Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Spaceflight before 1951/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by PresN via FACBot (talk) 00:26, 21 June 2021 (UTC).

Spaceflight before 1951

 * Nominator(s): Neopeius (talk) 18:14, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured list because it is comprehensive and fundamental. I'd also like to get consensus on frequency of linked vs. unlined definitions. Neopeius (talk) 18:14, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Comments Support from Hawkeye7

 * Dates are a mixture of M-D-Y and D-M-Y
 * Will hunt down and make consistent
 * Fixed.
 * Look at 1942 and 1943. Hawkeye7   (discuss)  03:01, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Fixed! --Neopeius (talk) 21:59, 19 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Some of the entries are missing citations:
 * 20 June, 14 September, 7, 9 7 December 1944; all of 1946; etc
 * Yes, I need to make a final look through.
 * Please look again. Every entry has at least one citation. The trick is where to put them when they refer to the whole document. In general, I put them after "remarks" since that's the final displayed entry on the left.
 * Put them all in the remarks. Hawkeye7   (discuss)  03:01, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The only time I don't is if there's nothing in the remarks -- it creates a blank line with just a citation number in it.


 * 20 June 1944, 10, 29 May 1945, 13, 28 June 1945, 9, 19, 30 July 1945 etc

Hawkeye7  (discuss)  22:35, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * There are a lot of Template:351–352 (V-2 NO. 15) type red links. Are these supposed to be page numbers?
 * They are, thanks. I'll go through and fix them. My biggest question is this: in the actual chronology, should I link every item (rocket, launch pad, etc.) or just the first appearance in each year? --Neopeius (talk) 23:04, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Just the first occurrence. Hawkeye7   (discuss)  23:17, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Fixed rp errors and first links.
 * Fixing now, thank you. What do you think of article text and the summary at the bottom? --Neopeius (talk) 23:28, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I think my article is now in shape for a deep dive. I added the British 1945 Backfire V-2 launches too.
 * Did you know there is a complete V-2 on its mobile launcher just down the road? Hawkeye7   (discuss)  03:01, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I did not. Whereabouts are you? :) --Neopeius (talk) 13:46, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * This is Canberra. You can see the V-2 here. Hawkeye7   (discuss)  21:08, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh neat! Hey, are you familiar with Kerrie Dougherty? She's a friend of mine. Wonderful person. --Neopeius (talk) 21:10, 14 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Afraid not. Hawkeye7   (discuss)  05:12, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Make you a deal -- if you finish your review of this article, I'll GA review the behemoth that is Galileo_(spacecraft) :) --Neopeius (talk) 19:04, 27 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Four UK launches are in the summary, but not the table. Hawkeye7   (discuss)  05:12, 28 December 2020 (UTC)'
 * Fixed, thank you. :)

The template down the bottom looks weird. Suggest making a ribbon version, or moving it to below the infobox. Hawkeye7  (discuss)  19:59, 16 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Do you support this article for FAC? --Neopeius (talk) 15:01, 16 February 2021 (UTC)


 * No, I Support it for FLC. Hawkeye7   (discuss)  19:59, 16 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Smartie. :) Thank you! --Neopeius (talk) 00:52, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Comments Support from Balon Greyjoy

 * I would remove the pie chart from the country breakdown; the information is already clear from the country table since there are only three entries.

I shall take it under advisement. :) I wanted all my pages to have the pretty pie chart for consistency with the other timeline pages...
 * The sentence starting "By 1944" has a reference for that year only; I'm confused why that needs a reference if the separate record information has its own reference.
 * So, this is complicated. :) Dornberger's book talks about the flight but doesn't say when it was. The other reference suggests it was in 1944. That said, now that I've found a better reference for the actual flight, I've fixed it.


 * "began development of their own heavy sounding rocket" I think that should be "its own heavy sounding"
 * Navies are people too! Okay, fixed.


 * "The Soviet Union also launched a series of captured V-2s in 1947. These flights, totalling 11," Why not combine this to say "The Soviet Union launched 11 captured V-2s in 1947..."
 * Because your version is better. Fixed.


