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/831401.stm)
• "Britain in Space" (http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/6133/)

The term "space race" may also now include:

• The first commercial flight(s)
• The first member of the public rocket to reach space (there's a large competition about that but I can't remember the details right now)

violet/riga (t) 21:19, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I once found a children's book in English titled "Space Race" -- and guess what was inside? Pictures of the Ariane! Some Europeans (and Brits, maybe) think that the phrase can be used for Europe's project to equal the capacities of the US! But please, none of this other stuff. Put it in reference. --Sobolewski 02:22, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Canadians and The Moon Shot

User:Quinobi

1960 the Avro team After being laid off when the Canadian Government cancelled its fighter program (1959..1961), the entire team of Canadian aerospace scientists at Avro ( builders of the legendary Avro Arrow ) were hired by NASA just as it called for intellectual fuel to meet Kennedy's challenge. It was lucky for the fledgling nasa to 'inherit' an intact team with so much coherent shared knowlege.

Thoughts

international cooperation or dumb luck?

Should 'Americans' take national pride in putting a Man on the Moon? Space Race discussion and research topics:

Compare and Contrast

• good luck, serendipity, success, design, ...
• bad luck, accident, disaster, sabotage, ...

Heading change

I changed many of the headings to allow a better flow for the reader. Davodd 03:55, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Arrows to the Moon

I added a reference to Arrows to the Moon Chris Gainor(2001) ISBN 1-896522-83-1 to the reference section and an External link to the CORE/NSF synopsis of the book. This book tells how the Avro team of British and Canadian scientists found jobs at NASA and a lot of Space Technology Contractors. There were 32 of these guys emplayed directly by NASA and many more who found work for contractors. I don't have a copy of this book and I can't find it online. If someone knows this material and puts it into the Scientists Section, it would render quite a bit of contextual justice to the Subject Matter.

Name, table

As it is now, this article would be better named "space exploration" than "space race." The race itself was just between the U.S. and USSR.

Also, maybe all the "firsts" should be put into a table. Maurreen 05:56, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Timeline

In the achievements table, we should remove the entry from 2001; the space race was certainly not ongoing in 2001. If this small fact about achievement is related to something in the text, we could have it there but not in the timeline. Also, the article states that "it was a competition from 61 to 69"; perhaps we should remove even the achievements in the 80s. ✏ Sverdrup 14:10, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I believe the intro paragraph is too limited in its timeframe. All evidence points to what became known by the media as the "space race" started shortly after WWII and "ended" with the U.S.-USSR spacedock and handhsake in the early 1970s. Maybe instead of removing the 80s and 90s information completely, they could be moved to a second table under Recent Developments. I'll do just that. Davodd 02:30, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. I wrote a couple of short paragraphs near the beginning to mention WWII->1961, hope it's ok or an ok start.--Chairboy 03:06, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

the term "space race"

Is the scope of the term used here too limited? Although technically stated as ending in 1975, nations have continued to try to improve their space development programs in recent history. The space race is clearly still ongoing in at least two aspects: 1. being the 1st to do something, i.e. getting someone to Mars (which is already mentioned in the article) and 2. reducing the cost of launching payload into space, or a commercial space race. The commercial aspect is currently highly competitive, and a lot can probably be written about it as well, but I don't know where/if it fits into the current article--Confuzion 11:28, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Agree. That info was originally in the article was was removed for some reason as shown here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Space_Race&diff=6065742&oldid=6065725 -- I have replaced it. Davodd 20:07, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

I feel like the current article is too broad and wanders off-topic. We need to decide if the article is about The Space Race (i.e. the race between Russia and the U.S. during the Cold War) or about the general idea of racing to reach certain space milestones, including on-going competition. Really though I can't see how anything today deserves a comparison; the Space Race was a Big Deal when it was happening, and nothing today comes close. At least in the U.S., NASA isn't in the news unless something's exploding.

