User talk:Lunokhod

welcome

I'm still a relative newcomer here myself but I was happy to see your email on the Lunar listserve this afternoon. I too have been dismayed at the state of the Lunar information here. I hope your call for help brings a few more lunatics out of the woodwork to help clean this stuff up. IntrplnetSarah 20:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC) (aka Sarah Noble)

a bit too enthusiast?

"Lunokhod": who are you to assign quality and importance ratings to articles? You assign "start-class" to many articles that have been developed for a long time and are stable and mature; also I did not see any references to a proper review or the criteria that led you to such a verdict: so I find it hard to take these classifications seriously. I believe essentially these are just your own personal, and not informed consensus, opinions. Nonetheless you boldly do put such official-looking assessments on the pages, possibly confusing or misleading readers. Tom Peters 12:07, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Tom - I was just tagging all of the articles that fall under the newly created domain of WikiProject Moon, and some of these could be in error. If you join the project, feel free to change these assessments. Before doing so though, have a look at the list of assessed articles, as the grading is indeed relative. As for the "importance", it is important to realize that this is only a relative internal scale within the WikiProject. A low importance under "Moon" could be a high importance under "space exploration." Also, for the class, stability was not a criteria in assigning preliminary values. When looking at the page I asked myself "Is the length and detail of discussion of the article appropriate for the topic?" and "How much work needs to bring this to being a relatively complete page that would appear in a printed version of an encyclopedia." Sorry if I offended anyone here. Please sign up with the Moon WikiProject! Lunokhod 12:36, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

One more thing, without going through the good article nomination process, the highest class that can be assigned in "B". Lunokhod 13:08, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

TP: OK, understood: but then I like to remark that you shouldn't assess the article - even if only for your project - without writing down what's good and bad about it. Also on the "printed encyclopedia" criterium: one thing that strikes me seeing Wikipedia develop is, that compared to a printed encyclopedia it has much more generous size restraints. So all kinds of digressions are possible, and sub-topics are spawning all the time (and sometimes merging); because of the hyperlinks the cross-references work much easier than in a printed version. Also I've found Wikipedia a convenient place to collect and store information that is hard to find in decent quality elsewhere online. e.g. Computus, New moon, Full moon cycle.

After some reflection, I think I will not join your project:

• I don't have that much free time to keep up with the activity that you have been displaying
• Your focus seems to be on selenophysics; mine is on ephemerides, history, and calendrics.

One more comment: if I read your project page well, you say you want to make the articles useful even to post-graduate specialists. That is a very tiny group, and not the audience for a general encyclopedia. For example, I did get complaints that my writings are too technical, and personally I find most mathematics articles too high-level. I find it OK for specialists to use Wikipedia to explain their arcane science to a wider audience (see e.g. Full moon cycle). Tom Peters 14:19, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

In any case, feel free to leave comments on the project banner regarding the class and importance criteria. These are collected automatically by a bot every day. The importance class is something that Wikipedia definitely needs to explain better before they go to print with version 1.0. Perhaps there is a project related to celestial mechanics, or perhaps astronomy itself that might be useful for improving orbital mechanics related topics. I'll be checking back on these pages in a week or so and will try to leave more detailed comments. Lunokhod 15:59, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:MoonStructure.jpg

Can you send me the source of this picture? PSD or whatever.

I'd like to:

• create GIF or PNG instead of JPEG
• translate into Russian.

my mail is: eip at mail dot ru.

You can download it from wikipedia, either on Moon or at wikicommons! If you want an .eps file, I'll send it too you. There is no simple "source" for generating this. Lunokhod 09:00, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Exceptional Newcomer Award

		The Exceptional Newcomer Award
		I hereby present to you the Exceptional Newcomer Award. Lunokhod, you have shown exceptional enthusiasm, skill, and boldness, with your edits to the Moon-related articles, and setting up the Moon WikiProject. Well done! Mlm42 11:25, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Good Article nomination of Apollo Moon Landing hoax accusations

You recently nominated for Apollo Moon Landing hoax accusations as a Good Article. I have looked at the article and don't feel that it meets the criteria for a good article at this time. I have explained my reasoning on the article's talk page. Thank you for your efforts and feel free to submit it again once the concerns have been addressed. Neil916 (Talk) 06:19, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Mistaken talk page

Hi, any particular reason why you re-created Talk talk:Lunar phase after I had deleted Talk talk:lunar phase? Those pages shouldn't be there, the software thinks they are supposed to be articles if they don't start with the exact letter sequence "Talk:" I'd moved the comments on that first page to the proper Talk:Lunar phase, where they supposedly belong. -- Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:31, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

My mistake, I mistakenly put the merge banners on the talk page, and then a few minutes later the page I was editing disappeared. Its all in order now.Lunokhod 23:52, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Can you please explain why you deleted the line and reference for the double planet section of "Definition of Planet"?

That was a perfectly good scholarly reference. Also, the newly revamped Double Planet article you linked to makes the same claim (only in more abstract terms) but is not referenced. I would appreciate a response on this; I plan to revert the change if no explanation is forthcoming.This article makes it perfectly clear that the Moon has a convex orbit around the Sun; it isn't simply a matter of relative gravitational pull. Serendipodous 13:32, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Please see the discussion at Orbit of the Moon and double planet for further discussion of this point. My main objections are the following

1. If you were to instantly transfer the Earth-Moon system to the outer edges of the solar system, then the Moon's orbit would no longer be like that of the Earth, but would loop back upon itself like the Galilean satelites do (in a Sun centered non-rotating coordinate system, of course). Therefore this definition is not consistent. Two Earth-Moon systems at different radii from the Sun would be called two different things.
2. If you were to "turn off" the gravity of the Sun (obviously you can't), then the Moon would continue to orbit the Earth with the same sidereal period. Asimov's "tug-of-war" analogy does not adequately describe the physics of the situation.
3. "The journal of theoretics" (in my very humble opinion as a scientists who reads the literature concerning orbital dynamics and geophysics) is very "gray", and the article itself is not scholarly. There are more citations in a typical wikipedia entry than in this article.
4. From reading the double planet page, it is clearly stated that Asimov's attempt at a definition is very poor, and that the scientific community does not use it because of its inherent flaws. I don't understand why you state otherwise.

I am not denying that the orbit of the Moon is everywhere convex; my objection is that this is a very poor way of defining what a double-planet system is. You are welcome to revert the changes, but then you will have to defend your changes on the talk page! Lunokhod 14:00, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Which you did not do :-/ Regardless, I still do not fully understand your point. Obviously, if the Earth-Moon system were to shift to the farthest reaches of the Solar system, the pull of the Sun's gravity would be weaker, and the Moon would fall under the gravitational influence of the Earth, but that isn't the case. The Earth-Moon system is where it is, and for this reason the Moon has a convex orbit around the Sun. You could just as easily say that if the Moon were shifted between Earth and Venus, it would become a planet. Serendipodous 14:41, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

"if the Earth-Moon system were to shift to the farthest reaches of the Solar system, the pull of the Sun's gravity would be weaker, and the Moon would fall under the gravitational influence of the Earth" This is not true. The whole point is that the sidereal period of the Moon (i.e., its orbital period with respect to the "fixed" stars") does NOT depend on the Earth-Sun distance! Technically, this is because the Moon lies within the Earth's gravitational sphere of infuence (the Hill sphere); its orbit around the Earth has nothing to do with the Sun (ok, I'm neglecting some second order interactions). For the Earth-Moon system, convexity only depends on the Earth-Sun distance. Thus, (in my opinion) it would not be a good idea to use the "convexity" criterion for distinguishing between double-planet and primary-satelite systems.