 * "and the rocket was deployed for battle operations in 1950" Battle operations makes it sound like this is a tactical and short-range missile; I'm assuming something this powerful would be a strategic weapon, not something fired in a battle.
 * Changed to "combat"
 * I'm not trying to nitpick here, but I think using "combat" is an aggressive word; looking through the list of launches it doesn't look like the R-1 was ever used in combat. Maybe change to "military operations" to demonstrate that it was ready to be used as a weapon, but it was never used in a violent manner.


 * I would remove "ultimately" as its sufficient to say that it was never developed.
 * fixed


 * I think there should be a comma after the Viking 5 launch date
 * Apparently, with the European style of dating, commas are not needed after the year. The source I found on it specifically said, "This will look weird to American readers." If you find a source to the contrary, please let me know!


 * "measure the extremely low air densities" I woud remove "extremely" and probably even "low," as its not like a vacuum was something people didn't know about until space travel, and its only 1 atmosphere away from what we have on the surface.
 * Clever. I have visions of Jovians saying, "1000 kilopascals? That's practically hard vacuum!"


 * "impressed into scientific duty by both superpowers" This reads like the V-2s were forced to conduct research against their will. I would say they were used for scientific research. Also, I would state the countries, as its not clear who the two superpowers are the way this is written.
 * Fixed both, though there's only ever been two superpowers...
 * China, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Ancient Rome would like a word! But seriously, I could understand it in a Cold War article, but I think a user looking to learn about spacecraft launches shouldn't be expected to know which countries are the superpowers in question.


 * "some 63 had been launched" Were there 63 launches? If so, why add "some" to the beginning?
 * Colloquial. Removed 63.


 * There's a rule about not starting a sentence with digits. (MOS:NUMNOTES) Hawkeye7   (discuss)  20:19, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
 * But the sentence could still be started with something like "There were 63 launches..." Using "some" makes it sound like an approximation. Balon Greyjoy (talk) 07:26, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
 * It's a moot point since the sentence doesn't start with 63. :)


 * "at least one returned three minutes of usable data" This is a little confusing as its not clear what three minutes of usable data means; is it a lot/little? Did the other missions bring back usable data, but not three minutes worth?
 * Unfortunately, all I know is that one of the flights (and not which one) returned three minutes of usable data. I suspect that's as much data as could be expected to be obtained. I could delete' "three minutes of" if you think the confusion value of the phrase exceeds its information value.
 * I do think deleting "three minutes of" would be the right call. In this context, the length of time doesn't really explain the amount of data returned, and I think it's confusing. Balon Greyjoy (talk) 08:26, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

I'll be back later with more comments. Balon Greyjoy (talk) 09:01, 14 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Thank you! --Neopeius (talk) 13:47, 14 December 2020 (UTC)


 * All I have. Balon Greyjoy (talk) 15:54, 17 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Addressed all issues! Only the last point is unchanged pending your suggestion. Thanks very much for your help. I'm almost done with 1951, as it happens... --Neopeius (talk) 15:07, 18 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Okiedokie. :) Fixed both issues. Thanks very much for your help! (and if you're interested, check out 1951 in spaceflight... --Neopeius (talk) 14:36, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Nice work! I support this nomination. Balon Greyjoy (talk) 19:14, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Support from Gerald Waldo Luis
Saw this from WP:AV. Planning to look through this (very, not very?) soon.  Gerald WL  04:55, 28 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks very much for your attention! :)


 * Support -- concerns addressed. Nice job!  Gerald WL  06:58, 4 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Very much obliged! --Neopeius (talk) 18:18, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Support by Nick-D
I'm reviewing in response to an invitation on my talk page. The article is very complete and well presented, but I would like to offer the following comments:
 * The lead seems a bit short and imprecise, and I'm not sure that it defines the topic - not least as the spaceflight covered in this article is a bit different to what the average person considers space flight to be


 * I inherited this page even if almost all of the text is new. Spaceflight seems to be any launch by a vehicle, one example of which crossed the 60 mile line. But I think the sticking issue is describing it as "human spaceflight" which suggests the flying of people. I've shortened it to simply "spaceflight" with the hope that no aliens are reading this to take offense.


