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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Good article reassessment

See WP:Good article reassessment/NASA/1

Orbital launches statistics

Launches by state, territory or country:

  • Florida - 971
    • Cape Canaveral - 787 (6 of them are from a plane - Pegasus)
    • Kennedy Space Center - 184 (1 of them are from a plane - Pegasus)
  • California - 714
    • Vandenberg - 313 (21 of them are from a plane - Pegasus)
    • Vandenberg South - 346
    • Point Arguello - 43
    • Edwards Air Force Base - 5 (all of them are from a plane - Pegasus)
    • Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake - 6
    • Mojave Spaceport - 1 (from a plane - LauncherOne)
  • Virginia - 48
    • Wallops Island - 28 (6 of them are from a plane - Pegasus)
    • Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport - 20
  • Alaska - 5
    • Kodiak Launch Complex, Kodiak Island - 3
    • Pacific Spaceport Complex Alaska, Kodiak Island - 2
  • Marshal Islands - 9 (4 of them are from a plane - Pegasus)
  • Hawaii - 1
  • New Zealand - 17
  • Gran Canaria, Spain - 1 (from a plane - Pegasus)
  • San Marco platform, near Kenya - 9

TOTAL: 1,775 US orbital launches

Number of launches by year

Number of launches by year
Year Launches Success Failure
2020 44 40 4
2019 27 27 0
2018 34 34 0
2017 30 29 1
2016 22 22 0
2015 20 18 2
2014 23 22 1
2013 19 19 0
2012 13 13 0
2011 18 17 1
2010 15 15 0
2009 24 23 1
2008 15 14 1
2007 19 17 2
2006 18 17 1
2005 12 12 0
2004 16 15 1
2003 23 23 0
2002 17 17 0
2001 22 21 1
2000 28 28 0
1999 31 27 4
1998 36 34 2
1997 38 37 1
1996 33 32 1
1995 30 26 4
1994 27 26 1
1993 25 23 2
1992 29 28 1
1991 19 17 2
1990 27 27 0
1989 18 18 0
1988 12 12 0
1987 9 8 1
1986 9 6 3
1985 18 17 1
1984 22 21 1
1983 22 22 0
1982 18 18 0
1981 19 17 2
1980 15 13 2
1979 16 16 0
1978 33 32 1
1977 26 23 3
1976 26 26 0
1975 31 28 3
1974 25 22 3
1973 25 23 2
1972 33 31 2
1971 35 30 5
1970 30 29 1
1969 41 38 3
1968 48 45 3
1967 61 57 4
1966 78 74 4
1965 70 62 8
1964 63 57 6
1963 46 37 9
1962 59 52 7
1961 41 29 12
1960 29 16 13
1959 19 10 9
1958 23 7 16
1957 1 0 1
  • Total number of launches: 1,775 in 64 years = 27.7 launches per year
  • Success: 1,616 - 91%
  • Failure: 159
  • Max launches in one year: 78 launches in 1966
  • Max successful launches in one year: 74 launches in 1966
  • Max satellites on a single launch:
    • Cygnus and 75 satellites on Cygnus NG-11 mission on 17 April 2019
    • 60 satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket, many times, first time on 22 February 2018
  • Min launches in one year: 9 launches in 1986, 1987
  • Min successful launches in one year: 6 launches in 1986
  • Largest gap between two launches: 125 days between these two launches - 1986 May 3 - Delta 3914 - and - 1986 Sep 5 - Delta 3920
  • 91 consecutive successful launches between these two failures: 25 May 2017 - Electron - and - 25 May 2020 - LauncherOne
  • 67 consecutive successful launches between these two failures: 26 Mar 1987 - Atlas G Centaur - and - 18 Apr 1991 Atlas I
  • 65 consecutive successful launches between these two failures: 4 Mar 2011 - Taurus 3110 - and - 28 Oct 2014 - Antares 130

Counting only launches from continental USA:

  • 132 consecutive successful launches between these two failures: 28 Jun 2015 - Flacon 9 - Dragon CRS-7 - and - 25 May 2020 - LauncherOne

Barecode (talk) 01:01, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Why is all of this data on this talk page instead of a Draft: page? Is all of this data closely tied to NASA? -Fnlayson (talk) 20:26, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
@Fnlayson: There is no article like American space program so this article is the closest article tied to such data. Barecode (talk) 21:11, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
@Fnlayson: I do not have enough skill to start such an article, other than adding such dry statistics. I think it would be deleted. These are more like curiosity statistics and I'm not sure they have due weight and notability to fit inside an article, so I was thinking to present them like misc data, for curious minds. Barecode (talk) 19:40, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

NASA internal organization section?