The problem with the convexity argument is the following. Consider an Earth-Moon system identical to ours, but placed in the Kuiper belt. The moon around this twin Earth would make one orbit about its primary in exactly 27.2 days, just like our Moon does. However, when viewed from a non-rotating coordinate system centered at the Sun, this twin moon would sometimes appear to go backwards, or even make loops. Now, why should the Earth-Moon system be called a double planet system and not this one? They are exactly the same, with the exception that one system goes around the Sun faster than the other. To me, it is like saying "This is an orange because it is on the ground 1 meter from an orange tree, but another object that looks exactly like an orange at 2 meters distance from the tree is not." Lunokhod 15:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Titan has active volcanoes, a substantial atmosphere, weathering, even standing liquids on its surface. It is, for all intents and purposes, a terrestrial planet; indeed, from a purely physical standpoint, it probably has more claim to the title than Venus or Mercury. But we don't call it that; we call it a satellite because it happens to be in orbit around Saturn. It is classified by a fluke of its position, just as the Moon would be if it were called a double planet. Even the word "planet", by decree of the IAU, has an arbitrary element based on location. If we took any of the eight official planets out of their orbits and threw them into interstellar space, they wouldn't be planets anymore. The convexity argument has, if anything, more validity than the IAU's planet definition. Serendipodous 15:28, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I kind of agree with you, but this is completely unrelated to a definition based on orbital mechanics. Personally, I work with the Moon on a day to day basis, and I often refer to it as a planet based on it complex geologic history. As for the convexity argument (again) consider the following: If we were to replace the Moon of Earth with a body the size of Phobos, its orbit would be everywhere convex as well. Would you call this Earth-Phobos system a double planet? To be absurd, you could replace Phobos with a peanut: It would still have the exact same orbital period as our Moon, and the peanut's orbit would be convex, when viewed from a non-rotating reference system centered at the Sun. There is good reason that the scientific community does not to use Asimov's definition, even though many planetary scientists are fans of his work. Lunokhod 15:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Neither a peanut nor Phobos would be a planet, because, according to the official definition, a planet has to possess hydrostatic equilibrium. The Moon possesses hydrostatic equilibrium, orbits the Sun and, if we count the Earth-Moon system as a double planet, is gravitationally dominant in its neighborhood. It therefore meets all the criteria for planethood set out by the IAU. Serendipodous 17:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

You haven't responded to my questions. I would appreciate an answer within the next 24 hours, otherwise I will revert your deletion. Thank you. Serendipodous 23:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

As you tacitly acknowledged, if the Moon were the size of a peanut, and if the IAU did not define a planet as being in hyrdrostatic equilibrium, you would call the Earth-peanut system a double planet. This is a totally ad-hoc definition, because if I made the peanut out of mercury (a metal that is molten at the average temperature of the Moon) it would then meet your definition of a double planet. You are free to add what you want to the text. I am also free to add an explanation as to why your definition makes no sense. You should realize that a wikipedia encylopedia article should reflect the consensus and divergences within the scientific community, and your definition has (as far as I know) never been advocated by a scientist that is knowledgable in this domain. Lunokhod 01:10, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Your objection has more to do with the IAU's definition of planet than with any of the issues at stake here. If you wish to discuss that issue, it is raised (at least as regards rock vs. ice) in the "Hydrostatic equilibrium" section as one of the problems with the definition as it stands. I cannot find anything on Google Scholar other than that citation you deleted that directly references the issue, although there are many scholarly papers that refer to the Earth-Moon system as a double planet. On that basis I will have to concede the argument, unless I can locate a source that you will accept. However, I don't know why the Moon's orbit around the Sun cannot be mentioned at all, even if it is only to refute the argument. I would accept a refutation of the argument if it meant at least discussing the Moon's solar orbit. Serendipodous 01:46, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Fumocy page proposed for deletion

The page on the Full moon cycle has been proposed for deletion. You recently added it to your WikiProject Moon, so you may wish to express an opinion whether it should stay or not. Tom Peters 15:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

GA nominee comment

I took a look at Venus and Mercury. Confirmed my main point that criteria 1a and 1b are where the Moon article needs work: The featured articles have compelling prose, jargon explained, readily accessible to a non-specialist audience. The Venus article in particular has very nice writing, it just flows effortlessly, it doesn't put you to sleep or make your eyes cross. The introduction is particularly excellent, providing a nice basic overview. While still not super accessible to the third grader (!), at least the average parent can figure it out without needing a degree in physics! If we figure Wikipedia is more Britannica than World Book (which actually writes different articles to different reading levels based on what grades usually study a given subject, BTW), it works. In short, the biggest difference between Moon and the featured articles is in style and readability, though of the sections in Moon still need rearranging to flow more logically, even if you keep the "fun" stuff at the end the way the other articles do...hope this helps. Good luck! Montanabw 04:32, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

<> Don't sweat it, I'll hang in there for a couple of weeks. Will change the tag to bump the date forward some. Montanabw 19:02, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

No Original Research at the Village Pump

Lunokhod: regarding our controversy on the NOR policy: I submitted my case at the Village Pump. You probably want to respond. Tom Peters 14:27, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

You're disputing in good company. At least he has the class to give you a heads-up. Here's a quicklink. I'm interested in hearing your take on this given the logic I'd applied before seeing your claim to a PHD.
  I'd also suggested that out of respect for the holiday season, Tom Peters take his time in re-generating his derivations and tacking them into the talk or a subpage for inspection. They've been in place for a long while, so there is no hurry, as if it were new content under fire.
  I'd prefer you both work on the English around the math in the iterim. It needs dumbed down so a 7th-8th grader can at least get the gist. Kudos on jumping in with both feet on the Moon Project, that's ballsy, given the learning curve and your newish status. If you have a question on generalities, etc., I'm on the WP:Wc, and glad to lend an assist. Best regards, // FrankB 01:50, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Just a courtesy heads up. Don't think this is going anywhere by itself. I added some thoughts on furthering the debate on the issue. // FrankB 16:17, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I have just given my reply here :) Count Iblis 23:40, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply: better reference for lunar ephemerides

Lunokhod: thanx for the reference suggestion on my talk page. I do have all Meeus's Morsels books: they provide various curiosa in celestial dynamics, but little on exactly how they were computed; in any case no new parameters or formulae. I asked Meeus but he replied that at his age (he is in his 70's) he does not consider updating his "Astronomical Algorithms". On our controversy on Original Research: I remain skeptical that any of this could be published in a common journal, especially since much of the stuff has been available in Wikipedia for some time. However, maybe the Academia Wikia is a proper place for digests of newer literature. I started a broad journal here. Would you spend time to referee such publications? Tom Peters 01:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Eclipse cycle

That eclipse cycle page is bizarre. People simply do not seem to understand that jargon makes articles inpenetrable. Have you considered asking for help from mediators? Dr. Submillimeter 20:02, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that I am just going to try to edit the pages for clarity in a week or two after I do a little reading on this subject. My first priority is to clean up Saros cycle, as this is the cylcle that most poeple know about. Eclipse cycle is so esotric that I doubt anyone ever looks at it. I was hoping that I could get the main author interested in improving these pages, but as you noted, he seems to think that they are already cystal clear. If every edit I make is contested, then more drastic measures might be needed. Lunokhod 11:23, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Moon and solar system footers

Hi. Would it be possible to make these footers collapse to a single line, as opposed to two lines? Also, is there a way to set the default as to whether the footer is initially open or collapsed? For the Moon footer, under most situations, think that it would be best to have this by default open.Lunokhod 00:44, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The initial state of collapsing (when using class="collapsible") is controlled by an additional class (autocollapse & collapsed) if no additional classes are given the navbox remains open. Possibly the bet overview on the entire collapsing is the bottom table at {{Navigational templates}}. To address you first point, I hope to fix the line break/resizing of the header when [hide] in the near future, for now I've provided a fix for most of the solar system template I've touched. --Dispenser 04:51, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for taking care of the navigation footers. One small comment: it might be more aesthetically pleasing if the "hide" link were a smaller font size. Thanks again... Lunokhod 19:02, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

We cannot change this as the [hide] link is added in via JavaScript. Although, NavFrames current have their font-size style set as smaller. --Dispenser 22:01, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

proposed merge

well, my edit summary says it all really. Do you tend to agree or disagree? If you disagree, you can just remove the template, I don't feel strongly about it. If you agree, we can just, like, do it :) dab (𒁳) 13:25, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Lunar crater stubs

Yes, I think I should be able to take care of that: specifically, I can run through the Category:Moon stubs and find everything tagged with both {{moon-stub}} and {{crater-stub}} and replace it with {{moon-crater-stub}}. I don't know how many that'll get though: there's probably many tagged with one or the other, that ought to have had both, biut didn't. Alai 23:40, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Basin Groups AfD

I have found two reputable authorities for the Basin Groups Stage as a subdivision of the Pre-Nectarian. Take a look at the GeoWhen database and Harland, Walter Brian , et al. (1989) A Geologic Time Scale 1989 Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, Fig. 1.7 on page 10, available via Google books, which shows both Basin Groups and Cryptic. Unfortunately the textual discussion is not available as part of the Google offering. I do realize that at present these subdivisions remain more theoretical than real, as many lunar deposits are still just lumped together as Pre-Imbrian age materials, which may account for the absence of mention of Basin Groups in Wilhelms' book and Martel's article. --Bejnar 01:34, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Subdivision of the Hadean

