Talk:Apollo program/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions from November 2006—June 2007. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Apollo-Soyuz

Some shoudl write up the Apollo-Soyuz mission (where an apollo and a soyuz docked). http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/history/astp/astp.html

The Space Race

"The Apollo program was primarily motivated by psycho-political considerations, in response to persistent perceptions of American inferiority in space technology vis-a-vis the Soviets, in the context of the Cold War. In this respect it succeeded brilliantly. In fact, American superiority in manned spaceflight was achieved in the precursory Gemini program, even before the first Apollo flight." needless and unjustified bias? --drj

Yes, I think so. The Apollo 1 tragedy hardly left NASA feeling overly superior.

No, actually, I believe you're wrong. The Gemini program accomplished ten successful mannned flights in 22 months. It achieved the first rendezvous and docking of spacecraft in orbit, widely regarded as the next and most crucial step in the development of manned spaceflight (both for earth orbital and lunar mission operations), and repeatedly demonstrated this capability. The Gemini flights set impressive records for mission duration, orbital altitude and extra-vehicular activity. During this period the Soviet Union did not launch a single manned spaceflight. When the Soviets did resume flight a few months after the Apollo 1 fire, they failed to achieve a planned docking, and the mission ended in disaster with the death of the cosmonaut. Yes, the Apollo 1 fire was a serious setback. But despite the fire, American superiority in manned spaceflight achievement was clear.

The major problem isn't that it's needless or biased. The problem is that those sentences are poorly written and punctuated. "Psycho-political", "persistant perceptions", "vis-a-vis", and "in the context of" are wretched abuses of language.

drj is totally right - this is needless, biased and above all subjective. The question to ask is what constitutes as "superior" in manned spaceflight? The first space walk, the first rendezvous of two spaceships, the first space station, the longest duration of a human in space? Well for me the achievements in manned spaceflights by Russia and America are about equal. themanwithoutapast

Well, for me, the Russians are around 10 years ahead of the Americans in rocket technology (there are reports concerning this of the US governement) and around 15 years in Station development. There would be no ISS without them, but they could have their own SS if they wanted to. Were they not superior at that time? I truly believe that should Korolev not died prematurely, the first man on the Moon would have been a Russian. For me, the adjective "superior" should be taken out or rephrase by saying something like "made the Americans feel superior". In that way you are more objective: "there existed a feeling of superiority" even when for some people this superiority is true or completely false. luiscar

First man on Luna a Russian? I doubt it. The N-1 was too complicated, & complexity equals prone to fail. There's a reason both N-1 test shots blew up on the pad. Trekphiler 07:02, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Trekpiler, I am talking about human resources not technology. Probably N1 would not have worked but the team headed by Korolev would probably had found a way to make the trip. After all, We are no planning of using 20TmLEO rockets and assemble altogether on orbit. May be it is a cheaper, less complex way and benefits of economies of scale. But, anyway, I am not talking of technology but HR. luiscar

Cost of Apollo

I've deleted this stuff: The cost of Apollo program: $25.4 billion | Amount of moon material brought back by Apollo program: 381.7 kg | (a price of about $60,540 spent per gram of moon brought back) There seems to me to be no limit to this type of "interesting snippet" except if the Apollo program was really about mining moondust. Cost per human step on the moon? Cost per breath taken by astronauts? Cost per defecation? No thanks. Hotlorp 02:57 Feb 11, 2003 (UTC)

Agreed this could get silly, but a few pertinant bits of information to indicate the costs / benefits might be informative?2toise 17:08, 8 Nov 2003 (UTC)

You of course have not taken into account that the benefits of research cannot be measured at all. How do you measure the result given by the Michelson/Morley experiment AT THE TIME of the experiment? How do you measure the mistaken efforts of Frege to define "set"? Please do not try to rate the benefits of a research you may only be able to realize in 200 years' time. I know what I am talking about: the mathematics of Gauss (a lot of them) were only beneficial as you call it, long long after his death. Ditto for Galois' theories. Pfortuny 11:54, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I disagree, while cost per breath or even cost per kg of moon rock might be excessive, I think that the total cost of the program and the economic impact it had is VERY appropriate for this article, I actually came here looking for some information about how much the program cost, and was surprised to find none at all in the article. -lommer 21:13, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