 * Were I to expand the lead, what would you want to see? This is definitely the shortest of the leads I've written for this series, although not by a significant amount. (Note: I just fleshed out the rest of the early Vikings since it was weird to just spotlight Viking 5, and Viking 4 also went into space. I just cribbed my own language from the Viking article -- in which I had earlier cribbed my language from this article! The virtues of writing in a modular fashion.)


 * The lead should summarise the full content of the article, so should discuss the military and civilian activities covered in the article (the nature of these programs, the number of launches, etc). Nick-D (talk) 23:16, 12 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I think I've summarized what can be summarized at this point. If there's anything you think needs expansion, please let me know. The current length is comparable to that of the next three articles now.


 * The first para of the 'Overview' section should make it clear that the V-2 was being developed as a weapon


 * Quite right. Done.


 * "its own heavy sounding rocket, the Viking" - can "Viking" be linked here?


 * Done.


 * I'm not sure what the purpose of the flag of Allied occupied Germany or the post-war Germanies against the V-2 labels is. As I understand it, production of V-2s ceased with the end of the war, so these weapons were produced during the Nazi era of Germany. These launches were then conducted by the various Allied governments (Germany was not self governing during the first part of this period). The flag suggests that the missiles were either produced in occupied Germany, or the German government was involved, neither of which is correct. Aside from misleading readers, this also fails to recognise that these missions were the continued results of the appalling slave labour program under the Nazi regime by implying that the rockets were produced separately. The history here is obviously very complex, and this is might be an example of where attempts to use images to simplify things don't work in practice?


 * This is another artifact of having inherited the article. This was the topic of vociferous debate some time ago, and the decision executed on the page appears to have been the agreed-upon solution. It does keep from cluttering up the page with a profusion of swastikas. I think also the idea was that the borrowed expertise was no longer 3rd Reich but what came after. (production of the V2 did not quite cease with the war -- some were assembled from pieces afterwards; also, the R1 is an almost exact copy of the V2, though by Russians.) ((as for the nasty nature of the Nazis, you'll get no argument from me! Most of my relatives were lost in that blight on history...))


 * I don't agree: these were not rockets produced by the post-war German Government. Nick-D (talk) 23:16, 12 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Not sure what to do. Like I said -- this argument is outstanding from a decade ago, and this is how I inherited it. What would you do?
 * Replace the Flags with Nazi-era flags or, better still, remove all the flags. Nick-D (talk) 10:56, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
 * The former is possible, though I'd want consensus. The latter is not. --Neopeius (talk) 12:58, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Okay, I have replaced the V-2 flags with Swastikas, and I made the R-1s solely CCCP (the R-1 might be a virtual copy of the V-2, but the Tu-2 isn't a B-29 so neither is the R-1 a V-2 :) That satisfy you, ? --Neopeius (talk) 14:21, 19 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure why the data in the 'Suborbital launch summary' section is limited to 1945 onwards? As the article notes more than 3000 V-2 combat launches and quite a lot of test launches, the omission of data before this date means that these data presented are incomplete. Is it possible to include the German launches here, or are there problems with the data? Nick-D (talk) 11:29, 12 May 2021 (UTC)


 * 3000 launches is quite a lot. The general trend for these articles seems to have been to include all of the testing launches of vehicles that broke the 60m line but not necessarily the operational launches of purely military ballistic missiles that never again crossed into space. As this page is already a bit long, there is no good documentation of every single V2 launch, and such would be of little benefit to anyone (and certainly would have only the most tangential connection with spaceflight), my compromise was to list the early test flights, spotlight the one wartime flight into space, and summarize the rest. The other option would have been to start post-war, but that didn't seem cricket, either.