Also, the information on individual space agencies seemed like a total non sequitur. I was especially surprised when I saw a section on the Brazilian Space Agency. I mean, what do they have to do with a space race if they haven't even launched a rocket successfully? Who are they racing against? Isomorphic 00:01, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Brazil is trying to be the leading space program in South America and the 1st into space from South America (excluding French Guiana)--Confuzion 06:43, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Just to clarify: I think everything in the article is good material, I just don't know what some of it is doing under this article title. We don't seem to have an article on the history of space flight. Perhaps we should be putting some of what's here into that? Isomorphic 00:10, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Isomorphic. THE space race was between the U.S. and USSR, during a limited period of time. If a broader article is desired, maybe this one should just be renamed.

Maurreen 05:20, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Maybe all that was needed was some shuffling of paragraphs. I moved all space angencies formed after 1975 to the Recent Developments section. I also added a clarification in the ESA section that it was greatly overshadowed by the US-USSR rivalry. Seems more focused now. Davodd 05:40, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

Though the space race is the US/USSR getting to the moon race there are many others that are very important, if only, perhaps, to people outside of those countries. China see their space race as very important, no doubt, and commercial flights could have a huge impact. violet/riga (t) 07:04, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Much improved, but I still think that material on more recent developments, along with the material on individual space agencies, would be better off in a new article on the history of space flight. Isomorphic 20:44, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think this article is just a part of the history of space exploration (or history of space travel). The section "Recent Developments" belongs in a such broader article. ✏ Sverdrup 22:21, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree with those who have argued that 'the space race' was, essentially, the race between the USA and the USSR which started with Sputnik and effectively ended with Apollo 11. Space exploration is a much broader subject and certainly deserves an article in its own right. The current commercial/privately funded activity may be 'a' space race, but - in historical terms at least -It's not 'the' space race. Jerry cornelius 22:09, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Article breadth and title

It seems like we agree on the value of all the info here, but we disagree on how well it matches the title.

Maybe it would be best to just either change the title (Sverdrup suggested putting the information in a history article) or move the project to a current broad article, such as space exploration or human spaceflight. Maurreen 06:51, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

After poking around a bit, it appears that the entire section on space flight and space travel could probably use some reorganizing and gap-filling. Is there an associated Wikiproject? Maybe there should be. Isomorphic 15:32, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Space_Race&diff=0&oldid=6123864 edit adds a section on the Indian space program that doesn't seem related to the subject of the Space Race, should probably be moved. Second? --Chairboy 17:17, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree that the Space Race article is getting disjointed. It looks to me like some of the material belongs in an article with a broader scope like Space exploration. Perhaps the Space Race should be limited to US/Russian efforts culminating with the manned moon landings. Quinobi 01:01, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The best time to do this would be after it is no longer the COTW, so the moved info does not inadvertantly get re-added. Davodd 10:33, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

Good plan - lets see how it all progresses and then chop and change it around (if necessary) after the cotw period. violet/riga (t) 11:17, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

External link

I've just added an external link to a .PDF document containing a scan of a letter from Von Braun to VP Johnson. As a newbie I'm sure someone will correct me (and/or it) if it isn't appropriate or should be handled differently, but the letter is a seminal primary source so far as the space race is concerned and Von Braun is spot on - apart from being just a year out - in his conclusions. Note that he doesn't say anything about the 'returning safely to earth' part! Jerry cornelius 18:31, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Images

We should have an image of a Soviet rocket launch too. ✏ Sverdrup 11:15, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I too noticed the US-centricity of the images used. Sure you got to the moon first - but the Russians had many firsts too, and all the soviet images are PD . ed g2s • talk 15:30, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Changed the main photo to represent both countries & added animals in space USSR photo. Davodd 09:17, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

Satellite acronyms

Does anyone know what these stand for?

• ANIK - not acronym. Canadian communications satellite - Inuit for little brother
• WESTAR - not acronym. Probably AT&T related, such as Western Electric, Telstar (early satellite).
• MARISAT - not acronym. Maritime satellite.

