Talk:LARES (satellite)

vandalism
To the moderators: please, be careful in monitoring this page because it suffers a strong risk of vandalism, as it happened in the past with the voice frame-dragging, Indeed, references to published papers criticizing LARES have been added. They are from the same author whose papers have been repeatedly censored in the past by Italian IPs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Isaac Galipler (talk • contribs) 12:34, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Attention to Lauriners
Lauriners will likely act in the near future on this article removing some citations to works by Iorio adverse to LARES, as she already repeatedly did in the corresponding article in it.wiki. She has already acted on the voice frame-dragging with a partial editing entirely biased in favor of Ciufolini against Iorio. Dear moderators, please, be careful. Harmonicum (talk) 00:04, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

And now, Cricecio! Beware!
A LARES fan, Cricecio, whose identity is, of course, manifest from the unmistakable way in which HE treated the criticisim by Lorenzo Iorio, appeared. However, it must be admitted that, with respect to past years, HE is getting more fair in that HE did not (yet?) vandalized the article by attempting to cancel the references to the papers by Iorio. Of course, HIS paranoia is still here, but there are hopes it is now more under control. Let's see and wait..Again him! (talk) 22:40, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

In response to Harmonicum
Dear Harmonicum. I edited the LARES page mainly to update the information about the launch, and then I formatted it to fit the Wikipedia content guidelines. In particular, I recognized a violation of the "Neutral point of View" and in particular of the Undue Weight policy. The pages is about a Space Mission that: On the other side, I find that only one person, Lorenzo Iorio, says that the mission should not have been approved, financed and supported by ASI, ESA, ILRS; Harmonicum evidently thinks that in the scientific field the opinion of a single person weights more than the opinion of a community of experts. Please Harmonicum, explain me why giving the same weight to the opinion of a single Physician against an international cooperation is not an "Undue Weight" violation? I cannot find other criticisms against LARES other than Iorio's papers, and the papers quoted in the references against LARES are all by Iorio. I think that leaving the papers and the opinion of Iorio against the mission is being fair towards his isolated position. I will wait for a response before editing again, but if you cannot demonstrate that Iorio's his not an isolated opinion (and you know, in the scientific community an isolated opinion does not have the same weight of the opinion of majority), please restore my editing. Regards. Cricecio (talk) 20:35, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) Has been proposed by a Principal Investigators and a team of experts;
 * 2) Has been approved and funded by a national Space Agency (Italian Space Agency). I assume that a panel of expert of the Agency declared the mission worth financing;
 * 3) It is supported by an international Space Agency (European Space Agency): I added the link to ESA pages in the references;
 * 4) It is supported by the International Laser Ranging Service (I put the link to ILRS page);
 * 5) Has not been already launched (so the critics can only suppose it will not work).

A couple of things you [who?] MUST understand once for all
Ok, HIS paranoia is still here, intact... The ITALIAN (of course, all know your identity...) editor Cricecio, alias Nightmare, alias Robin, alias Verità, in other online blogs in English (Science, Nature) and Italian (20 centesimi) where HE fought HIS desperate struggle against Iorio, ignores that science is NOT democracy, where things are made by political majority votes. In science rational criticisms are fundamental for scientific progress. Suppressing them is fatal for the scientific enterprise. In science there is not an Authority which decides what articles must circulate: certainly, you are not such an authority by no means. There is only scrutiny by peers (which Iorio passes so many times againts you). Notice how Cricecio now wants to delete just the paper, which is an INVITED review in which OTHER SCIENTISTS are present as co-authors of Iorio...(as usual, Cricecio has serious difficulties with reality, which HE tries to distort at will...But, again, nothing new). Moreover, Cricecio, Iorio has published his papers in several and different international peer-reviewd journals (although you, in 20 centesimi, basically denied this simple fact, by calling Acta Physica Polonica Acta Physica Burundi to undermine the scientific credibility of Iorio...). This means that 2 people, on average, agreed with Iorio as anonymous referees. Now, everybody can do the math by multiplying the number of published papers by Iorio against you times 2. As a result, a vast consensus to Iorio's points turns out. On the contrary, LARES was NOT approved by ASI as a peer-reviewed proposal (where are the evaluations? Where are the referee reports? Where are the motivations?), but because of your personal connections with Bignami, in a quite Italian-like fashion (magna-magna, aumma-aumma). The same holds for ESA: LARES is NOT an official ESA mission. Simply, after many years, Cricecio desperately countinues to try to suppress critical remarks, published in peer-review journals, about HIS works on Lense-Thirring by Iorio with such laughable arguments. Again and again, Cricecio, if Iorio's points are so irrelevant, why you continue to struggle so much (in vain, of course) against him? It sounds strange...Anyway, THIS is the right place to continue your fight againts Iorio, NOT the article, which can be left as it stands now. Or do you want to start another editing-war? I do not think it is a valuale action by you. I hope, Cricecio, that Iorio, your true....Nightmare, will appear in your dreams tonight. Buonanotte! Again him! (talk) 22:02, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

