Talk:Liquid fly-back booster

June 2015 copyedit - scope of article - Just DLR, not US/NASA
The reason I tagged two of the sections with is because most of the facts seem to rely on a single source [2]. A quick web search revealed other mentions of LFBB, e.g., this Boeing/NASA publication. The subject seems notable, so the citations should be expanded further. ← scribble ink  ᗧHᗣT 09:01, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
 * – I added the history from this reference, and citations to it, to the 'Development' section. To match the corresponding 'Derivatives' section for Ariane 5, I added an 'Upgrade options' section for Space Shuttle. The reference contains design diagrams and content that could be use to flesh that section out. I have tagged it empty for now. ← scribble ink  ᗧHᗣT 05:55, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Hey, I'm on a holiday till middle of next month, so won't be able to do much. But I'll try to help out with what I can through the comments.
 * First of all, let me thank you for all the work you did on the article, fixing grammar and making it much closer to the Manual of Style, really appreciated. I see you really spent a lot of time working it out, and in retrospective I made some silly mistakes that could have been easily avoided, so let me thank you even more for your work put into this article.
 * You're welcome. I found the topic interesting, so I put in some time learning about it. ← scribble ink  ᗧHᗣT 18:52, 29 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Secondly, let me clarify that NASA reusable liquid fly back booster (note a lack of hyphen) and DLR liquid flyback boosters (note a hyphen) are two, independent projects without any link I can find. Content you added about NASA booster is out of scope for this article. These NASA liquid boosters are related to Reusable Booster System if anything at all, and if you'd like to put some content about them - I would highly recommend doing so either inside of RBS article or creating a new one with a correct title (space instead of hyphen). If you'd like to create an article making an overview of all liquid fly back boosters then you'd also have to include Baikal as it's a design used in configurations even more similar to the DLR design than the proposed NASA designs. See: RSW page on Baikal. Otherwise each article should be kept separately and on topic - topic of this article being specifically DLR liquid fly-back boosters.
 * Thanks for the clarification. While I understand the difference in hyphenation for the exact names of projects, here is my reasoning:
 * Don't all of those designs have in common the general concept of flying back their liquid boosters? e.g., I found a master's thesis that ties them together (Section 2.4 of ), wherein Boeing's catamaran LFBB design and DLR's studies are put in the same context without hyphenation under "Flyback studies".
 * The abbreviation LFBB is also used throughout the Space-Shuttle-related publications, so LFBB redirecting only to DLR's project is restrictive. Depending on what action we take with this article, either this article with include Space Shuttle LFBB and the redirect remains unchanged, or, the redirect might change to a disambiguation page with relevant links to the DLR version, the NASA version and possibly the Baikal.
 * On that note, I do believe that having this article be about all liquid fly back boosters, with specific sections for DLR LFBB, Space Shuttle LFBB, and the Baikal makes more sense, at least initially. If it becomes too large, we can always spin it off with well-connected edit histories. I believe you might be ahead of me, in that you are considering this article to be the DLR-specific LFBB article. I like that idea as well, so I'm open to suggestions.
 * Regarding the use of "fly back", "fly-back" or "flyback", since I saw all three in the literature, I defer to the experts in the field, of which I am not one. I'm only looking at the topic in terms of what people would find if they typed LFBB in wikipedia, as well as the scope, quality, organization and copy-editing of this specific article.
 * I will stop editing for now and wait for your return so that we can be on the same page. For now, the information I added is relevant under a broader scope, so I will not revert it. It can always be moved to other places as you suggested, if necessary. ← scribble ink  ᗧHᗣT 18:52, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * As I said - I'm fine with creating a dedicated article about NASA liquid fly back booster or an article describing fly back boosters as an overall concept, however a scope of this article is, and should be, DLR LFBB, just like there's an article for Baikal or Reusable Booster System.
 * To address your points:
 * Yes, just like all LRBs have common features, and all SRBs have common features - to give you some much more familiar examples. However this is not a subject of this article, though feel free to use said paper as a source for the new article if you'd like to.
 * LFBB redirect leads to this article because there is no other to link to and said initialism is very commonly used in both: articles and papers describing Liquid Fly-back Booster. When another article using LFBB (as either acronym or initialism) will be created - this redirect should be converted to Disambiguation page.
 * I strongly disagree. I'm fine with having an article giving an overview of all fly back bosoters (whichever spelling is picked for this one based on a sources), however it shouldn't be this one. I see absolutely no reason why for example Baikal can have it's own article while Liquid Fly-Back Booster shouldn't have one. This article was written with one, very specific scope and it shouldn't be detracted from it. If you are willing to write an article about all liquid fly back boosters - feel free to do so, but do not do it here. Obvious alternative would be to create a dedicated article about NASA concept, and that might be the preferable option seeing that you focus so very much on this one, forgetting about other boosters.
 * Yes, documentation is fairly inconsistent in exact spelling - the further away you go from the original sources the more inconsistent it gets, however DLR uses spelling with hyphen fairly (though not perfectly) consistently through it's papers and official website. Also all of the latest papers use spelling specifically with hyphen. So we're sticking with hyphen for this article. Mind you though - sometimes authors use either "flyback" or "fly back" to describe general concept and "fly-back" to describe specific DLR booster further adding to possible points of confusion.
 * Hope that clarifies it. SkywalkerPL (talk) 08:19, 6 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I have restored the article to only be about DLR LFBB based on your recommendation, and moved the new content to my sandbox for a future Articles for Creation candidate.
 * I don't agree with your reasoning: "I see absolutely no reason why for example Baikal can have it's own article while Liquid Fly-Back Booster shouldn't have one". I do agree that the content you have here does indeed warrant a separate article based on the criteria outlined in the general notability guideline.
 * "Obvious alternative would be to create a dedicated article about NASA concept..." - what is obvious to one editor may not be obvious to the other. From the way the article was written initially, it was certainly not obvious to me that the scope was limited to only DLR's LFBB. Hopefully, our discussion and the recent copyedits have remedied this.
 * "...seeing that you focus so very much on this one, forgetting about other boosters." - I merely started with the NASA LFBB since a quick search revealed many more references to it, compared to Baikal. I was going to add Baikal as well as others, taking care not to give undue weight and following the content creation policies. Since we did not go the route of generalizing this article, it does not matter anymore. I plan to write a general version when I do have the time.
 * Regarding this DLR LFBB article, I hope we have reached an agreement, and that the content is better as a result. ← scribble ink  ᗧHᗣT 06:36, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Cheers, thank you. I very much agree that the article content benefited from our discussion. I didn't realize that the scope of the article might have been unclear, and few other things that you have pointed out. I just wanted to thank you again for taking on this article - you really did a great job improving it! SkywalkerPL (talk) 19:57, 17 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Section you created, titled "Derivatives of Ariane 5" is inaccurate, as these aren't a derivatives of Ariane 5 but rather a derivatives of LFBB, eg. TSTO doesn't have anything in common with Ariane 5, and first proposed RFS is in fact a Vega derivative.
 * That looks like my mistake. I will restore it. ← scribble ink  ᗧHᗣT 18:52, 29 June 2015 (UTC)