Following this report of the split of NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate into two, I noticed there's no section on organization. Should there be one? The Crab Who Played With The Sea (talk) 19:20, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 14 January 2019 and 8 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Aaronfawley.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 04:46, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 7 April 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved per strong consensus, affirming provisions in MOS:ACROTITLE, WP:TITLEFORMAT. Closing early per WP:SNOW. No such user (talk) 08:58, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

NASA → National Aeronautics and Space Administration – Full name. Since the article about the US Army is United States Army, why not make the article about NASA to National Aeronautics and Space Administration? Wikiexplorationandhelping (talk) 00:26, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Common name. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:38, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Civil space vs civilian space

Civil space agency is the term that appears to be used by most space sources:

I have not found any major references to NASA as a civilian space agency (in that context). Garuda28 (talk) 15:52, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

17 years old spoken version?

{{Spoken Wikipedia|En-NASA.ogg|date=September 1, 2005}} is nearly 17 years old. Is it worth keeping? The Crab Who Played With The Sea (talk) 21:54, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Origination Date, omitted from introductory paragraph.

On July 29, 1958 President Dwight D Eisenhower signed into law the National Aeronautics And Space Act which created NASA. 2600:1700:7890:5A40:0:0:0:49 (talk) 23:46, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

update on Perseverance Rover on Mars.

update about Perseverance Rover on Mars.

Awad Alhaj (talk) 17:14, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. RudolfRed (talk) 18:26, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Continued NASA article updates

In the last month or so, I have drafted and published a number of updates to the NASA article. Changes were intended to deal with several templates (need for restructure/alignment; missing citations; dated info). In a number of areas, information was dated (5 or more years old - budget informtion, etc). Added organization and budget information near the front of the article. Cleaned up the media section to accommodate the prior merge of the podcast entries, etc. Separated history with current programs...

Personal goal is to assist to establish an article that can hopefully be re-assessed to good article status. I am proposing to make additional changes in the coming weeks as follows:

  • Uncrewed/robotic missions is significantly dated and mostly historical. proposing to move (and clean up) historical missions to the history section and provide updated current missions section that conforms with NASA operational structure (planetary, heliophysics, astrophysics, earth sciences, etc - also identifying the program structure for development - Explorer, Discovery, New Frontiers, Large Strategic)
  • adding Space operations architecture items that support multiple missions (DSN, NEN, LSP, NSRP,...) Creating small intro sections and identifying links to main articles.
  • continued cleanup of the research section. various odd-n-ends have been droppped into the article over the years; proposing to bin them in a bit more organized fashion. Thin out NEO and align with Planetary Defense office.
  • collaboration section additions to account for significant ongoing collaboration efforts (NOAA - GOES, Polar orbiters; USGS - Landsat; Space Force; international - Artemis Accords), etc.

Happy to discuss, collaborate, etc... Thoughts? SpaceHist65 (talk) 20:21, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