If you intend to measure the cost in $/rock, then measure it in relation to benefit of improved quality control in industry, new materials that didn't exist before, new techniques that were impossible before (remote medical telemetry). Only opponents of continued space flight claim it was "nothing but a few kg of rocks". Trekphiler 13:31, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

There have long been claims that we have the space program to thank for Tang, Velcro, and many other things which were used by but not created by said program. We are now at the point of launching a new program to spend more hundreds of billions of dollars to send astronauts to the moon again and to mars to bring back more rocks. The cost per rock should be compared for manned versus robotic collection, with the additional option of analysis on mars by robotic analysis equipment, eliminating the possibility of an Andromeda Strain type introduction of pathogens on earth. Edison 16:04, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

A Moon Ant...?

User:152.163.252.7 asserts: "The first actual living organism on the moon was an ant named Chris Christian, which was droped by Neil Armstrong before making his historic first steps on the moon." Not, I think, true, and I would request some documentation if we are to leave it in the article. It would be easier to believe if it wasn't a [1] first anonymous edit [2] made by someone who could spell "organism" (in the edit summary) [3] made by someone who could spell "dropped" [4] and if googling "Chris Christian" or "ant moon" supported it. -- Someone else 20:46 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

No. The first where bacteria from outer space. And the first from Eart where the bacteria brought by the Russian first lunar ship.

Thanks

I had to do a project for class and this page helped me tramendously, thank You.--MOnique Flaherty

An Apollo?

Image:SpaceCapsule.JPG If its from the NASM, then its Apollo 11--enceladus 21:48, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• • They've got two, Apollo 11, and Skylab 4. The caption refers to the latter.

See the list at the end of Apollo spacecraft. --GW_Simulations_{|User Page | Talk | Contribs | E-mail} 20:18, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

yeah, this page has helped me so much with my science project. a suggestion would be to include more costs. thanks. -tyger

Response to User:JesseW regarding page move

I did the move because Mercury has far more references (Google count) as "Project Mercury," and Gemini's references are about the same quantity either way. As there are still quite a number of references to "Project Apollo," (which is the official title) I felt it was important to be consistent, despite this one case having fewer instances of that title. -Joseph (Talk) 01:56, 2004 Oct 22 (UTC)

Links:

• http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/history/apollo/apollo.html
• http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/diagrams/apollo.html
• http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/apollo_patches.html

For starters... And if you do a Google, "Project Apollo" does still have a significant number of hits. -Joseph (Talk) 02:00, 2004 Oct 22 (UTC)

Great! That explains it very well. Thanks, now no-one else will be confused. JesseW 02:29, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sure. For what it's worth, I am unable to move Gemini program to Project Gemini because that page has an edit history. -Joseph (Talk) 02:33, 2004 Oct 22 (UTC)

Reverts of Trollminator

Its all very well arguing NPOV when adding "Controversy surrounds the claim that" to the start of the article. But this is not a case of NPOV. To me it seems like amending the Holocaust article to state that it didn't happened. --Enceladus 02:08, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

Seconded. JesseW 15:29, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Personally I believe they landed, but there's a growing body that (wrongly I think) doesn't. They should be noted, and probably a link into a moon conspiracy page put in. My two cents! - RB

I disagree. That would lend more credence to a crackpot theory. -Joseph (Talk) 17:48, 2004 Dec 18 (UTC)

I came here looking for some sources and information on the crackpot theory (and rebuttals). It doesn't need to be primarly featured, obviously, but could be noted and cross-linked. The fact that it's a crackpot theory doesn't mean it needs to be suppressed, just documented.

There is also a large body of Americans who believe the world was created 4004 BC. Edison 15:58, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Mention the loonies, link to a rebuttal article, & blow them off in the main one. Trekphiler 07:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Sun god?

Can someone explain why a lunar mission was named after the sun god?

good question. Endymion would have been ever so much cooler. Maybe because the mission was gay?