I did not graft lunar timescale onto the Earth. I am only reporting what has happened in the literature. We do not do original research here. If you don't like the fact that some people in the field of geology have decided that the early histories of the Moon and the Earth are close enough to each other that the same time scale is appropriate, take it up with them in the appropriate forum, which is not Wikipedia. The fact that the Devonian was first established in England, did not stop geologists from using it in the New World. As editors we don't dictate what goes into science, we report what scientists say, in their publications. Please do not remove properly cited reliable information just because "This is really bizarre." and you think that it isn't the way things should be done. Do try to get a hold of a copy of Harland, Walter Brian , et al. (1989) A Geologic Time Scale 1989 and read what he has to say in the text portion. It is not selenologists who are using these subdivisions, it is geologists, probably mostly cosmologists, so it is not surprising that these subdivisions are not mentioned in Wilhelms' book and Martel's article about the Moon. --Bejnar 18:24, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

• Actually by "cosmologist" I was thinking more about people running the gamut from

George Gamov to Immanuel Velikovsky. Nothing against geochemists, especially John P. Marble.(c.1900-1955). "were at least trained in terrestrial geology before specializing in planetary geology. (The converse is generally not true.)" I agree, Armstrong had not even landed on the moon when I took most of my geology and mineralogy coursework. I did take Strat. & Sed. afterwards. --Bejnar 23:20, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Question

I just started using popups, for my reverts or edits using them, should i add in that i used them, or does it happen automatically?DUBJAY04 23:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Transient lunar phenomenon

The article Transient lunar phenomenon you nominated as a good article has passed , see Talk:Transient lunar phenomenon for eventual comments about the article. Good luck in future nominations.--JEF 03:43, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Allais effect

Hi, I noticed your recent interest in this article. If you have a chance to look it over more carefully, please see my comments in Talk:Allais effect. In short, the article is misleading in its present state and needs rewriting. More than that, unfortunately, it seems to need constant watching to prevent it from being repeatedly skewed by pseudoscience fans. —Steven G. Johnson 01:09, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Acting in good faith?

I'd like to ask you to honor your agreement to "withdraw your AfD nomination" on presnetation of "reputable references showing that this topic meets wikipedia's notability criteria". I've done my part, let's see whether you are acting in good faith. Gravitor 20:09, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Again, I am asking you to honor your word. This may seem a strange concept to you, but for many of us, when we agree to something, we feel an obligation to do it. Since you confess to being a US govt shill on this subject, I suppose I should not have expected this level of honest dealing. Gravitor 17:29, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Conflict of interest

I believe you are in violation of Wikipedia:Conflict of interest guidelines in your crusade against factual information about the US government Moon program. You are, by your own admission, an employee of the US govt Moon program. Please respond with the steps you are willing to voluntarily take to rectify this, including following through with your previous assurances, or I will be forced to make a formal complaint. In particular, these guidelines call on users to

1. avoid editing articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with,

2. avoid participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors; Gravitor 17:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi

Hi Mr/ Miss Lunokhod,

I am aware that you are an expert in planetary science, recommended by Dr. Submillimeter. As a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Abandoned Articles, i was wondering if you would possibly be interested in the article: Caves of Mars Project. This article is currently tagged as Articles which need to be adopted. This is a collaborative effort to improve visitation to abandoned articles. Thanks! Luffy487 12:58, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Gravitor/Carfiend

I share your concerns that they might still be the same guy even though the admin concluded that they weren't. The fact is that their approach to this subject makes them nearly indistinguishable from each other. But if he/they get too belligerent (again, like last summer) we can "take them to court", as it were. I have pretty much shyed away from the "independent evidence" page, because (as I stated there, and which Gravitor seemed not even to notice), I don't trust that character's motives. So I'm waiting to see what he comes up with. Then we'll see if Carfiend comes in and says, "See, there's no real evidence", as I suspect Gravitor's agenda is. What a hassle. Just imagine what the Theory of Evolution page must be like. Wahkeenah 13:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• I'll tell you what I told User:Numskll: That I think we should "boycott" the page for awhile, not engage those guys in discussion, let them do what they want with the page, and see if they either go away or if they try to accelerate the engagement. Much as that runs counter to our instincts, it's what these Siamese-twin users are counting on, and it enables them to play their game. It's just like it was last summer with these guys - endless arguments over the obvious. There was an RFC on Carfiend, who was the more aggressive of the two at that time, but it died because they both disappeared in mid-September, maybe waiting for the heat to cool off. Typically they become fixated on one issue. Their current game is to pretend this Independent Evidence page has nothing to do with the hoax - a justifiable argument, if we didn't already know (1) where it originated, on the hoax page and (2) what their point of view on the subject is. Wahkeenah 10:50, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
  • A new RFC might be worth pursuing. I wonder if it's against the rules to specify two users in the same RFC? Or to re-open the old one about Carfiend at the same time as pursuing a new one against Gravitor? The concern I have is that I'm not yet certain he's taken it to last summer's level, although he's approaching it. I wonder if it would be worthwhile to just take the page off our watch lists for about a month and then come back see if (1) he's done any more work on it and (2) whether the result is usable or if it's just a cynical ploy. Wahkeenah 11:11, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
    • I see, an RFC on content rather than a user. That would be a good step. I'm thinking it's actually called a request for mediation, but I'm not totally sure, as I don't do much of that kind of activity. I think that User:Numskll had done the RFC on Carfiend last summer, and that User:Bubba73 had done a request for mediation on the ridiculous question of what the word "rendezvous" means. The former died due to the (temporary) exit of Carfiend as an editor, and the latter died when Bubba73 found positive proof that the Russians had willfully deceived the public in the way they used that term. Come to think of it, that's when Carfiend left, and Gravitor soon followed. Carfiend had been shown up, and the game wasn't fun any more. Anyway, you could talk to those guys for advice about how to do this, or you could find an admin, if the process is unclear from the documentation. Wahkeenah 11:32, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

3RR warning on Independent evidence for Apollo Moon landings

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Independent evidence for Apollo Moon landings. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please read WP:3RR and use the talk page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gravitor (talk • contribs)

This is from User:Gravitor. If you count you will see that there are only two reverts. Lunokhod 17:35, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

He's copycatting, as usual. He got a similar warning, so he's spreading the joy. Wahkeenah 18:00, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

query to query

Would there be any reason for an "independent evidence" article if hoax accusations didn't exist? It seems to be that one is the answer to the other, and I see no need for two articles about such silly accusations when one would do. - Nunh-huh 20:08, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Luna

Hi Lunokhod! Of course the name of the Moon is Luna. Like we live on Tellus. We live on Earth most of us also, but some live on water. Rursus 20:27, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Unrelated?

with the greatest respect Khabibullo Ismailovich Abdusamatov, however wrong and idiotic, is now notable and really should be linked, if only to avoid edit warring with hordes of MGW advocates. By the way, great username, kind regards sbandrews 19:26, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

ok, i didn't know that - I will bear it in mind for future edits - I am going to put Khabibullo Ismailovich Abdusamatov back for now until someone writes about him in the article(I dont want to!). sbandrews 20:05, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Orbits

Thanks for your additions to to orbits template. — Swpb ^{talk contribs} 00:21, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Personal attacks

Gravitor, you have been making a series of personal attacks (WP:NPA) and uncivil comments (WP:Civility) that are in violation of wikipedia policy. I am going to ask kindly, once again, that you refrain from doing so.

Look, your insistence on double standards makes strains my politeness sometimes. I'm sorry if you find me rude sometimes, but let me explain:

As examples, 

1. Saying that my "dishonesty is tiresome", as you did me on the "indedependent eveidence" page, is not only uncivil and a personal attack, but also is a violation of assuming good faith (WP:AGF).

You dishonesty is tiresome. Unfortunately, you have shown yourself not to be trustworthy.

1. Calling me "untrustworthy" violates WP:AGF.

I assume good faith where there is any doubt at all. You do not follow through on what you say.

1. Telling me that I am on a POV crusade or Jihad is not only attack, but culturally insulting.

You have made it clear that if you don't get your way, you will try again to delete the page. To me that is a religiously driven, destructive campaign. Suggest a better word if you want.

1. Telling numskll to "Eat your own dog food" is a personal attack and unbecoming of an editor of an encyclopedia article.

I was quoting his comment to me.

1. Telling numskll to "Please explain you justification for the mess you are making" is in the least, not very diplomatic, and at worst uncivil and a personal attack.

I wanted him to explain the mess he was making, rather than just revert war. I was actually being pretty restrained.

1. Accusing others of being sock-puppet is against wikipedia's civility policy, among others.

I hope you will make the same comments to the users who regularly accuse me of being a sock puppet. Oh, wait. Of course you won't.

1. Accusing my edits of being "a slurry of rubbish" is a personal attack.

It's not. The edits were nonsense.