To the Administrators: attention, possible violation of the Undue Weight Policy in the LARES voice
Few times ago, I edited the LARES page aiming to a neutral point of view. I did not cancelled any reference (anyway I added some references). I only underlined that there is one single critical voice (indeed, the Italian physicist Lorenzo Iorio) that claims that LARES mission can not reach his goals. On the other hand, there is an international team composed by physicists and scientists of known value that answered the criticism. The mission has been financed, approved and supported by Italian Space Agency, European Space Agency and International Laser Ranging Service. I did not cancelled the reference and the fact that there is a criticism, I only want to underline that there is only one critical voice against an international collaboration. I asked why Harmonicum think that the voice shall represent such a criticism as if it is The Right point of view (we cannot know this until the mission will be on orbit) and not a single opinion. He did not answered my question. He only made insinuation about Mafia-related comportaments of LARES team and Italian Space Agency, without any proof. I will wait few days for an answer, then I will ripristinate my editing. I will not reply Harmonicum about his illation and inferences about me and my supposed aliases or other personal attacks: pleas, stay on the topic. I am tired of the old stereotipes about "Italian-Mafia-MagnaMagna" I read above: stay on the topic, please. I repeat: I do not want to cancel the references of Iorio, only underline that it is a single critical voice (and it is what I did with my editing). Regards. Cricecio (talk) 19:14, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

A reply
Your way to introduce the Iorio's point is not neutral. Even if Iorio really was the single critical voice, it would result by itself from the cited references. On the other hand, the invited ApSS review by Iorio et al. proves that it is not a single critical voice. Moroever, your argument about Iorio's points can well be applied to LARES team as well: the fact that 1, 10, 100 people may approve this mission does not yield any kind of proof that it is valid at all. The mere fact that a mission has been approved does not mean automatically that it will be successfull as they proponents hope, or that it will be successful at all. Where are the documentation about the LARES team proposal? Where is ASI evaluation of such a proposal? Where are the referee reports? What is your answer to my point about the 2 X N people agreeing with Iorio, where N is the number of his so frequently published papers? The journals in which he published are so numerous, and different that it is certainly not possible that some sort of "niche" agreement between Iorio and an editor/referee occurred. This should give you a pause, and induce you to calmly accepting the reality, although you do not like it. Relax and enjoy your LARES to be launched soon. Again him! (talk) 19:42, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

A reply to Harmonicum and Again him!
Dear Harmonicum and Again him!, well I'm trying to be collaborative. If the mission is valid or not will be proved after it is launched. Matter of fact now is that the only criticism I have found is by Iorio. The fact that some of his paper have been accepted by peer reviewed journals cannot prove now that international space agencies are wrong. The fact that his paper has been accepted, do not change the reality: HE is the author of the papers, HE expressed some doubts about the mission. Please, show me another author (do not count the reviewer, they are not the authors of the paper). HE is a SINGLE author. And that was what I wrote on Wikipedia.

You wrote about mafia-like behaviour of a prestigious institution (the Italian Space Agency) involved in prestigios missions and collaboration (LAGEOS 2, the AMS, ISS, Rosetta, and a number of other missions).