This is a key reason why the set of changes was reverted, it should be taken a bit slower so the greater community can keep track to prevent important information from being lost from the encyclopedia. NeutraI (talk) 04:41, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
This edit is also another cause for concern. Adding or updating info is one thing, but removing large chunks of longstanding topical history while doing so is another. I personally am not too familiar with the subject matter, so you may want to solicit additional perspectives via an RfC for some of these large edits, particularly the history removals. NeutraI (talk) 04:47, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
If you take a look at the article prior to the revert and the reverted one, you will not find the removal of significant content. You will see the movement of a prior narrative that jumbled the historical spacecraft missions from current programs. The historical missions were moved to the history section with additional relevant content and citations. New sections were created for the current programs that advanced the narrative by years as the prior narrative was mostly years if not a decade old. Citations were added in many cases to correctly tie the narrative to sources. I was doing this to improve the chance of a B article or better. The missing citations were noted in templates that were several years old indicating a lack of interest by anyone else to make the corrections. Changes to each section (other than a few typos in various places) were made individually with explanation in the change summary to indicate the reason or each change. I chose numerous smaller updates not to interfere with others rights to make changes. Happy to discuss in greater detail on any of the items. I request the reinstatement of the prior version followed by a change-by-change discussion if it is warranted. I can appreciate that I have moved faster than is typical but, in looking at recent history, there had been very little interest in most sections of the article other than bot edits. SpaceHist65 (talk) 04:56, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
Yes, a change-by-change discussion is reasonable. NeutraI (talk) 05:05, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
Courtesy ping @BilCat and Randy Kryn: NeutraI (talk) 05:11, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
The only "removal of content" change that appears to conform to something like 2K is related to the Near Earth Object (NEO) section. The scientific info in a detailed paragraph in that old section has nothing to do with NASA and was also years out of date to the reality of what had been discovered/tracked. The Planetary Defense Coordination Office was created in 2016 (years after 2011 analysis and 2013 timeframe of WISE mission). The updated section discusses the broader topic in the context of NASA. The science material, if it were current, would likely be suitable in the the specific NEO article that the updated section identified as a See also... Let me know if this resolves your concern.
If you are questioning other sections, please identify your concern. The changes were made in good faith as the other editor has indicated. Happy to discuss any of them. Let me know which ones you have concerns with. SpaceHist65 (talk) 05:11, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
Understood, I don’t disagree that they were made in good faith. But I must ask, if the info has nothing to do with NASA then why was it in the article in the first place? NeutraI (talk) 05:19, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
I am pasting in the text without citations below to provide everyone an easy reference. The citations make the content considerably longer.. (from a character count perspective). Read the narrative. It is years out of date, offers scientific analysis of the size of asteroids (why in a NASA article?). Offers a class in statistics. None of this is about NASA. It is years out of date to what NASA is currently doing. The DART mission impact of last week is a good example of what I included in the updated Planetary Defense/NEO section. It expresses political statements about lack of funding (in 2005 - current???) that are not accurate (see DART, OSIRIS-REx, NEOWISE, and the PDCO office itself).
If this level of detail is expected for each topic in the article, it will become unintelligble. launches will require assessment of energy expended to reach orbit. for satellites, delta velocity expended inception to date.... Not trying to kill it or hide it, it just doesn't belong in this article. As to why it survived. I could only guess. The article appears to have stagnated after it lost Good Article status many years ago. The only additions were focused on crewed missions (commercial crew, artemis). It overlooked about 50% of what NASA works on on an annual basis - content that you deleted with your revision.
Not to be argumentative but you believe you have the right to delete 30K plus of content generated in many revisions without reading it and I cannot delete 2K of content, identifying its deletion when it was made and having some knowledge of the topic, without a challenge to a complete body of work. doesn't appear to balance from a logic perspective. As I said, happy to discuss but I think you need to convey a concern that the replacement language did not do justice to the topic. I don't think wikipedia requires me to justify good faith changes. Additionally, your edit history shows no prior interest in the article from a quick scan. This is not a prerequisite for getting involved but I would hope you are participating based on intellectual interest in the topic otherwise how will a discussion on content changes play out?
In 1994, there was a Congressional directive to find near-Earth objects (NEOs) larger than 1 kilometer, and 90% of 1 kilometer sized asteroids are estimated to have been found by 2010.
In 1999, NASA visited 433 Eros with the NEAR spacecraft which entered its orbit in 2000, closely imaging the asteroid with various instruments at that time. From the 1990s NASA has run many NEO detection programs from Earth bases observatories, greatly increasing the number of objects that have been detected. However, many asteroids are very dark and the ones that are near the Sun are much harder to detect from Earth-based telescopes which observe at night, and thus face away from the Sun. NEOs inside Earth orbit only reflect a part of light also rather than potentially a "full Moon" when they are behind the Earth and fully lit by the Sun.
In 2005, the US Congress mandated NASA to achieve by 2020 specific levels of search completeness for discovering, cataloging, and characterizing dangerous asteroids larger than 140 meters (460 ft) (Act of 2005, H.R. 1022; 109th), but no new funds were appropriated for this effort. As of January 2019, it is estimated about 40% of the NEOs of this size have been found, although since by its nature the exact amount of NEOs are unknown the calculations are based on predictions of how many there could be.
One issue with NEO prediction is trying to estimate how many more are likely to be found. In 2000, NASA reduced its estimate of the number of existing near-Earth asteroids over one kilometer in diameter from 1,000–2,000 to 500–1,000. Shortly thereafter, the LINEAR survey provided an alternative estimate of 1,227+170