1. Your comment "Your continued attempts to sabotage this page are not appreciated" is a personal attack, especially after I have explained to you why I am not trying to "sabotage" the article, but am trying to help.

You admit you are trying to remove it.

1. Calling a well-intentioned newcomer to the debate as spouting "nonsense" is uncivil.
2. Accusing someone of "You admit to having an agenda to destroy this article based on your personal differences with some editors." is uncivil, especially when they claim does not appear to be true.

It's not uncivil if they admit to having an agenda to destroy the article, and admit that it is based on personal differences with other editors.

1. Your statement "So butt out then If you're not interested in helping to build the encyclopedia, stop sowing disinformation and let others get on with it." is not civil.

It's perfectly civil. The user had just explained that they had no interest in researching on that page. Gravitor 16:52, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

1. Telling Wahkeenah "you can't constantly spout rubbish that everyone knows is not true and expect people to believe you" is a personal attack and not civil.

It's a statement of fact.

1. Telling Wahkeenah "It looks like Wikipedia doesn't work the way you're used to at NASA - you can't just have someone 'disappeared' because they don't agree with your POV here." is uncivil, and potentially libelous.

No, it's not.

Your editing behavior is also very disruptive (WP:DE).

1. Unilateral reverts to a non-consensus (or non-majority) version of the "Independent evidence" article is disruptive. You are reverting not only a single edit, but multiple edits at once. This hinders the rest of the community trying to improve this artile.
2. Reverting with edit summaries such as "see talk page", when you refuse to discuss your edits on the talk page is disruptive. I have been asking you for specific examples of why my edits are "rubish", and you have yet to respond (excluding personal attacks, uncivil responses, and vague untrue statements).
3. Renaming the page two times while the topic was being considered for a merge is disruptive.
4. Your 3RR violations are disruptive.
5. Placing a 3RR violation banner on my talk page (when I have reverted the article twice, both of which were explained on the talk page) certaintly violates some policy, and is an attempt to stymie my contributions to this article.

I think you get the point. I understand that this debate has become a bit heated, and that other users could perhaps be accused of making a personal attack from time to time, but you are displaying the worst behaviour of anyone that I have interacted with on Wikipedia since joining the community. I really would prefer not to take administrative action because (1) it is a waste of my time, and (2) should not be necessary considering that we are both adults (I am assuming that if you actually played the game gravitor, that you are far from being an adolescent teen). I am asking once again that you please try to remain calm when participating in debates and attempt to be civil. Lunokhod 17:44, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

He's pretty much gone wild and stoped using the talk page for anything but WP:POINT and WP:NPA violations. Here he goes again: consider working to improve the encyclopedia, rather than just trolling others who are trying to write factual articles. Numskll 13:03, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Look, I'm not going to go any further with responding to this abuse. Please iuse the article talk page to discuss this. Gravitor 16:52, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Even with his block still going, Gravitor can still edit his user talk page, which he did, as you saw, deleting the complaints about personal attacks and calling it "trolling"... which is exactly the same behavior and wording that Carfiend used last summer when he got complaints on his talk page. Wahkeenah 20:26, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Please stop trolling my talk page.

Gravitor 09:43, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I have simply left a complaint on your talk page, which you have deleted and failed to respond to. Lunokhod 09:45, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

space wikiprojects

thanks for your note on my talk page; this is an issue i have been hoping to address for some time.. your work is much appreciated! :) Mlm42 10:38, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Your note

Hi Lunokhod, I am going to be fairly busy IRL in the next couple of days, and will not be able to invest the needed time to do a good job on the merge closing. Thanks for your understanding, Crum375 14:42, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, and thanks very much for the note you left on my talk page. I'm honored. I took a look at the discussion concerning "Proposed merge of Independent evidence for Apollo Moon landings into Apollo Moon Landing Hoax Accusations" and, woah man, that's quite a discussion! It'll take a little while to sift through before I could make an intelligent comment. But, thanks again! Petersoncello 15:43, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Merging of the quake article

All of the articles on quakes, besides of course earthquake were stubs. I've merged them to the main quake articles, where they can grow and then when they get long enough, they can be separate articles. Voortle 13:24, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

re: This discussion my talk

Sorry for the yelling. Please, next time inform me on my talk page if you have a comment on my behavior. I think that we would both agree that would be a more appropriate strategy. Lunokhod 19:55, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but that's unnecessary to me. I was pushing civility to make all of you take stock and perspective. I just thought a blunt word might be helpful given the overall dynamics. I'd put in the time to read much of that, so figured it might help.

I'd considered that (your talk only), but the others needed to hear that too. Wasn't really meaning to come down on you in particular 'too hard' so much as to make the points generally, and you do seem embroiled in controversies every time I run across you -- mostly with a fairly rigid stance behind those positions... so relax a little, and live and let live. That's probably an unfair perception, but while I'm indeed guarded on that, as I teach my teens, "Perceptions are other people's reality, and all they have to go bye when making judgment calls." At the very least, forgive it if offensive, as my intentions were good. By all means, use the Fact tagging.

As someone who does their bit to spread oil on troubled waters, this sort of thing is endemic in Wikipedia when people have strong beliefs or take the guidelines too rigidly... which ignores the disclaimer each and everyone of the tags carries that editorial latitude is also part of the processes and society. Be well, sincere best wishes. Just remember your personal bottom line matters a whole lot more than whatever happens in this environment where everything is subject to change--being edited unmercifully is the bottom line after all. Until that changes, things will always be a little contentious if you let them drift that way. Just take your best shot, and hope some of what you do sticks. Best regards // FrankB 20:22, 3 March 2007 (UTC) P.S. Edit conflict on your Part II. Bide a minute while I catch up.

Also, could you let me know what behavior your found to be confrontational? I will agree that if you read in isolation the section that you posted to, that I could be considered to be a potential jerk. But if you were to read the rest of the talk page, I don't see any examples of personal attacks, tendentious editing, trolling, and so on. As for wikilayering, you should realize that there is a merge proposal being considered, and the supermajority believe that this topic is in violation of wikipedia policy; the minority is wikilayering the meaning of "consensus", and I know of no other way to deal with this than by citing wikipedia policy. Thanks again for the heads up. Just to let you know, I am in charge of the WikiMoon project and have been editing over 200 diffferent articles. It is somewhat unsettling to have to deal with single purpose accounts, such as Gravitor's. Lunokhod 20:18, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't care to go into particulars, as I should be outside taking advantage of the warm spell for a carpentry project... I've got 50 2X4's awaiting me in my van, and am trying to finish a couple of VPP posts of my own. Suffice it to say that the comments were as much directed at the others there as yourself, and I know you to be pretty meticulous over content and references from that VPP discussion on WP:OR and moon cycles, and what-not back in December. But do bear in mind the power of the fact tags... and the weakness of always resorting to external authority to make your points. "A man convinced against his will is unconvinced still", as Franklin says. So legalisms are a weak reed in my way of thinking. Better to appeal to common sense, and if there is dispute over fact and fancy, the fact tags should be hung for a time (A good month-- patience is very necessary in this society!) and when you edit out any not backed up, the grain remains, and the chaff goes in the midden, just as it's always been in mankinds affairs. Set up a sub-page of to do's or desk, and just cycle back through things rather than pushing for quick and easy resolutions when things get into oppositional situtations. I may counter argue something once if necessary to clarify a matter, and rarely do so more than that. Maybe one time out of a hundred, a second rejoiner/rebuttal. Both second and third posts, if any, I try to present a compromise or two I can accept, and what I most oppose, and let the crowd decide on that. Then just live with the outcome. The existence of any article here has legitimacy in my view, as WP:NOTE is the newest and weakest patch in a mess of many patches, and I frankly disagree with much of it. The motivation is a band-aid on a self-inflicted stabbing--the wikipedia open editing policy, and failure to lock articles when they are sufficiently matured. Until we stop sticking the knife in ourselves, things will continue to slide into a so-so article quality. What's really needed is a sit down strike by the long experience and most mature admins to get the foundation board members still with idealistic stars in their eyes crowd to revise policy. But that's my opinion, hardly holy writ! Cheers! // FrankB 20:44, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Conversion templates

Hi, Lunokhod! Thank you kindly for your feedback. On documentation (mi|num vs. milnum), adding spaces on both sides of the pipe character should probably minimize the confusion→{{km to mi | num=...}}. I'll go through the documentation and fix it.

I also have no problem with creating additional templates (such as km to AU, kps to mph, etc.). Just let me know which are the priority and which ones exactly you need. I figured that units of length, area, and temperature were a no-brainer, so I made those first, but I have no clue as to what else people might want and/or use regularly.