Maurreen 16:10, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ancheta Wis 20:28, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC) I interpolated the responses into the question above. See Communications satellite

The V-2 was the first ballistic missile.

"These scientists formed the core of the U.S. team, led by Wernher von Braun, which began the development of ballistic missiles during the V-2 program decades earlier."

I re-phrased the sentence as it implied the US began the development of the ballistic missile, which is historically untrue. The V-2 was first. Ancheta Wis 21:13, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Timeline

Shouldn't the timeline also list they firsts for each nation, such as the first time the US put a man in orbit.

• Not really. The article already has too much stuff that is off topic -- This article is about the US-USSR competition -- the other info belongs in space exploration, not here. You are welcome to join in and help us move the good-but-doesn't-belong-here mterial to space exploration once the COTW spotlight shifts to another article. Davodd 09:16, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

Also, did the soviet space agency not have a name? The article only mentions the RKA, but that was formed after the soviet union broke up.--Aqua 02:50, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

Apollo 13 had no deaths. Heading is misnamed in that case

I renamed the Deaths section to Mishaps. Apollo 13 had no deaths. Ancheta Wis 13:27, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I took out Apollo 13 and changed it back to deahts. Maurreen 14:15, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.

When Neil Armstrong was quizzed on his quote, he said it was a mistransmission, and [a] was left out. Ancheta Wis 14:26, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/onesmall.asp is an interesting read about this - perhaps that information should be added in. As it is the quote is out of place anyway. violet/riga (t) 14:36, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Spaceflight is not flight

It is common to misapply the word fly to spacecraft, but we do not have a good English verb for the motion of an object along its trajectory between celestial objects like Venus and Earth. Has anyone found a precise word, even in some other language, for the verb of spaceflight? The connotation of a mass moving along its geodesic in spacetime would be even better, if someone in Wikipedia knows. Ancheta Wis 01:37, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think "fly" and "flight" do apply here, especially using the NASA definition of flight (http://roland.lerc.nasa.gov/~dglover/dictionary/f.html) as shown below:

flight

1. The movement of an object through the atmosphere or through space, sustained by aerodynamic, aerostatic, or reaction forces, or by orbital speed; especially, the movement of a man-operated or man-controlled device, such as a rocket, a space probe, a space vehicle, or aircraft.

2. An instance of such a movement.

Hope that helps. - Davodd 07:08, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)

Moon rock

I'm sorry but I don't see how "you can touch moon rock is this museum" is at all relevant in this particular article. Please reply and explain why before reverting it's removal again and perhaps this can be resolved. violet/riga (t) 18:06, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Why I deleted the sentence following "hoax allegations" at end of moon landing section

I recently added the following line:

"Some are of the belief that the moon landing was faked by NASA. The evidence to support this belief and the counterarguments are presented in the article Apollo moon landing hoax accusations.

Someone later appended this sentence:

"Others can visit and touch a moon rock sample at the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.."

Now, the problem I have with that is:

1. It is not for an article writer to smugly attempt to invalidate a conspiracy theory with a terse sentence.
2. The sentence linking to the conspiracy theory makes no attempt to push itself as valid. i don't see why a sentence should be added to give the impression that it is foolish... our article on the theory should do that.
3. For someone inclined to believe the conspiracy theory, saying you "can touch a rock" will not be sufficient counter-evidence to convince them, we shouldn't imply that it is.
4. Saying "others can..." suggests, in a factually erroneous manner, that someone who believes the conspiracy theory cannot touch the rock. They can, of course... they simply won't believe it is from the moon.

However, I admit I had difficulty knowing where to place reference to the conspiracy theory. I felt placing it at the end made it a bit too portentous. So, I'm happy for the significance of the conspiracy theory to be played down. However, I think it is well worth including in the moon landing section.