You asked "Where is ASI evaluation of such a proposal? Where are the referee reports?" implying that something of illegal has been done.

When I see a Space Agency approving a mission (and financing a satellite mission is not a joke, do you know?), and I see that the mission involves a collaboration between people from NASA (USA), GFZ (Germany), INFN (Italy), and universities all over the world, I suppose the mission passed an evaluation from the Agency.

I can ask to you the same answer: if you think there have been something illegal, what are your proofs? Do you know that it is a serious accusation wrote on a public site against a public institution?

You made only inlation that because the LARES Principal Invastigator is Italian, and ASI is an Italian institution, there should have been a mafia-like decision in approving the mission (same old stereotype about Italy).

If you have any proof of such illegal behaviour, why don't you show this proofs, or why don't you charge that against a court?

I simply edited the voice about the principal payload of the maiden flight of VEGA launch vehicle.

VEGA is mainly made in Italy, LARES is an Italian mission, and is the main payload. The date of the launch is near, and I think is unfair to disminishing the images of a space mission presenting it as if has been launched only for the personal interest of a person and because his (not proved) personal connection with someone in ASI.

Maybe the LARES mission will be a failure, I do not know. For me either Iorio or Ciufolini will be right, and I do not mind who is the one. If LARES will be a failure, Ciufolini will be in an embarassing position, and Iorio will have his papers to prove he was right years ago, and will be happy (my life will not change for this). But at now I do not know who is right. Cricecio (talk) 14:28, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

A proposal to Harmonicum and Again him! to collaborate in editing the voice.
Now that I explained my point of view, I want to be collaborative and evaluating togheter how to edit the page. I hope I can find a gentlemen behavior about this.

The dubts about the possibility that LARES will reach his goals have been raised by a single Author (L. Iorio is a single author, and the paper quoted in the page are of the same author).

So I propose you to change the following paragraph:

"Doubts concerning the reliability of such an estimate claiming that the realistic total accuracy may be orders of magnitude larger have been raised.[REF]"

with

"A single author has expressed doubts concerning the reliability such an estimate claiming that the realistic total accuracy may be orders of magnitude larger have been raised.[REF]"

Where [REF] means I will not cancel any of the references quoted before the editing. I will maybe only add other references, but I will not cancel the existing. It is OK for you? I won't do any other changes about this argument. Trying to be fair and neutral, I ask you your opinion about this change before applying it. Let me know what you think.

Regards Cricecio (talk) 14:48, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

A counter-proposal to Cricecio
Perhaps, I made a mistake in identifying you with the Italian guy behind other pseudonyms, involved in the LARES team. If so, I apologize to you for that.

About your proposal, I agree in leaving all the relevant peer-reviewed references. Anyway, I feel that "A single author has expressed doubts concerning [...]" do not yet sound neutral. And it is not true, as the paper Iorio et al. shows. Instead, in my opinion, "For some criticisms concerning [...] and related replies, see [all refs]" sounds more neutral.

I would have another idea as well. Why do not we remove the following statements along with the associated references "Other goals of the mission, were an orders-of-magnitude improvement of the current limits in the equivalence principle [21] and a measurement of the multidimensional braneworld DGP model.[22]; doubts about the possibility of obtaining such goals were raised as well [23][24]. However, these goals were later dismissed because of a change in the LARES orbital configuration. Anyway, the LARES satellite may be used for measurements in the fields of geodynamic and space geodesy."? After all, they are nowadays useless, since LARES will not deal with such points. Thus, we would make the article less focused on the Iorio-Ciufolini issue.

What do you think? Again him! (talk) 16:01, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Response to the conter-proposal by Again him!
I agree that the sentence: "For some criticisms concerning [...] and related replies, see [all refs]" sounds more neutral, and I prefer it to the existing one and to the previous proposal. So I think we could proceed with the editing on that position.

I like also your other idea to remove the statements about the other goals, being nowadays useless. This will also help to clean the voice and focus on the actual mission. We can do it.