• Above comment by Dbachmann

Heh, funny guy. Apollo is the god of light, and the twin brother of Artemis, the goddess of the moon, right? Maybe naming it after a girl wasn't feasible in the 1950s. - Chairboy 17:32, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I was just about to ask this too! The US/Soviet attitude towards programme naming is interesting. The Americans liked Greeks and glamour, the Soviets seemed to like names which actually described what they were doing.--MacRusgail 20:14, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Lunar landing

who the hell filmed what's his name getting out of the capsule during the first landing there was no moon buggy to mount a camera on for the first trip so who filmed it? It was probably filmed in a studio Dudtz 7/23/05 4:59 PM EST

The camera was mounted on the leg of the lander. Please research before assuming conspiracy. - Chairboy 21:54, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

The Lunar Module had a Modularised Equipment Stowage Area (MESA) that carried stuff that would be needed by the crew on the lunar surface but would not be needed while they were inside Lunar Module. As Neil Armstrong moved through the hatch and out onto the hatch, he pulled on a D-ring that caused the MESA to swing down into an accessible position. If you go to this page can scroll down to 109:21:09, this is the moment he pulls the D-ring. Mounted on the MESA was the TV Camera that showed Neil Armstrong descending down the ladder. This was the same TV Camera that the crew would later mount on a tripod to record the rest of their EVA. The placement of the MESA can be seen in this top-down drawing and in this training photo. This drawing shows what was included in the MESA. Evil Monkey∴Hello 22:16, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

On the nasa site it says it is harder to fake than to land on the moon http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/news/2001/news-moonlanding.asp Im a movie/anamation producer that stuff is easy to fake give me about $3000 and I can fake it as for the flag not moving,It can easily faked by alluminum foil and other household items. Dudtz 7/29/05 10:00 PM EST

Yes, but can you fake the perfect parabolic trajectories of the lunar dust that can been seen in the videos, or the way 1/6th gravity affects the way a person walks? Evil Monkey∴Hello 02:08, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Oh yes it is easy to fake even without computers you can make glass plates for animation It is even easier to fake images with a black and white camera why didn't they have colour cameras Dudtz 7/29/05 10:29 PM EST

They did use colour cameras. Apollo 11 was the only one not to. Check out the video on Apollo 15 (in Ogg Theora format). You may also want to look at Apollo moon landing hoax accusations if you already haven't. Evil Monkey∴Hello 02:44, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

moontruth.com is no longer in existance? possible cover up but it would be more ammusing to have people watch these "faked videos" If they are fake just leave them there they are funny Dudtz 7/29/05 10:58 PM

To prove that the landing is real, you can shoot a laser on a precise location on the Moon and get a reflection back due to a mirror placed there by astronauts. And no, there is no secret mirror in the sky doing this. There is absolutely no evidence that the landing was faked. To fake the hammer and feather experiment you need a vacuum the size of Heathrow airport which is as you can imagine quite difficult to do. There are rocks from the Moon with characteritics unique to the Moon's environment. Tourskin 21:10, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Dates

I added dates of launch to the list of Apollo missions (test, unmanned, and manned), because I feel this gives the reader a much better sense of how the program developed over time, and because this information is not gathered together in one place elsewhere in wikipedia. I did not want another reader to have to go through the trouble of clicking on every link to find the launch date that I did! Launch dates are given in other NASA program articles.

Apollo 13 only circumlunar flight????

Apollo 13 is listed as being the only manned circumlunar flight, but it says right above it that Apollo 8 was the first manned flight around the moon. Does anyone understand what the author was trying to say? Willhsmit 02:26, September 13, 2005 (UTC)

It comes from the way circumlunar is defined by Apollo nerds (such as myself :-) ). Circumlunar means not actually entering into a stable orbit around the Moon. I'll make this more clear in the text. Evil Monkey∴Hello 03:19, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Name?

What is the etymology of this project's name? Why is it named after Apollo? The following site (http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4009/v1p1.htm) gives clues as to its origins: During the month of Feb. 1960, "At a luncheon in Washington, Abe Silverstein, Director of the Office of Space Flight Programs, suggested the name "Apollo" for the manned space flight program that was to follow Mercury. Others at the luncheon were Don R. Ostrander from NASA Headquarters and Robert R. Gilruth, Maxime A. Faget, and Charles J. Donlan from STG. Interview with Charles J. Donlan, Langley Research Center, June 20, 1966." Also: July 25th 1960, "NASA Director of Space Flight Programs Abe Silverstein notified Harry J. Goett, Director of the Goddard Space Flight Center, that NASA Administrator T. Keith Glennan had approved the name "Apollo" for the advanced manned space flight program. The program would be so designated at the forthcoming NASA-Industry Program Plans Conference." As to why the program name was picked and approved, good hunting. It's interesting to note that the Apollo program originally specified a permanent manned space station as announced by NASA Deputy Administrator Hugh L. Dryden.