I also state that I am not a particular supporter of the conspiracy theory, though having seen a recent programme about it I was struck by how weak NASA's responses to the allegations were. However, I think this was probably due to biased programme editing rather than NASA not having a response.

I'd also appreciate it if you would view my contributions before writing me off as a conspiracy nut. As far as I can recall I haven't made any edits relating to a conspiracy theory before. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 18:13, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)

Actually, my second edit was an accident. I hit "Back" on my browser without thinking about it. -Joseph (Talk) 18:24, 2004 Sep 27 (UTC)

Oops

I've just made a series of changes to the talk page, the last of which, I hope, reinstated the version before I made my changes. I added a long comment to the 'hoax' discussion and then thought better of it after re-reading the article and the links to other wiki pages. I've also added a link to the article on conspiracy theories. Apologies for mucking around with this so much and I hope that I haven't erased anything in the process. Jerry cornelius 21:48, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Don't worry about it - the history and comparison tool is very good - nothing has been lost. violet/riga (t) 21:51, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Categories in "See also" section

22:57, 8 Feb 2005 Sfahey (same)

Umm,

22:00, 8 Feb 2005 Fredrik (remove "see also" section. 1) categories should not be mixed with the article namespace 2) these topics are already covered in the text)

- Fredrik | talk 22:08, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hi there. I was responding to an "objection" on the FAC nomination which insisted that such a "see also" list should not be within a section of the article. I merged the two lists of "see also"s into one list at the end, after trying to weed out the listings which were linked elsewhere in the text and even moving some of them INTO the text. One difficulty is that the "Categories" links (which someone else had put in) take the reader elsewhere than the same-named other links, so I couldn't justify simply deleting them. Sfahey 23:48, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Part of the use of the category system is that it provides an automatic "see also" mechanism. The category listings provide a way for the reader to find related articles, so there is no need for this duplication. Note that this article is already in Category:Space exploration, and that Category:Spacecraft, Category:Spacecraft propulsion and Category:Lunar spacecraft are subcategories of this one. Also, the fact that the categories are not the same as the same-named links is not really a good argument. Then we'd have to provide one category link for each regular link. Regular links should always be used. If someone wants to know more about, say, celestial mechanics, it is better to send them to the overview article as they can easily get to Category:Celestial mechanics from there. Fredrik | talk 00:00, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Removed paragraph

David.Monniaux recently added this paragraph:

Meanwhile, Europe has established itself as the leader of commercial launches with its Ariane program. Contrary to the space shuttle program, which was heavily promoted in the same interval by the United States, Ariane is a fully automatic vehicle. Manned vehicles require heavy and expensive life-support and security systems and thus the automatic solution is probably more suitable to launch operations without in-space repair or other delicate interventions needing direct human action. Still, the field of commercial space launching is concurrential and Ariane's position will have to be defended.

I removed it because it's pure fantasy. If you look at Nasa's list of worldwide space launches in 2004 - http://www.hq.nasa.gov/osf/2004/launch04.html - the US and Russia both had roughly 3x as many commerical space launches as Europe; China had more too. →Raul654 16:35, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism

Whoever changed the history section to say "Jim's Rockets have interested scients and engineers..." you're not funny. Don't vandalize Wikipedia.

Length of article

The article is 40 kilobytes as of this moment. In order to reduce the size, I've created a separate article temporarily eititled "Wikipedia: Moon landing" and copied the relevant sections over to that article. Unfortunately I didn't realize that there was already a redirect for "Moon Landing" to Project Apollo. I now have to get the redirect deleted so the latter article can be established.