 * As for the Template:One source - I tried to mix in content from additional sources, most notably Wiederverwendbare Boosterstufen für Ariane 5, however I also tried not to throw random sources in when they are redundant, as most of the additional sources I could find duplicate the exact information from already refereed sources. Do you have any recommendations how to resolve it? SkywalkerPL (talk) 09:37, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the help. Not yet, but I'll take a look this week. ← scribble ink  ᗧHᗣT 18:52, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for adding that. When there is primarily a single source, I believe adding a couple of different citations that support the same claim is good, because we do indeed need multiple secondary sources with significant coverage. I do not mean random sources - they still need to be relevant and verifiable. Two or three sources are certainly not citation overkill. ← scribble ink  ᗧHᗣT 07:09, 10 July 2015 (UTC)


 * My observations so far:
 * I believe that the factual information (with all of the statistics) for each variant in the 'Derivatives' section is far too detailed. It explains the variants design in excellent depth, but this article should me more about the LFBB and its role in the variant - not the variant itself. So my question to you is - how many of these statistics are really relevant to the LFBB, or, what is the impact of each detailed measurement on the LFBB? If there is no connection, I don't see a need to include that data here. Interested readers can be directed to the reference you have provided. The section can become lighter and more easy to read as a result.
 * I don't know what exactly do you expect saying that "this article should me more about the LFBB and its role in the variant - not the variant itself" - derivatives are all about using LFBB in a different use-case scenarios to improve economics of LFBB and open new possibilities. Their statistics are a direct effect of LFBB design, and in some cases LFBB design is directly influenced by the derivatives - eg. SHLL would require retractable or variable-geometry wings on LFBBs - something that's already pointed out in the article. From your comment I see that the connection between LFBB derivatives and LFBBs themselves might not be clear enough, but for me personally it is clear already, so I really have a problem thinking of anything that could make it even more self-expeditionary. If you could give me some hints, or perhaps a link to some articles where similar situation occurs - it'd be much easier for me to get on rewriting this section in more satisfactory manner.
 * Also I would avoid removing information from these sections, as it'd mean we loose them permanently from the wikipedia. There's simply not enough content to justify a completely separate articles for these derivatives. There wasn't enough studies made nor papers released for such articles to stand on their own. Therefore a natural place for them would be to fit within the scope of LFBB article - I took Ariane 5 article as an inspiration, which describes Ariane 5 ME in far greater detail than we do it here with individual LFBB derivatives. SkywalkerPL (talk) 09:37, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I should have been more clear. You're right. I believe as a reader who is new to the subject, I was not able to make the connection between LFBB and their derivatives. Let me see what I can do this week with a copyedit based on your suggestions. ← scribble ink  ᗧHᗣT 18:52, 29 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Additionally, the line drawings, although very nicely drawn, have only a subtle difference in the choice of colors (medium gray vs. black), which makes it hard to see the difference on a white background. As an example, in my case, it depends on the time of day (incident light) and the contrast of my screen. Instead of using a purely luminance-based contrast (Color scheme in grayscale), I suggest you also consider a chrominance-based contrast (Color scheme). I believe this will improve the usability of these images. I have experience with Inkscape, so I'd be happy to take a go at it if you agree. ← scribble ink  ᗧHᗣT 19:01, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
 * That's a very good idea. However, as I mentioned earlier, I won't be able to do anything big until I'm back from my holiday. So feel free to edit the images any time you'd like to. Just remember to ensure that colors are fine with color blind users. SkywalkerPL (talk) 09:37, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅ Thanks for the link. ← scribble ink  ᗧHᗣT 06:53, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Article scope and naming 2020
I've added a hatnote here to LFBB (NASA) for now. - Rod57 (talk) 13:07, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

As SkywalkerPL says, this title could be a disambiguation page - LFBB itself should be for the earlier NASA concept, or for the general idea. What should we rename this article to Liquid fly-back booster (DLR study), or Liquid fly-back booster (ASTRA study) ? - Rod57 (talk) 16:39, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

What changed to cause the cancellation
Was it cancelled purely because they couldn't create a viable design - or did they run out of funding to continue ? A more detailed development history would be great. - Rod57 (talk) 13:58, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Alternate URL
Another URL for the Sippel source is - How/Can we put it in the main ref ? - Rod57 (talk) 00:23, 14 July 2020 (UTC)