It would appear that Dr. Silverstein made a common mistake and confused Apollo with Helios (the sun god) and his twin sister Artemis is also sometimes confused with Selene (Goddess of the moon). Of course, no one can ask him, as he died in 2001 at the age of 92. 66.14.219.136 19:02, 14 October 2005 (UTC)TimC

Stuff

Howcum the Boeing rover isn't linked? And can we include a mention of Dr Gerard Kuiper, who selected all the Apollo landing sites? Trekphiler 13:35, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

revert summary

Firefox swallowed my last revert summary, so for the record, it was because it's meaningless to talk of Apollo 2 and 3, which would have been launch designations, as being specific spacecraft which were dismantled. Shimgray | talk | 11:47, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Single-sidedness

Shouldn't there be a criticism section in the article? Like cost spent instead of ending famine worldwide, racism (no coloured guy went to the mooon), etc. 195.70.32.136 16:25, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

• Well, this is supposed to be a factual article, similar to an Encyclopedia. This isn't up for debate. If ya want, you can post it in the Discussion thread, but thats usually used for devoloping the article's content and verifying sources... not calling it a waste of money, or racist. Ghostalker 05:47, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

• Any article can have a "Criticism" section. Refusal to allow criticism is POV. That would result in a "Response to Criticism" section. It should contain not criticisms by the editor, which would be OR, but criticisms reported in verifiable sources, such as newspapers, books, articles in refereed journals, etc. At the time of the program, civil rights leaders and world hunger opponents argued that we should not go into space until all problems on earth were solved, a logic which would have kept Columbus in Spain, and that the money should instead be spent to buy food for hungry people, an argument which was answered by pointing out that far more was spent on welfare, foreign aid and food assistance than on space exploration. Hungry people would have gotten one more mouth full and then been just about as hungry. NASA got maybe 1% of the federal budget, far less than welfare or defense or porkbarrel public improvements, and there are arguments that the space program had positive spinoff in biomedical monitoring, microelectronics, and avaition technology. A rejoinder to that is that manned spaceflight is a public relations stunt to achieve a ticker-tape parade with hero astronauts carefully selected to be appealing and photogenic, so that Apollo was cancelled because the TV ratings fell. It was also argued, and is today, that space science could be done better and cheaper with unmanned probes. Go for it with a "Criticism" section under the guidelines above. Edison 15:49, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Put it in as a commentary or "Social Effects" or something, include the above, & note it had enormous economic spinoff effects. That money didn't evaporate; it went to hiring "butchers & bakers & telescope makers", as Bova put it, hi paid engineers doing "hi-value" jobs (to use the overused phrase). If you're interested in reducing welfare, the space program does it by creating hi pay jobs for a few (hundred) engineers & thousands of jobs for the people that support them (grocers, real estate agents, movie theater clerks, tire salesmen...). In this section, you might also mention where Grumman & Boeing built the spacecraft, & where their subcontracted parts came from; I'll wager every one of the 50 states were involved. It wasn't just a few space nerds at the Cape. (Of course, I'm biased...) Trekphiler 07:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Apollo CSM in orbit picture

Thic link is currently incorrectly formatted, and the link points to a vandalised picture. I don't know how to fix it: can someone else? User:Soundwave

I see it's done - cheers! User:Soundwave

Lunar Corridor

What is meant by a "Lunar Corridor" in the tragectory towards moon. Can anyone please explain little further this term?

Penguine_s January 24, 2006

• If I'm not mistaken, it refers to the angle at which the trajectory towards the moon that is necessary for lunar orbital insertion. Too far one way, and you fly off into space. Too far the other way, and you've made yourself the most expensive projectile ever to strike the moon.

• Yup, thats it. Kinda incredible how they managed to not ONLY figure out the proper corridor to get in orbit, but how they programmed that on a computer that had 32kb of RAM and weighed over 100lbs. I wish I could get someone from NASA to explain HOW they did that out back then.... I wonder how many of them read this stuff... Ghostalker 05:51, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Box removal

This article's detailed infoboxes on the CSM and LM are redundant with the boxes found at Apollo Command/Service Module and Apollo Lunar Module, and I think they take up too much space. I propose to remove them and transfer the Apollo insignia to the upper-right corner instead. Melchoir 23:23, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I'll just do it. Melchoir 07:16, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Crews

I actually came here to learn about the Apollo missions. As a reader, I was surprised not to see at least one mention of the crew names for each mission, or to a less degree, the name of the place where each landed. Could I insert those?