−90. In 2011, on the basis of NEOWISE observations, the estimated number of one-kilometer NEAs was narrowed to 981±19 (of which 93% had been discovered at the time), while the number of NEAs larger than 140 meters across was estimated at 13,200±1,900. The NEOWISE estimate differed from other estimates in assuming a slightly lower average asteroid albedo, which produces larger estimated diameters for the same asteroid brightness. This resulted in 911 then known asteroids at least 1 km across, as opposed to the 830 then listed by CNEOS. In 2017, using an improved statistical method, two studies reduced the estimated number of NEAs brighter than absolute magnitude 17.75 (approximately over one kilometer in diameter) to 921±20. The estimated number of asteroids brighter than absolute magnitude of 22.0 (approximately over 140 m across) rose to 27,100±2,200, double the WISE estimate, of which about a third are known as of 2018. A problem with estimating the number of NEOs is that detections are influenced by a number of factors.
NASA turned the infrared space survey telescope WISE back on in 2013 to look for NEOs, and it found some during the course of its operation. NEOcam competed in the highly competitive Discovery program, which became more so due to a low mission rate in the 2010s
SpaceHist65 (talk) 05:46, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
To all. I am going to recover the updated version of the article (undo the revert). If the change above needs to be returned to the document by consensus, I will be happy to do so. What I don't want to happen is create a configuration issue with the other good faith changes if others start to edit and create a different thread that will make recovery impossible. As the talk post originally indicated when I was making these changes, I am happy to discuss any of them. I am proposing to include them to make them subject to discussion. SpaceHist65 (talk) 05:57, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
I reverted to the updated document. Fee free to communicate any concerns you have with any of the material, either newly added material or older items. As expressed before, I have the desire to assist to seek a re-assessment of the article to move it back toward a Good Article status. Appreciate any and all constructive comments to improve the article.SpaceHist65 (talk) 06:02, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
one more comment. If you wish to assess all changes that I have made to the article, I published my first change on 4 September. To give you a sense of the state of the article at that time versus the current version. Happy to discuss if anyone contests any of the changes. SpaceHist65 (talk) 06:16, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
I was pinged and think that SpaceHist65 should continue to complete what probably is a great improvement to the article. My concern was if anyone who usually works on the page is keeping track (written in an edit summary as I added back a removed pertinent navbox) and have to assume they are and just letting the quality changes flow. At times competent editors will overhaul long-standing articles for the better and this is probably one of those times. No need for roadblocks as long as the page keeps improving, and when it is finished then individual editors will catch any questionable areas. Thanks for the concern NeutraI but let's see what great work continues to come from this. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:25, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
I think I have determined the origin of the technical content in the NEO section. On 13:50 7 October 2019, user Fotaum copied the paragraph(s) from the Near-Earth object article into the NASA article directly. The explanation of changes confirms this. It also confirms that the NEO article is the best location for the technical material (I suspected this but the proof is in the article itself). You will find the narrative in the current NEO following section Near-Earth_object#Size distribution. The information in the NEO article has been advanced a bit from a timeline perspective and discusses activity in 2021 (vs 2019 or earlier in the prior cloned copy in the NASA article).
While I am still opposed to retaining the detailed paragraph(s) in the NASA article, inclusion, if desired by the consensus, should be done via an excerpt or similar to eliminate the content drift between the two at a minimum. Maybe a subsection "Math of NEO size and predictions" to allow an excerpt inclusion at a subsection level. If not this, a new copy should be copied over to at least bring it current to the source document.
The highly mathematical nature of these paragraphs have an ideal home in the NEO article. Editors that will take on changes and updates to that article will naturally be of a similar technical orientation given the content. The NASA article is a different story. It is not surprising that it had not been advanced. Intimidating and a bit "out of place" for a casual reader or editor. This NASA article section has always included a Main or See also link to the NEO article under the subsection header.
Once a 'keep or discard decision' is made, a belated writer attribution link in TALK may be warranted that connects the two articles to comply with best practices.SpaceHist65 (talk) 22:32, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
Noting the re-inclusion of the prior Near-Earth object section overnight (US Time) by Neutral, a number of redundancies were created in the article. I have updated the article, preserving the content from the PDCO and the NEO sections into a section under PDCO. From a NASA perspective, PDCO is now the parent and NEO detection is one activity under the PDCO umbrella. The original NEO detect effort was a "find" activity. PDCO (2016) is now chartered to figure out what to do about it if a hazardous object is found (think movies Armageddon or Deep Impact without all of the cool technologies to make those movie outcomes occur). The update posted retains the tech content that came from the NEO article (I would still prefer to delete it). It also includes the NEAR Shoemaker and NEO Surveyor missions in a standard form in the missions section. Again happy to discuss to meet everyone's expectations. Just did not want to leave the redundant sections and paragraphs in the document for any duration. SpaceHist65 (talk) 00:31, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
NeutraI confirmed as a sockpuppet (Oct 13, 2022). Based on confirming the size prediction (technical paragraph) was copied from Near-Earth Objects article in Oct 2019 and the information there has been updated to be more current than the copy that has resided in the NASA article, I am deleting the paragraph from this article. The "see also" link to Near-Earth Objects article is shown at the top of this subsection. SpaceHist65 (talk) 03:19, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
Removed NASA#Perceptions of NASA budget subsection as the information included is an older version of info included in the Budget of NASA article that is a See also from this article. No value in keeping older version. See also link moved up front to Budget section. Additionally, article has grown. Looking to find some material that is not unique/high value to right-size the article downward a bit.SpaceHist65 (talk) 03:38, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Journey to Mars?