Finally, regarding people pre-formatting the numbers, I am afraid this is not something that can be addressed. You see, the set of functions available for template creation is extremely limited; it is certainly not even close to what's available in a full-fledged programming language. We can only hope that when someone passes a pre-formatted number as a template parameter, s/he would double-check the result, see that it generates an error, make the corrections accordingly (and never pass pre-formatted numbers to a template parameter again :)). In any case, it is probably a point worth including into documentation, so I will do that as well.

Let me know if you have any further concerns and/or suggestions, please. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 22:52, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I was sort of away

Hi, sorry I didn't respond to your message. I was on something of an informal wikibreak, as I had started back at uni for the year. I'm not sure I really want to wade into the debate, since it could take an afternoon of reading to get to the bottom of it. And now the article is protected. Evil Monkey - Hello 03:30, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Lunarpedia

Greetings, you might be interested in Lunarpedia a public resource of the Moon society. Charles 01:46, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Image:MoonStructure.jpg

Just to let you know, the image you uploaded, Image:MoonStructure.jpg, has been submitted to the Graphic Lab for conversion to SVG. This request has been processed, and if you would like to comment on the new version, or offer feedback, the request can be seen here. -YK Times 18:54, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Help report

Please add comments: Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Carfiend. I think that the evidence is pretty strong: they act in tandem, tag team, and have very similar editorial styles. --ScienceApologist 01:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm guessing we're on the same wavelength

Hi, I notice your desire to put imperial units of measurement in the Moon article, but yet you state you dislike them. I notice you state you have a Ph.D (in science presumably) and I myself am doing a Masters in astrophysics studying pulsars. Like you, I also like improving scientific wikipedia articles so the general public can get a grasp on some of the complex things we study.

We could argue forever the percentage of the population that use imperial units (be that native english speaking population vs world population vs english speaking or whatever) but I think that's not addressing the issue. My main issue is readability. When an article has lots of conversions in brackets it looks and reads just awful! And scientific articles tend to have lots of numbers. Also though I ask the question does it convey any useful information? For example (and this was actually done until I removed it) the sun's density was quoted as "1.409 x 10³ kg/m³ (1.88 x 10² lb/US gallon)". This was just bizarre and totally useless. Endless sets of scientific numbers with miles, pounds, short-tons and fahrenheit sitting in brackets makes an awful mess. Is that what you think is really needed?

As I stated in Moon:Talk previously saying something like "the nearest star is 4.3 light years (4.07 x 10¹³ km) away" is so much better than "the nearest star is 4.3 light years (4.07 x 10¹³ km, 2.52 x 10¹³ miles) away". In fact I'd be supportive of leaving off the conversion to km as well - provided that light-year had been properly defined.

I'm asking to consider your goal of presenting scientific information in a way the user can understand. I'm really really sure that the percentage of the world's population that has no knowledge of a km and simply *must* have it in miles otherwise they'll leave the article would be insignificantly small. They would certainly be in the US only (and Burma and Liberia) and wikipedia is a worldwide tool. Not just a US tool.

We are scientists, we do everything in SI, have done for decades and life is so much easier for it.

My thoughts anyway.

Regards, Jim77742 03:48, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. The policy is that for scientific articles SI only is recommended. With consensus, imperial units can be removed. Keeping all astronomical bodies similar, consensus has been reached by many others to keep imperial units out of astronomical articles. As a major moon contributor you are part of that consensus. I would urge you to consider the usefulness of adding earth-moon distance in miles. I agree one or two conversions doesn't add too much clutter but that may open the floodgates for adding conversions everywhere. Why do you consider it important to have the earth-moon distance in miles? I'm trying, but I struggle to see its usefulness. (I'd much rather see a conversion to astronomical units in parenthesis than miles.)

Regards, Jim77742 23:37, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Agree that article should not be addressed to scientists - but what I don't understand is why you don't consider SI as suitable for the masses? As you know they are so much easier to use. Regards, Jim77742 22:14, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I award you The Editor's Barnstar!

		The Editor's Barnstar
		I hereby award you The Editor's Barnstar, for outstanding editorial contributions--Pico del Teide (talk) 17:17, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

CfD nomination of Category:Selenographers

Category:Selenographers, which you created, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. Cgingold (talk) 13:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

A new task force - ESA

Hello,

I've noticed that you are active in the area of space exploration. I just wanted to let you know that a European Space Agency task force has been set up to improve the presently very poor condition of articles about ESA and related topics. If you are interested, please join the task force here. We sure could use your help. Thanks.U5K0 (talk) 11:30, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Apollo Moon landing hoax accusers

An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is Apollo Moon landing hoax accusers. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Apollo Moon landing hoax accusers. Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:12, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Greeting

Glad to see you casting your expert eye again over things lunar .... Terry0051 (talk) 17:42, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi I just have some question/suggestions on this article regarding the Moon and the possibility of water on it. This is the article : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_water This article lacks a rating on the Importance Scale. I'm not sure how exactly to do that otherwise I would do it myself. Do you think you could add one?

By the way, do you happen to know if there is any water on the moon? Seeing as how you have a full time job studying the moon...--Mark0528 (talk) 20:31, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Moon

I have nominated Moon for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:41, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Spaceflight portals

Hello! As an member editor of one or more of the Spaceflight, Human spaceflight, Unmanned spaceflight, Timeline of spaceflight or Space colonisation WikiProjects, I'd like to draw to your attention a proposal I have made with regards to the future of the spaceflight-related portals, which can be found at Portal talk:Spaceflight#Portal merge. I'd very much appreciate any suggestions or feedback you'd be able to offer! Many thanks,

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Human spaceflight at 08:47, 9 November 2010 (UTC).

WikiProjects Moon and Mars activity

Hello there! As part of an effort to determine how many active editors are present in the space-related WikiProjects, some changes have been made to the lists of members of WikiProject Moon (here) and Mars (here). If you still consider yourself to be an active editor either of these projects, it would be appreciated if you would please edit the list so that your name is not struck out - thus a clearer idea of the number of active editors can be determined. Many thanks in advance!

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Solar System at 17:52, 3 December 2010 (UTC).

WikiProject Spaceflight activity

Hello there! As part of an effort to determine how many active editors are present in the spaceflight-related WikiProjects, changes have been made to the list of members of WikiProject Spaceflight. If you still consider yourself to be an active editor in this project, it would be appreciated if you would please edit the list so that your name is not struck out - thus a clearer idea of the number of active editors can be determined. Many thanks in advance!

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Spaceflight at 18:00, 3 December 2010 (UTC).

WikiProject Spaceflight reboot

Hello there! As you may or may not be aware, a recent discussion on the future of the Space-related WikiProjects has concluded, leading to the abolition of WP:SPACE and leading to a major reorganisation of WP:SPACEFLIGHT. It would be much appreciated if you would like to participate in the various ongoing discussions at the reorganisation page and the WikiProject Spaceflight talk page. If you are a member of one of WP:SPACEFLIGHT's child projects but not WP:SPACEFLIGHT itself, it would also be very useful if you could please add your name to the member list here. Many thanks!

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Spaceflight at 00:12, 6 December 2010 (UTC).

The Downlink: Issue 0

The Downlink
Your source for news on WikiProject Spaceflight	Issue 0, December 2010
Welcome to The Downlink · Reorganisation of Space WikiProjects · User Activity Checks Welcome to The Downlink Welcome to The Downlink, a new monthly newsletter intended to inform members of WikiProject Spaceflight about the latest developments in the project and its articles. Future issues will contain information on issues under discussion, newly featured content, and articles written by members of the project to appear in the newsletter. All members of WikiProject Spaceflight are invited to contribute any content that they would like to see in the newsletter. If you were not aware of being a member of WikiProject Spaceflight, membership of the former Human spaceflight, Unmanned spaceflight, Timeline of spaceflight and Space colonization WikiProjects was merged into WikiProject spaceflight during the reorganisation of the spaceflight projects, for more details, please see below. Reorganisation of Space WikiProjects The ongoing discussion of the future of Space WikiProjects has been making progress. WikiProject Space was abolished on 5 December 2010, with the Spaceflight, Astronomy and Solar System projects becoming independent of each other. On the same day, an assessment banner, {{WikiProject Spaceflight}} was created for WikiProject Spaceflight to replace the generic space one which had been used previously. On 9 December, WikiProject Space Colonization was abolished, with its tasks being subsumed into WikiProject Spaceflight. On 12 December, the Human spaceflight and Unmanned spaceflight WikiProjects became task forces of WikiProject Spaceflight, whilst WikiProject Timeline of spaceflight became a working group. A number of issues are still under discussion: Introducing better defined assessment criteria and an A-class review process Setting clearer importance criteria for assessing articles Establishing a joint task force with the Astronomy and Solar System projects to cover space telescopes and planetary probes Defining the roles of projects, taskforces and working groups, and processes for establishing new ones Improving the profile and activity of the project Much of the current discussion is taking place on the WikiProject Spaceflight talk page, however there is still some discussion on the original proposal page. User Activity Checks A series of checks are underway to establish the numbers of users who are still active within WikiProject Spaceflight, its task forces and working group. All usernames on the members lists were struck out, and members were asked to unstrike their own names if they were still an active member of the project. If you wish to do so, and have not already, please unstrike your name from the master list, plus the lists on any applicable task forces or working groups Published by WikiProject Spaceflight, if you have any content you wish to include in future newsletters, please contribute

You have recieved this newsletter because you are currently listed as a member of WikiProject Spaceflight, or because you are not a member but have requested it. If you do not wish to receive future issues, please add your name to the opt-out list.