Something with a little more impact on the structure would be a precis of each of the missions. Would anyone find that objectionable?

I'm concerned that this article is already pretty long. Do you think the listings under the "Flights" section and the "Missions" section are really inadequate? Melchoir 02:43, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Apollo Applications/Blue Apollo

Mark Wade here http://www.astronautix.com/astrogrp/nas51966.htm mentions that in 1965 there were up to 30 planned AAP missions to Earth Orbit. He is credible on most sources. Going to add mention of attempt to interest USAF in Apollo equipment.Piersmasterson 11:02, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Peer Review

I have submitted this article for peer review, with the aim of eventually making it a featured article. Any help and feedback would be appreciated. The review page is Wikipedia:Peer review/Project Apollo/archive2. Thank you. --GW_Simulations_{Talk | Contribs | E-mail} 13:39, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Lunar Module Pilot

My understanding is that, even though neither Apollo 7 nor Apollo 8 actually carried a Lunar Module, both Walt Cunningham and Bill Anders had the title "Lunar Module Pilot" anyway. RandomCritic 12:23, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Not sure either way. Can you find a cite? --GW_Simulations_{|User Page | Talk | Contribs | E-mail} 20:35, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Not sure either, but I'd guess true. NASA'd have all its crews trained & designated same way, no? Trekphiler 07:20, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

NPOV???

Who put the comment about NPOV after the quote:

"New objectives and new money cannot solve these problems. They could in fact, aggravate them further--unless every scientist, every engineer, every serviceman, every technician, contractor, and civil servant gives his personal pledge that this nation will move forward, with the full speed of freedom, in the exciting adventure of space"

Surely quotes are not subject to the NPOV policy. --GW_Simulations_{|User Page | Talk | Contribs | E-mail} 19:43, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

everybody watched the news about it

in july 20 1969,neil armstrong was the first man to land on the moon.later,the news came on and the announcer announced that neil armstrong was the first man on the moon.everybody watched this because they couldn't believe how he landed on the moon.between 1969 and 1972,only 11 other astronauts landed on the moon because most grown ups wanted to be an astronaut,but most of them failed to succed and only 11 of them knew so they landed on the moon. now,ALOT of astronauts landed on the moon

Time required for a rendezvous

What we understand from the article is that the processes of landing on the moon required speration from Command Module, then descnding. Same way, upon return to connect back to command module, the lunar module had to undergo a "rendezvous" operation. How long it might have taken for (1) first separation and landing (2) launch from lunar surface to complete the rendezvous operation? SJ July 10, 2006

mission types

In the subsection "mission types", it lists some types of missions and labels them with letters, A, B, C... etc; my understanding is that these were only used in the planning, and don't necessarily correspond to actual missions? for example, was there an E type mission? this should be made clear.. and in fact, if they don't correspond to actual missions, that list should probably be moved below the real listing of missions. Mlm42 09:51, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

It was a planning designation (if Tom Hanks' "From the Earth to the Moon" is to be believed). Trekphiler 07:24, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Apollo 012

I'm not fanatical about it, but some say Apollo I isn't appropriate, since the bird didn't fly. Some say "Apollo 204" (for the booster). I'd say change it to "Apollo 012", for the spacecraft involved in the plugs-out test fire. Comment? Trekphiler 07:30, 6 November 2006 (UTC) (BTW, I got O12 from Collins' Carrying the Fire. Read it if you're http://www.freewebs.com/fspir

The official designation for the Pad Test was Apollo 204. It was posthumously changed to Apollo 1 as a mark of respect. Apollo 012 was internal memo stuff.Ashnazgul 20:41, 6 June 2007 (UTC)ashnazgul

Suggestions before GA nomination

I would like to soon nominate this artice for good article status, and before doing so, have a few suggestions on improvements.

• In "background", I think that this statement "The Apollo program was at least partly motivated by geopolitical considerations, in the context of the Cold War and the Space Race" needs to be given more discussion, as the space race was why a Moon landing was proposed in the first place.