 * I'm not suggesting that each V-2 launch be listed, but am querying why the total numbers of launches are not included in the statistics at the end of the article, given the result of the current approach looks a bit odd. Nick-D (talk) 23:16, 12 June 2021 (UTC)


 * The topic is spaceflight, and including the 3000 V2s (I'm not sure exact numbers exist) would utterly skew the graphs into worthlessness. Hence starting in 1945. :) --


 * Thank you so very much for your attention. Do let me know what you think. --Neopeius (talk) 19:07, 12 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I gave the text of the article a thorough reworking and reorganization. I think it's better now and matches the other articles. It was written first so I hadn't settled into a routine yet. All the facts are the same, but now their presentation is better. --Neopeius (talk) 02:52, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Support Those changes look good, and I'm now pleased to support this nomination. Nick-D (talk) 04:16, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

This nomination was never actually transcluded onto WP:FLC, and therefore was never actually an official nomination. It still has a bunch of comments, presumably from people and wikiprojects that were directly notified, but it's in an awkward position of being really, really old with no comments for a month, but also new. I've also deleted a similar nomination for 1951 in spaceflight that never got a single comment that was also not actually put on the nominations page. if you were wondering why this nomination was so slow and stalled... this is why. -- Pres N  15:09, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Delegate note


 * Huh! Yes, that was rather surprising. Thank you for that. I'll renominate...correctly! What do I do about this one? It's gotten momentum so I'd hate to kill it. --Neopeius (talk) 18:56, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and listed this nomination here onto FLC, and put a note on the talk page about it; since you already have three supports and another in-depth review ongoing, I think it's fine to just leave this one up to see if it gets a broader reviewer pool. For example: I'm concerned about the accessibility of the table, with the very non-standard section header rows in the middle of it which basically make it nested tables. I just can't see how that doesn't break the page altogether as far as screen readers are concerned, and I think the result is that you have a table with the actual headers, but then the body is a series of subtables with their own headers that aren't really headers (plus remarks, which doesn't have any real connection to it's "header"). I get that you're using a template, not a raw wikitable, but I'm suspicious that the template just isn't MOS-compliant at all. sorry to ping you directly; can you confirm whether or not the big table Spaceflight before 1951 is actually parseable by screen readers as-is? -- Pres  N  01:55, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
 * It's parseable (surprisingly so) but not ideal ... on a scale from 1 to 10 where 1 is completely inaccessible and 10 is perfect, I'd give it about a four or a five. I don't know enough about the nitty-gritty of table formatting to know how to fix it myself though. Graham 87 02:00, 14 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your attention. Is my template different from the template for all of the other Timeline articles? As far as I know, it's the same format for all of them. --Neopeius (talk) 01:54, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Support from HAL333
{{hidden/FC|headerstyle=background:#00ff6b;|contentstyle=border:1px #00ff6b solid; padding:10px;|header=Resolved comments from  ~  HAL  333  23:41, 19 June 2021 (UTC) |content=

Comments from HAL
*Lede is too short.
 * Expanded (I used to call it a "lede", particularly because of my time as a journalist. Apparently, it is a "lead" not a "lede" because it does not serve the same function as a lede. Which is why so many of mine have to be fixed. ^^;;;)


 * Although you do touch on it, make it clear why the list ends in 1951.
 * That's a tough one. I didn't make this article originally, nor the others in the series. 1950 is kind of an arbitrary cut off. That said, I think I've made a nice justification for it.


 * Aerobee launch at sea doesn't need a full stop.
 * Fixed.


 * I would integrate the page numbers into the actual citations. (Not sure if this is allowed/condoned. I am unsure myself. If it's fine, ignore this.)
 * There are lots of ways to cite. This is the one I like, and it's a valid one. The reason I prefer rp style is it keeps the citation page manageable, even if some find the extra numbers unsightly. :)


 * Maybe provide hatnotes for some of the sections pointing towards an appropriate section of an article like History of spaceflight.
 * I'm not quite sure what you mean. Can you give me some specific examples? Thanks.
 * It's not really necessary, but you could add

(Example at History of spaceflight)
 * No other applicable articles right now. Space Race is a mess.

* Sea of blue issues with Aerobee sounding rocket
 * fixed.