I would propose to maintain the sentence: "The LARES satellite may be used for future measurements in the fields of geodynamic and space geodesy." since LARES is a geodynamic satellite and since it is stated so on the ASI website. What do you think about it? Cricecio (talk) 22:04, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

On the latest idea by Cricecio
Good idea, especially because it is a non-controversial goal of LARES. Indeed, to my knowledge, there are no critcisms about its use for geodetic purposes, a topic which, in my opinion, would deserve more attention by the experts, independently of GR. Again him! (talk) 00:29, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Edited following the ideas suggested by Again him!
I edited the voice following the ideas born by the collaboration. I agree that Geodynamics and Satellite geodesy should deserve more attention (meanwhile, I linked the Wikipedia pages to these sections). Please check if there are some points to be refined. Thank you for helping me in the editing. Cricecio (talk) 07:44, 20 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I have an idea: Why not try to explain the most basic idea behind this sattelite? Its quite small, extraordinarily heavy for its size, its a sphere, and its passive, and designed in such a way that it can be tracked by lasers with high precision from any direction. Anyone with the appropriate laser technology can track it with precision, and its properties make calculations really easy. Its not designed as a device with a single, fixed purpose. It can be used as a reference for sattelites doing sattelite geodesy, while at the same time being tracked by universities just to test the properties of their own laser equipment, while at the same time being tracked by scientists interested in general relativity, while at the same time researchers elsewhere might try to obtain geodynamics / geodesy data from it by precisely tracking it with ground-based laser systems.


 * So thats it, simply put and to sum up: Its a dense, spherical object that makes calculations really easy and for which everyone that has a clear line of sight to it can track its distance and doppler shift with almost arbitrary precision. Even if it started out as a heavily controversial experiment about general relativity, it IS something different, a reference point for all kinds of measurements. Some of these considerations should be in the article. 178.7.229.224 (talk) 04:45, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Small suggestion to Cricecio
Thank you. I would say that the reference Ries et al., EPL, 2011 should be removed, at least in this article, since, actually, it does not deal with LARES. Moreover, I would suggest to update also the italian version of the article along the guidelines of this one, since there the situations is not yet satisfactory. Again him! (talk) 21:32, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Reply to Again Him (Small suggestion to Cricecio)
I read your suggestion. I'm going to edit the voice, expecially to update the launch date. I will work on the Italian version of the article as soon as possible, to follow the same guidelines of the English version (I think also the Italian version of the article about Space Geodesy needs to be edited).

About the removal of the Reference "Riea et al.", at the moment I do not have access to the full paper. Since it is a response to another paper by Iorio, I suppose that in both the papers there is a paragraph about measurement of Lense-Thirring with laser ranged satellites talking about LARES errors. Can you check if I'm right? If so, do you think it would be better to remove the paper by Ries et al. or to add the paper it is referred to?

I'm waiting for an opinion before removing any reference. Thank you. Cricecio (talk) 10:24, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Picture
the italian wikipedia page has a picture. why can't this picture be also added to this article?

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LAGEOS-NASA.jpg

--Diogenes2000 (talk) 14:43, 25 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Perhaps because (as the image name states) that is LAGEOS, not LARES... ChiZeroOne (talk) 14:48, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Is LARES not LAGEOS-2 ? - Rod57 (talk) 12:58, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

More impartial tone required in controversial issues. More pertinent references required
a) When the debated issue of the accuracy of the frame-dragging measurement with LARES is dealt with, less emotive and more objective, impartial tone should be adopted. The authors of the papers criticizing some aspects of the GR tests with LARES are five, not two. Most of them have relevant bibliometric records, much better than many of the members of the LARES team authoring the papers on it. The main article (and, perhaps, this talk page, too) is not the right place to trigger a likely endless and sterile tit-for-tat discussion on the authority of this or that author/publication, etc. etc.  b) The defendants of LARES should insert more pertinent and appropriate references which actually deal with the criticisms raised. In this sense, the reference to the Europhysics Letters paper I removed was not useful since the criticisms to LARES were not addressed in it. Thank you. Danguard00 (talk) 22:06, 7 August 2013 (UTC)