• In the section "choosing a mission mode", some (but not all) of the material coming after the list might be more appropriate for the following section "spacecraft".

• It is a shame that there is nor more information of "The Launch Escape Tower (LET)" in Wikipedia. Perhaps this needs a two line description in the section "Spacecraft".

• The section "Astronauts" seems to me to be out of place. Perhaps this should be in an info box? Or just at the very end of the article as some form of "appendix"? In any case, this section should come after missions.

• All of the tables between "missions" and "samples returned" need to be integrated into the text somehow, or added as an asside in an info box. They really disrupt the flow of the article. It is debatable as to whether some of the info in the tables is necessary, such as "serial number", "CM name". It would perhaps be acceptable to delete, or substantially reduce the size of these tables, as they are present on the linked pages. I would suggest listing them in the text as a bulleted list with a one sentence desription.

• There is no textual description associated with "Launch Complex utilization"

• A section summarizing "lunar science" and "ALSEP" should probably be given on this page.

• there are very few inline sitations.

• "The Moon" should be captilized. At a minimum, the article should use a consisten approach.

• Apollo applications: "Skylab's last crew departed the station on February 8, 1974, whilst the station itself returned prematurely to Earth in 1979, by which time it had become the oldest operational Apollo component." Explain what "prematurely" means here, and why!

• End of the Mission. "Only one of the remaining Saturn Vs was actually used; the others became museum exhibits." I could be wrong, but I thought that there was only one unused Saturn V, and that this is on the lawn of JSC.

• "It appears that much of the original film and telemetry data is missing. " I think that this is an overstatement. There are some missing data, but "much" might be overstating this problem.

Lunokhod 13:25, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

In fact nearly all of it appears to be missing. Gravitor 04:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Could you give me a reference to a reputable source that backs this claim up? And could you quantify what "nearly all" means? Is this 90%? 95% Thanks. Lunokhod 10:13, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Listiness

This article as it stands now is incredibly listy, and will never make FA—or even GA—as long as it has so much of its information in tables rather than in prose. I plan to spend some time improving the article, and will be moving some of the lists and tables out to new articles (or old articles, in some cases) over the next few days. Please let me know if there are any problems with this. MLilburne 10:02, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

No problem. It looks good. Lunokhod 10:10, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, glad to hear it. Hopefully it will look even better over the coming weeks. MLilburne 10:11, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Listiness, I'm not sure that matters too much - but but for sure removing the list of missions to 'List of Missions' without having a link to it isn't too helpful. It took me quite a time to find it. I think there's a danger of section-i-ness creeping in instead - Archzog 18:28, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the nudge. I've put in a see also link to List of Apollo missions under "Missions." What do you mean by section-i-ness? MLilburne 18:38, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Section-i-ness - the over-use of jumping to subsections for information; on reflection perhaps I mean sub-article-i-ness. I don't think that the basic information that people are looking for should go down into a sub-article. As it stands now the only list of manned missions is in the Samples Returned section of the main article without the fact that Aps 11 & 14-17 were the ones that landed being explained above. I think a main article should give give basic data, and I think a basic list of missions, Mission numbers and dates and crew names should be there; I don't think a user should have to go down into a sub-article to find that; Personally I thought the original with the list of missions, and with links to individual mission articles in it,was fine. Archzog 13:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, I see what you mean now. The problem is that the Apollo program is a massive topic; the article is close to triggering a page size warning already, and by the time I'm done reworking it I suspect that it'll be a good 10K longer. So it really has to employ summary style fairly strictly. There is certainly going to be more about the missions in the prose of the article... I'm planning on having subsections on the manned and unmanned missions under the "Missions" header, I just haven't gotten there yet. But we can't include everything.

While I understand your desire to have a table in there, the table that was there is absolutely massive compared to the size of the article. There is no way that the article would make FA with a table of that size in the middle of it. MLilburne 13:33, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

It was FIVE tables actually, listing all the missions, and for sure that was way OTT; certainly no need to list un-manned and earth orbit missions in an intro. but as the object of the exercise was to get men to the moon a brief list (name/number and date) of the nine missions that actually got there(landed, only orbited, and 'only swung-round') would not be out of place. It might even be better done in text rather than a table.Archzog 12:22, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I added a small sentence and link