Once that's done, if no one objects (with a decisive concern), I will drastically edit the sections of "Space Race" dealing with Apollo 11 landing on the moon, and refer readers to the "Moon landing" article. This should bring the article to within the maximum suggested size. Sunray 19:40, 2005 Mar 1 (UTC)

Well, the new article, "Moon Landing" has been created, but it isn't as easy to separate the two as I had first thought. Any thoughts or help would be appreciated. Sunray 06:13, 2005 Mar 2 (UTC)

Yes, here's a thought: At roughly its current length, this article was voted a "featured article" just last month by a quite stringent jury. It is not appropriate for someone to come along and make this kind of radical change. FWIW, I plan to go over the myriad of recent edits this week, and see how many of them, like the one Raul (see above) deleted, take away from rather than add to this good article. Sfahey 02:11, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)Sfahey 02:08, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Here's another thought, from Wikipedia:Featured articles: "While these are some of our best articles, we are always working to improve them, so be bold in updating articles." The article recently weighed in at 40 kilobytes. When articles go over 32 K, the following message appears: This page is X kilobytes long. Please see article size for why this could be too long, and how to fix it." I brought it down to 37K, but there is a long way still to go. Perhaps you would agree to help out? Sunray 03:09, 2005 Mar 3 (UTC)

The Cantos is about 70KB and about to become featured. Don't get het up about a few extra KB if they are needed. The "note" about 32KB used to be important, due to technical limitations of some old web browsers, but is now just a rule of thumb to prevent article bloating and to encourage summary style. FWIW, I don't think "moon landing" need to be floated out. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:53, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There have been a lot of discussions on the Wikipedia mailing list lately about whether the 32K message should be softened down, because the use of sections makes it so that even those people still trying to edit Wikipedia on neaderthal browsers can edit everything except the first section of it. The 32K rule is not written in stone, nor is it a necessity, it is just a recommendation. But for some articles, especially ones which are already pretty much in Wikipedia:Summary style (like this one), I don't think it needs to be worried about too much, as long as the article is coherent. --Fastfission 14:14, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No one is getting "het up" as far as I can tell—just trying to discuss the size and structure of the article. I need to make it clear that I think that this is a very well written article. That doesn't preclude further editing, though and I have edited or copyedited several Featured articles. I agree that the 32K rule is not written in stone. However, the article on Summary style that Fastfission refers us to has some interesting things to say about size. I think that following the Summary style approach makes sense here (particularly with respect to the section on Lunar missions), which is now also a separate article. Sunray 08:48, 2005 Mar 4 (UTC)

First probe to another planet

It says here that the first probe to another planet was by the USSR to Venus with Venera 3. But what about Mariner 2 in 1962? Doesn't that count? It reached Venus, returned information, and succeeded in its mission. bob rulz 21:34, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

Black Chinese Soldiers

There is a link in the article for Black Chinese soldiers, which links to the article on "Military history of China." However, there is no explanation of what a "black Chinese soldier" is. The term doesn't show up on Google either. Can anyone enlighten me on this? Sunray 03:38, 2005 Mar 3 (UTC)

What it is ... is 1)bogus, and 2)no longer in the article.Sfahey 22:29, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Space Race

Space race was not entirely about the exploration of space, but more of the use of weapon technology that can be used while a satellite, or any related object, is sent to space, and therefore lead to an advantage of to the country who can use them for war. Misleading first paragraph, it should be rephrased.

Animal in space (fruit flies)

Where are "Animal in space (fruit flies) - 1946" in "Timeline (1957-1975)" chapter. Is it Spase Race event? ("On 4 October 1957, the USSR successfully launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to reach orbit, and the Space Race began.")

And what about "V2 Animal in space in 1946"? Date? Sources? Article in Wikipedia? Links? You can also try http://www.google.com/search?q=Animal+in+space

--ajvol 11:13, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Good point about the bugs not belonging in that table. Will edit out. Sfahey 03:33, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

European Space Programs

I realize that American and Russian space programs overshadowed the Europeans but shouldn't their successes be incoporated in the article by either mentioning or listing with the Soviet and American launches? French successes:

• 1962 First Berenice rocket launched.
• 1963 Animals launched into orbit via Veronique rockets.
• 1965 First French satellite put in orbit.

British: Prospero satellite launched, 1971 in Black Arrow rocket. Falphin 23:16, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)