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Spaceflight at 16:17, 16 December 2010 (UTC).

The Downlink: Issue 1

The Downlink
Your source for news on WikiProject Spaceflight	Issue 1, January 2011
Welcome to The Downlink · Project News · News from Orbit · Article News · Space Stations and the Push for Featured Topics · Salyut 2 Welcome to The Downlink Welcome to the first full issue of The Downlink, a new monthly newsletter intended to inform members of WikiProject Spaceflight about the latest developments in the project and its articles. Below you will find information about happenings within the project, our recognised content, spaceflight in the news and events needing to be covered in articles. You will also find an editorial about the first concerted effort to develop featured topics related to spaceflight, and an article in need of your help and improvements. Project News will provide details of discussions about and changes in the organisation and structure of the project, newly recognised content, and changes in membership. News from Orbit will summarise spaceflight news and upcoming events, and list suggestions for articles in need of updating as a result. Article News will give details of requests for assistance within articles, and discussions regarding content. All members of WikiProject Spaceflight are invited to contribute any content that they would like to see in the newsletter, and we would particularly welcome the submission of editorials, or an article about an area of spaceflight which you are working on, or particularly interested in. Please see The Downlink page for more details. Project News A new working group has been formed. The space stations working group is expected to work towards creating Featured topics related to space stations. It currently has three members. Discussion within the project is still dominated by the reorganisation proposals. A discussion over the formation and roles of working groups and task forces has led to some clarification regarding working groups, however the roles of the task forces remain vague, and several proposals to abolish them have surfaced. The Human Spaceflight to-do list has been merged into the main project to-do list, with the combined list currently located on the Tasks page of the Spaceflight portal. A discussion regarding opening relations with the Aerospace biography task force of Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation was held, but no conclusions were reached. The Article Alerts bot has resumed operation, and a problem with the information the bot had been delivering was discussed and resolved. New assessment criteria for importance and quality have been implemented, and refinements continue to be made to the importance scale. The scope of the project was redefined to exclude astronomical objects explicitly. Although A-class criteria have been defined, a review process is yet to be discussed or implemented. Colds7ream conducted an analysis of open tasks related to the reorganisation which four major issues remain unresolved: Discussion concerning the existence and roles of task forces within the project; recruitment of new editors; updating guidelines and whether the project or the task forces should be responsible for maintaining them; and the continued existence of the Human spaceflight portal six weeks after consensus was reached to abolish it. Discussion about the structure of the project is ongoing, with several proposals currently on the table. One proposal calls for the abolition of task forces in favour of increased emphasis on working groups, whilst another calls for the task forces to become a list of topics. The idea of a formal collaboration system has been suggested, however opposition has been raised. One of the main open tasks at the moment is replacing the older {{WikiProject Space}} and {{WikiProject Human spaceflight}} banners with the new {{WikiProject Spaceflight}} banner. Articles which need to be retagged are currently listed in Category:WikiProject Spaceflight articles using deprecated project tags. ChiZeroOne is doing a very good job replacing them, but as of the morning of 31 December, there are still 1,424 left to be converted. Additionally, the implementation of a new B-class checklist built into the template has necessitated the reassessment of former B-class articles, which the template has automatically classified as C-class. News from Orbit On 3 December, USA-212, the first X-37B, landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base after a successful mission. On 5 December Proton-M with a Blok DM-03 upper stage failed to place three Glonass-M satellites into orbit, the first of three failures in less than forty eight hours. The NanoSail-D2 spacecraft was supposed to have been ejected from FASTSAT in the early hours of the next morning, however it does not appear to have separated. Finally the Akatsuki spacecraft failed to enter orbit around Venus in the evening of 6 December. The Proton launch was the maiden flight of the Blok DM-03, which does not currently have an article. On 8 December the Dragon C1 demonstration mission was conducted, with the SpaceX Dragon making a little under two orbits of the Earth on its maiden flight, before landing in the Pacific Ocean to complete a successful mission. The Falcon 9 rocket which launched the Dragon spacecraft also deployed eight CubeSats: SMDC-ONE 1, QbX-1, QbX-2, Perseus 000, Perseus 001, Perseus 002, Perseus 003 and Mayflower. The CubeSats do not currently have articles. On 15 December, a Soyuz-FG launched Soyuz TMA-20 to the International Space Station, carrying three members of the Expedition 26 crew. It docked two days later. The Soyuz TMA-20 article is currently short, and could use improvements to bring it up to the same level as articles for US manned spaceflights. On 17 December, a Long March 3A launched Compass-IGSO2. There is currently no article for this satellite. 17 December saw Intelsat regain control of the Galaxy 15 satellite, which had been out of control since a malfunction in April. The Galaxy 15 article is in need of serious cleanup and a good copyedit. On 25 December a GSLV Mk.I failed to place GSAT-5P into orbit. A Proton-M with a Briz-M upper stage successfully launched KA-SAT on 26 December. Barring any suborbital launches at the end of the month which have not yet been announced (a NASA Black Brant was scheduled for December but does not appear to have flown), 2010 in spaceflight concluded on 29 December when an Ariane 5ECA launched the Hispasat-1E and Koreasat 6 spacecraft. These do not currently have articles. Four launches are currently scheduled to occur in January 2011. A Delta IV Heavy is expected to launch NRO L-49 on 17 January. The satellite is expected to be an Improved Crystal electro-optical imaging spacecraft. Two launches are planned for 20 January, with Kounotori 2, the second H-II Transfer Vehicle, being launched by an H-IIB, and the Zenit-3F making its maiden flight to deploy Elektro-L No.1, the first Russian geostationary weather satellite to be launched since 1994. On 28 January Progress M-09M will be launched by a Soyuz-U. 28 January will also be the twenty-fifth anniversary of the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-51-L. Article News It was requested that the article Walter Haeussermann be expanded. Haeussermann, a member of the von Braun rocket group, died on 8 December. Although the article has been updated following his death, a user requested that more information about the engineer be added. Another user requested that the articles Commercial Space Launch Act and Launch Services Purchase Act be created, to cover laws of the United States concerning spaceflight. Articles related to methods of taking-off and landing were discussed. The term VTVL currently has an article whilst VTHL and HTHL do not. It was suggested that the existing article should be merged, and each term be covered by the article for the equivalent aviation term, however some distinction between use in the fields of aviation and spaceflight should remain. Concern was raised that a large scale deletion request could cause many images to be lost from articles, help was requested to investigate whether any of the images were not subject to copyright, or if they were then whether they could be uploaded to the English Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. Concerns were raised about a large amount of content in the newly-created article deorbit of Mir duplicating existing content in existing Good Article Progress M1-5. A proposal to merge deorbit of Mir into Progress M1-5 was made, however objections were raised, and discussion has since stalled without reaching a consensus. It has also been requested that the article Mir be copyedited. The existence of separate categories for "spaceflight" and "space exploration" has been questioned, with a suggestion that some of the exploration categories, including Category:Space exploration iteslf, should be merged into their spaceflight counterparts. Missile Range Instrumentation Ship is currently listed at requested moves, with a proposal to rename it tracking ship. The only open good article nomination is of the book Mission: Earth, Voyage to the Home Planet, which is currently awaiting review. Editorial – Space Stations and the Push for Featured Topics There has recently been much talk about trying to increase the activity of the project. To this end, a major reorganisation effort has been undertaken, which has seen the space WikiProjects separated into the Astronomy, Solar System and Spaceflight groups, with WikiProject Space being abolished. We have also seen the child projects of WikiProject Spaceflight being abolished, with Timeline of Spaceflight becoming a working group, and the Unmanned and Human Spaceflight projects becoming task forces for now, with some suggestions that they should be abolished outright. The problem with the previous structure was that there were too many different groups of editors, and nobody was sure which projects were supposed to be doing what. Now there is only one project, this is somewhat clearer, but spaceflight is still a huge topic. Another way to improve the activity of the project is to attract more editors. Spaceflight is a topic which many people have at least a very casual interest in, and therefore it is strange that there are only about four or five people regularly participating in discussions on the project talk page. Evidently action is needed to raise the profile of the project. One way in which the project's profile can be raised is to have a major success associated with it. The creation of a featured topic could be one such success, and would also be hugely beneficial to articles in the area that it relates to. Space Stations are one of the most high-profile and notable areas of spaceflight, and are therefore a logical choice to spearhead such an initiative. To this end, in late December a working group was established to concentrate and coordinate efforts to establish featured topics related to space stations. An initial proposal calls for topics on Skylab, Salyut, Mir and the International Space Station, as well as one on space stations in general. There is currently an effort to get Mir promoted to Good Article status; the article currently requires a copyedit, after which it will be sent for peer review and then to GAN. This is by no means a short-term project. There are many articles, particularly for the larger space stations such as the ISS and Mir, which are currently nowhere near becoming recognised content. Skylab is the smallest of the proposed featured topics, but it still requires that three C-class articles, two Start-class articles and a redirect all reach at least Good Article status, with at least three becoming Featured Articles. The ISS topic is so large that it may have to be subdivided. I don't expect that we will have any featured topics by the end of the year, but I believe that a Good Topic, which requires all articles reach at least GA status, but does not require any featured articles, may be possible. I also believe that several articles on the subject can easily be improved to Good Article status, and some articles may be at featured level by the end of the year. In the long term, having featured topics will benefit the project and its content. Selected Article – Salyut 2 Salyut 2 was an early space station, launched in 1973 as part of the Salyut and Almaz programmes. It malfunctioned two days after launch, and consequently was never visited by a manned Soyuz mission. The Salyut 2 article describes the station: “ Salyut 2 (OPS-1)(Russian: Салют-2; English: Salute 2) was launched April 4, 1973. It was not really a part of the same program as the other Salyut space stations, instead being the highly classified prototype military space station Almaz. It was given the designation Salyut 2 to conceal its true nature. Despite its successful launch, within two days the as-yet-unmanned Salyut 2 began losing pressure and its flight control failed; the cause of the failure was likely due to shrapnel piercing the station when the discarded Proton rocket upper stage that had placed it in orbit later exploded nearby. On April 11, 1973, 11 days after launch, an unexplainable accident caused the two large solar panels to be torn loose from the space station cutting off all power to the space station. Salyut 2 re-entered on May 28, 1973. ” The article is currently assessed as start class, and is in need of attention. It consists of the above paragraph, along with a list of specifications and an infobox. The article needs to be rewritten in a more encyclopaedic style, and with more information about the space station. It has not yet been determined whether Salyut 2 would have to be included in a featured topic about the Salyut programme, or whether since it was never manned it is less integral to the topic, however if its inclusion were necessary then in its current form it would be a major impediment to this. Downlink readers are encouraged to improve this article, with a view to getting it to B-class and possibly a viable Good Article candidate by the end of the month. Published by WikiProject Spaceflight, if you have any content you wish to include in future newsletters, please contribute