I added a link to the Moon Landing Hoax under the "End of the program and lasting influences" section. I hope this is okay. I think that the hoax is (somewhat) notable and a lasting (if not necessarily a positive) influence of the program. Liberal Classic 02:59, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I edited the sentences and would like to defend their inclusion. The idea of hoax is widespread and familar, albeit "not necessarily a positive" Numskll 04:10, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. "Cottage industry" isn't very encyclopedic. However, conspiracy theory fits extremely well in this case, in my opinion. Liberal Classic 06:10, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I actually get how the term applies -- the tendancy (probably necesssity) of self publication by hoax comspiracy theorists, but to me they are just the flag bearers for the "significant minority" who believe odd things like this. Oh, and Bat Boy. I bet they believe in bat boy too. Numskll 12:24, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I struck the word 'significant' from the sentence. That adverb gives the minority undue weight, though the idea has certainly percolated through popular culture. Liberal Classic 17:20, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I see it's been pulled because a reference exists in moon landings. I skimmed that article, but I must have missed it before. Liberal Classic 17:51, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The section is in the Moon landing article. More specifically here: Moon_landing#Moon_Landing_hoax_accusations Andy120290 18:03, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I see it now, thank you. Liberal Classic 18:05, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Name - "Project Apollo" or the "Apollo Program"

I'm concerned the article isn't consistent in its use of these two names. Is there a distinction between them? Is one more correct? More formal? Or is it a matter of individual taste? (Personally I always use, "The Apollo Program." Maybe because that's what I've heard or read more often, e.g. in the Apollo Program Summary Report. Would it improve the article to directly address this question somehow? Sdsds 06:20, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

The Apollo Project refer to a project agency to develop the technics to be able to land on the Moon. The Apollo Program is about all the missions with Apollo missions, both manned and unmanned. So Apollo program is more correct to use. When looking through the files on NASA the Apollo program is more frequently used as the times goes by during the 1960's. I would like to use the Apollo program rather than project Apollo. 81.227.161.87 23:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Apollo program is more commonly used. We should rename this page. Lunokhod 05:29, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Yep, I think that'd be better. Personally, I've never heard it referred to as "Project Apollo". --J. Atkins (talk | contribs) 15:26, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Whilst I agree with the name change, there are a lot of pages which link to Project Apollo. I think these links will just redirect so I assume its not a problem, but would this affect this article's possibility of becoming a featured article. (Probably not, just a thought, because the name must be official -- which I think Apollo Program is). --J. Atkins (talk | contribs) 16:50, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I can't think that it could possibly affect the article's chances of becoming an FA, and like everyone else, I think "Apollo Program" would be better. I just hope that someone else will do it--renaming pages is not one of my skills. MLilburne 19:45, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

We've faffed around before with the name, as I recall - the same with Gemini and Mercury. I feel "program" is better for all three, as if nothing else it gives us a slightly broader scope for edge cases like Skylab/ASTP. Shimgray | talk | 19:26, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Yep. A search on the NASA website reveals 15,200 results for project apollo (and even the best bet on that it titled "apollo program"), but a huge 19,000 for apollo program. I think we can successfully say that this is the best name, and almost certainly the most commonly used. I tried a rename earlier, but since Apollo Program is already a redirect to this page, it wasn't allowed (page not blank). I guess we'll need an admin to delete that page and then move it. --J. Atkins (talk | contribs) 15:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

If there's no objection by this time tomorrow I'll do the move; it seems pretty well-supported. Shimgray | talk | 17:40, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. --J. Atkins (talk | contribs) 18:16, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Done with all associated redirects (I think). I chose "program" over "Program" - I'm not entirely sure why, but it seemed more appropriate - it was a program named Apollo, not "the Apollo Program" as a single proper noun. Shimgray | talk | 22:38, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I've also renamed the footer template to Template:Apollo program and changed the text to Apollo program. --J. Atkins (talk | contribs) 09:02, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Great! I would never have thought of these things. Glad someone's on top of them. MLilburne 09:18, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I wasted all morning trying to rename links that go to Project Apollo to go to Apollo program. After requesting bot help and advised to look at wikipedia policy on redirects I realised its unnecessary. Obviously it helps to have the template renamed and consistency throughout the article, I just don't want anyone else making the same mistake I did -- in fact, it slows down the system more to edit a page than it does to "fix" a link. --J. Atkins (talk | contribs) 16:17, 9 June 2007 (UTC)