As a long time NASA follower, why is there a 'Journey to Mars' section after Constellation? Shouldn't there be a bloc about the Commercial Crew Program and Commercial Resupply program?

It seems odd, and I would remove it. Any thoughts? 2603:800C:1CF0:8AD0:F996:B1E8:814F:2E8D (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Constellation and Journey to Mars were formal programs that were canceled in past. Crew and Cargo are current programs that are discussed further down in the same article. Segregration is Historical (not current) then Current/active programs. SpaceHist65 (talk) 02:31, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

History of NASA article

I just finished a massive rewrite of the NASA history section, cleaning it up significantly and making it chronological readable. However, the history of NASA is too big to be just a section on this article. If there are any talk page lurkers who want to create a History of NASA page, this would be a good time to do it and then link it as the main article under the history sub-section here. Garuda28 (talk) 02:12, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

@Garuda28 I have just marked the history section with Template:Very long section. Hopefully this could prompt others to look at creating a dedicated history article. Strugglehouse (talk) 20:34, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
Oppose, as every time a split is made for a page it will lose readers. The history of NASA is very long because NASA's history is long. Should be all on one page, the main NASA page. I'm going to remove the verylong tag because it actually asks editors to make a split, which is a problem with the tag not only on this page but pretty much any major article that it's used on. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:51, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
I agree. This rewrite was already as massive consolidation from what it replaced. Garuda28 (talk) 23:52, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
It may be a good rewrite, thanks, although it seems the Mercury and Gemini, and even Apollo and Skylab information could be added back or expanded. Can some of the major editors here check it. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:56, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 September 2023

it says the budget for the ISS was originally going to be $17.4 Alex Miranda52.314159 (talk) 22:05, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

That was NASA's plan originally, but plans can change. -Fnlayson (talk) 22:13, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. BilCat (talk) 22:21, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 February 2024

Change ESDMD Associate administrator from James Free to Catherine A. Koerner

Change SOMD Associate administrator from Kathy Lueders to Kenneth D. Bowersox

Change STMD Associate administrator from James L. Reuter to Kurt "Spuds" Vogel Montanot (talk) 04:17, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

These changes have been announced and are reflected in the NASA bio pages:
I'm not certain whether these sources, rather than secondary sources as currently used, are preferred for this. Are there reliable secondary sources easily available? (sdsds - talk) 04:45, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
It seems to me that in this context the use of a primary source falls within the criteria of both WP:PRIMARY and WP:ABOUTSELF. — FenrisAureus ▲ (she/they) (talk) 15:08, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
 Done — FenrisAureus ▲ (she/they) (talk) 15:17, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
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