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Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Spaceflight at 15:02, 1 January 2011 (UTC).

The Downlink: Issue 2

The Downlink
Your source for news on WikiProject Spaceflight	Issue 2, February 2011
Project News · News from Orbit · Article News · The Charts · Yuri Gagarin Project News A report on popular pages from December 2010 revealed surprising trends in readers' interests. Boeing X-37 was the most popular article within the project's scope, with SpaceX Dragon in second with Global Positioning System in third place. The top seven articles were all assessed as C-class, with the remainder of the top ten being Good Articles. It was noted with some concern that moon landing conspiracy theories was more popular than moon landing. A discussion regarding whether missiles warranted inclusion within the project scope was conducted, and resulted in the continued inclusion of missiles. The last remaining articles tagged with the banner of the former Human Spaceflight WikiProject were re-tagged with the WikiProject Spaceflight banner. The last banner was removed on 8 January, and the template has since been deleted. The project is thankful to ChiZeroOne for his work in this field. Concerns were raised that the new article reporting system was not working correctly, however it was noted that there is sometimes a delay before articles appear on the list. Discussion regarding the existence of the separate spaceflight and space exploration category structures led to a mass CfD being filed on 10 January to abolish the space exploration categories, merging them into their counterparts in the spaceflight category structure. This was successful, and the exploration categories have been removed. Several other categorisation issues remain unresolved. A proposal was made to standardise some of the infoboxes used by the project, the future of Template:Infobox spacecraft (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) was discussed, and design work began on a replacement. Template:Rocket specifications-all (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) was nominated for deletion and subsequently kept due to extant substitutions, however it was noted that the template had been deprecated by WikiProject Rocketry. Concerns were also raised that the existing infoboxes were not well-equipped to handle spacecraft which operated in more than one orbit, or whose orbits changed over the course of their missions (which in practise is most of them). Five members of the project gave interviews for the Wikipedia Signpost, and a report on the project, authored by SMasters (talk · contribs), is expected to be published in the 7 February edition of the Signpost. It is hoped that this will raise interest in and awareness of the project. News from orbit Four orbital launches were conducted in January, beginning on 20 January with the launch of Elektro-L No.1 on the first Zenit-3F rocket. This was followed later the same day by the launch of a Delta IV Heavy with the USA-224 reconnaissance satellite. The articles for USA-224 and the Zenit-3F rocket could use some expansion, whilst the Elektro-L No.1 satellite needs its own article. On 22 January, an H-IIB launched the second H-II Transfer Vehicle, Kounotori 2, to resupply the International Space Station. It arrived at the station on 27 January. Less than a day after its arrival, another cargo mission was launched to the station; Progress M-09M departed Baikonur early in the morning of 28 January, docking on 30 January. In addition to payloads to resupply the station, the Progress spacecraft is carrying a small subsatellite, Kedr, which will be deployed in February. Kedr does not currently have an article. Progress M-08M departed on 24 January to make the Pirs module available for Progress M-09M, and has since reentered the atmosphere. Its article needs to be updated to reflect the successful completion of its mission. The NanoSail-D2 satellite, which failed to deploy from FASTSAT in December, unexpectedly separated from its parent craft and began operations on 18 January, with its solar sail deploying on 21 January. Nine orbital launches are scheduled to occur in February, beginning with the launch of the first Geo-IK-2 satellite; Geo-IK-2 No.11, atop a Rokot/Briz-KM, on the first day of the month. Articles need to be written for the Geo-IK-2 series of satellites, as well as for Geo-IK-2 No.11 itself, and the Briz-KM upper stage that will be used to insert it into orbit. A Minotaur I rocket will launch NRO L-66, a classified payload for the US National Reconnaissance Office, on 5 February. The payload has not yet been identified, however once more details are known, it will need an article. Iran is expected to launch the Rasad 1 and Fajr 1 satellites in February, with 14 February the reported launch date. The satellites will fly aboard a single rocket; either the first Simorgh or the third Safir. Once this launch occurs, the satellites will need articles, and the article on their carrier rocket will require updating. The second Automated Transfer Vehicle, Johannes Kepler, is scheduled to launch on 15 February to resupply the ISS. Docking is expected to occur on 23 February. 23 February will also see the much-delayed launch of Glory atop a Taurus-XL 3110 rocket. This will be the first Taurus launch since the launch failure in early 2009 which resulted in the loss of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory. In addition to Glory, three CubeSats will be deployed; KySat-1, Hermes and Explorer-1 [PRIME]. KySat and Hermes require articles, whilst the article on Explorer-1 [PRIME] needs to be updated. On 24 February, a Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat rocket will launch the first Glonass-K1 satellite; Glonass-K1 No.11. Articles are needed for the series of spacecraft, as well as for the specific satellite being launched. It is likely that a Kosmos designation will be given to the payload when it reaches orbit. In the evening of 24 February, Space Shuttle Discovery will begin its final mission, STS-133, carrying the Permanent Multipurpose Module, a conversion of the Leonardo MPLM, to the ISS. Other payloads include an ExPRESS Logistics Carrier, and the Robonaut2 experimental robot. The first manned mission of 2011, Discovery's six-man crew will transfer equipment to the station, and two EVAs will be performed. The launch has already been scrubbed five times, before Discovery was rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building to inspect and repair cracks on its External Tank. At some point in February, a Long March 3B rocket is expected to launch two navigation satellites; Compass-M2 and Compass-M3, as part of the Compass navigation system. The date of this launch is currently unknown. Both satellites will require articles once more information is available. A PSLV launch, carrying the Resourcesat-2, X-Sat and YouthSat spacecraft, is expected to launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre towards the end of the month, probably between 20 and 23 February. Stop press: The Rokot launch was conducted at 14:00 UTC on 1 February, and at the time of writing it appears to have ended in failure, due to a suspected upper stage malfunction. The spacecraft is in orbit, it is not clear at the time of writing whether it will be salvageable. Article news Reaction Engines Skylon is currently undergoing peer review, its discussion page can be found at Wikipedia:Peer review/Reaction Engines Skylon/archive1. A user requested feedback on major changes which had been made to the article, however at the time of writing no responses have been offered. Following up on the issues covered in the last issue, the requested move of Missile Range Instrumentation Ship to Tracking ship was successful, with the article being renamed. The discussion concerning types of launch and landing resulted in a proposal to merge VTVL into VTOL, however this has been met with some opposition. Several other options have been suggested on Talk:VTVL. The large scale deletion of mis-tagged Soviet images on Commons went ahead, with most of the useful ones having already been backed-up locally under fair use criteria. Discussion was held regarding the naming of spaceflight-related articles. Concerns were raised regarding inconsistency in article titles and disambiguators. A project guideline was adopted to standardise titles, with the parenthesised disambiguators "(satellite)" and "(spacecraft)" being adopted as standards for spacecraft, and the exclusion of manufacturers' names from article titles was recommended. Issues