 * In 1944, the V-2 set an altitude record of 196 kilometres (122 mi).[2] On 20 June 1944, a V-2 (MW 18014) was launched vertically, reaching a height of 174.6 kilometres (108.5 mi). Little choppy and repetitive.
 * Whoops. It's easy to lose sentences between long citations, thanks.


 * Add a comma after "In 1946"
 * done


 * huge swathes sounds authorial.
 * Better?


 * Some 50 Aerobee flights Why not provide the actual number?
 * I think I wrote that before I had a number I was comfortable with. I had to rewrite the whole damned table. Fixed, and I revamped that section a little bit.


 * There may be some undue weight regarding which launches you discuss in the prose. You might want to just condense the prose into a four paragraph lede.
 * I'm not comfortable with that kind of reduction, but I think the Viking section is the problem. I've cut it in half.


 * On 10 May, 1950 Comma not needed.
 * Fixed.

That's all I got. ~ HAL  333  20:38, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much for your well-founded critique! --Neopeius (talk) 22:47, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Was about to come back with a second round but just couldn't read through the comments and responses because they were struck - quite the headache. Could you unstrike them? Thanks. ~ HAL  333  18:18, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Fixed. --Neopeius (talk) 20:34, 18 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Why is the remarks column empty?
 * ??? Where? If you mean the remarks columns with just the citation in them, I'll fix that.
 * To the right of the pie chart. ~ HAL  333  16:41, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Fixed. --Neopeius (talk) 17:24, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Beyond that, the only really major issue is the sourcing, which other editors have touched on and the source review will get to. I would also like to see you get the lead up to at least two paragraghs. Once those two things have happened, I'll come back and support. Cheers. ~ HAL  333  22:56, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I think the Russian site is fine (see comments to RunningTiger123 below). Lead is now two paragraphs. --Neopeius (talk) 04:11, 19 June 2021 (UTC)}}


 * Support ~ HAL  333  23:41, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Support from RunningTiger123
Support – RunningTiger123 (talk) 20:06, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Final Notes
Thank you, everyone, for your kind attentions. I have already taken the lessons learned to the 1951 article and I plan to do so for the other ones I've done (and then beyond to new ones). This has all been extremely helpful.

do we have a sufficient number of supports for promotion? :) --Neopeius (talk) 12:45, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

It's not just vote counting, but yes, I think there's been a sufficiently broad and deep review of the list at this point. Except for the source review, which I'll do now:
 * I'm just going to go ahead and fix formatting things myself, and let you know what they are, as I dislike trying to describe things in a back-and-forth.
 * Titles should be title case, even if the source is all caps, per MOS:CAPS- you're allowed to make the formatting of titles look right, regardless of what the source has it as
 * If you're going to cite the same source 3 times (different pages each time) as you do with the Naval Research Laboratory Report No. R-3030, please make sure the formatting is the same for all 3. This will also help in noting that you cited the same table twice in two separate refs.
 * You don't need to put incorporation marks (Inc., Ltd., etc.) in with the names of publishing companies
 * Cites to a website need the "|website" parameter, not just the name of the author (aka Mark Wade); while you can technically put it in "|publisher", that's supposed to be reserved for the publishing company (if different than the website name)
 * It was mentioned above, but you have to pick either the "|first |last" combo or "|author", you shouldn't mix them
 * If you link one journal (which you did for Science) you need to link all publications (and probably publishers)- I just removed the link instead since it seemed like you were going for an unlinked style
 * You archived a couple web sources, but not consistently- the easy way to do it is to go to the article's History tab, click "Fix dead links" at the top, login if you need to, check the "Add archives to all non-dead references (Optional)" box, and hit "Analyze". The bot will archive everything for you.
 * The sources themselves check out, and the dubious-looking ones were discussed above, with the exception of I-Spy Space; looks like it's because the author is the author of a book you're citing, which would have been easier to see if you had included the author's name in the cite.

Ok, source review passed. Please copy these things on to the next list(s). Promoting! -- Pres N  15:40, 20 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your hard work, PresN! This page was particularly weird and hard since so much predated me (and almost all of it had to be replaced). I will take these lessons to the next pages. --Neopeius (talk) 15:56, 20 June 2021 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.