regarding Japanese spacecraft with two names, the correct names for early Apollo missions, and dealing with acronyms and abbreviated names remain unresolved. A large number of articles were moved to conform to the standard disambiguation pattern. In addition, several Requested Moves were debated. A proposal to move SpaceX Dragon to Dragon (spacecraft), which began prior to the adoption of the standardised disambiguators, was successful. Atmospheric reentry was subject to two requested moves, firstly one which would have seen it renamed spacecraft atmospheric reentry, which was unsuccessful, however a second proposal shortly afterwards saw it moved to atmospheric entry. A proposal currently under discussion could see Lunar rover (Apollo) renamed Lunar Roving Vehicle Questions surrounding the transliteration of Russian names resurfaced, with a proposal to rename Vladimir Chelomey to Vladimir Chelomei being closed with no consensus, and a proposal to rename Yury Usachov to Yuri Usachev ongoing. Several long-standing merger proposals were closed. A proposal to merge Venera 15 and Venera 16 into Venera 15 and 16 was closed as no consensus, with the combined page being moved to Venera 4V-2 to reduce the overlap in the articles' scopes. Returnable satellite was merged into Fanhui Shi Weixing. Experimental Assembly of Structures in EVA and Assembly Concept for Construction of Erectable Space Structures was nominated for Good Article reassessment due to concerns over the article's quality. Doubts were also expressed over the thoroughness of the original review conducted upon its nomination for GA status. It was also suggested that the article's title may not be the most common name for the experiment, and that it might be necessary to move the page. Concerns were also raised regarding whether Space Interferometry Mission was up-to-date, however these are being addressed. Mission: Earth, Voyage to the Home Planet looks likely to be promoted to GA status. Help was requested for adding citations to List of Mir spacewalks. A request was made that STS-88 be reviewed against the B class criteria, and suggestions for improvements made. Another user requested improvements to the article Yuri Gagarin, with a view to having the article promoted to featured status in time for the fiftieth anniversary of his Vostok 1 mission. As a result of this request, Yuri Gagarin is this month's selected article. Questions were raised as to whether an article or category should be created to cover derelict satellites. The categorisation of spacecraft by the type of rocket used to place them into orbit was also suggested. In another categorisation issue, it was questioned whether Space law should fall under space or spaceflight. Stop press: Mission: Earth, Voyage to the Home Planet has now been promoted to GA status. The Charts There is no editorial this month as no content was submitted for one. Instead, we present the "top ten" most popular articles within the project, based on the number of page views in January. Space Shuttle Challenger disaster was the most popular article of the last month, up fourteen places from 15th in December. Space Shuttle Challenger was the highest climber in the top 40, up 42 places from 50th. December's most popular article. Boeing X-37, dropped 57 places to 58th. On a happier note further down the chart, moon landing is now ahead of moon landing conspiracy theories. № Article Movement 1 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster ↑14 (15) 2 Richard Branson ↑5 (7) 3 Neil Armstrong ↑2 (5) 4 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster ↑16 (20) 5 Global Positioning System ↓2 (3) 6 Apollo 11 ↑2 (8) 7 Satellite ↑4 (11) 8 Space Shuttle Challenger ↑42 (50) 9 Apollo 13 ↓3 (6) 10 NASA ↓1 (9) For the full list of the top 1,500 popular pages within the project, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Spaceflight/Popular pages (or the archived record for January). Selected Article: Yuri Gagarin Yuri Gagarin was the first man to fly in space, aboard Vostok 1 in April 1961. He was subsequently awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, and was training for a second flight at the time of his death in 1968. His article describes him and his spaceflight experience: “ Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (Russian: Ю́рий Алексе́евич Гага́рин, Russian pronunciation: [ˈjurʲɪj ɐlʲɪˈksʲeɪvʲɪtɕ ɡɐˈɡarʲɪn]; 9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968), Hero of the Soviet Union, was a Soviet cosmonaut who on 12 April 1961 became the first human to journey into outer space. On 12 April 1961, Gagarin became the first man to travel into space, launching to orbit aboard the Vostok 3KA-3 (Vostok 1). His call sign in this flight was Kedr (Cedar; Russian: Кедр). During his flight, Gagarin famously whistled the tune "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows" (Russian: "Родина слышит, Родина знает"). The first two lines of the song are: "The Motherland hears, the Motherland knows/Where her son flies in the sky". This patriotic song was written by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1951 (opus 86), with words by Yevgeniy Dolmatovsky. ” The article is currently assessed as C class, and had been assessed as B class prior to the criteria being redefined. Although a full reassessment has not yet been made, it seems close to the B class criteria, however details on his spaceflight experiences are somewhat lacking. It has been requested that the article be developed to Featured status by April, in time for the fiftieth anniversary of his mission. Published by WikiProject Spaceflight, if you have any content you wish to include in future newsletters, please contribute

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Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Spaceflight at 00:36, 2 February 2011 (UTC).

The Downlink: Issue 3

The Downlink
Your source for news on WikiProject Spaceflight	Issue 3, March 2011
Project News News from Orbit Article News Direction of the Project The Charts Europa Project News There have been very few discussions relating to the administration of the project in the last month, as things start to settle down after the merger. An invitation template has been created in an effort to attract new users to the project. Discussion was also held regarding the creation of a list of common templates, however no conclusions were reached. A proposal was made to implement an A-class assessment process, however editors are undecided about whether it would be best to copy the system used by another project such as WP:MILHIST, or to develop one specifically for the requirements of this project. User:ChiZeroOne has set up a collaboration page in his userspace, initially focussing on articles related to Skylab. Collaboration pages were at one point proposed as part of the structure of the Spaceflight project itself, however no consensus was achieved on the issue. If this collaboration is successful, it could open the door to a reevaluation of that situation. News from orbit Five orbital launches were conducted in February, out of nine planned. The first, that of the Geo-IK-2 No.11 satellite atop a Rokot/Briz-KM ended in failure after the upper stage malfunctioned. The Rokot has since been grounded pending a full investigation; the satellite is in orbit, but has been determined to be unusable for its intended mission. A replacement is expected to launch within the year. A general article on Geo-IK-2 satellites is needed, to supplement those on the individual satellites. A Minotaur I rocket launched USA-225, or NROL-66, on 6 February following a one-day delay. The second Automated Transfer Vehicle, Johannes Kepler, was successfully launched on 16 February to resupply the ISS. Docking occurred successfully on 24 February, several hours before Space Shuttle Discovery launched on its final flight, STS-133. Discovery docked with the ISS on 26 February, delivering the Leonardo module and an ExPRESS Logistics Carrier to the station. Following several delays, a Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat rocket launched the first Glonass-K1 satellite; Glonass-K1 No.11, on 26 February. It is currently unclear as to whether the satellite has received a Kosmos designation or not. Seven launches are expected to occur in March. On 4 March, the Glory satellite will launch atop a Taurus-XL 3110 rocket. Three CubeSats will be also be deployed by the Taurus; KySat-1, Hermes and Explorer-1 [Prime]. KySat and Hermes require articles, whilst the article on Explorer-1 [PRIME] needs to be updated. This launch was originally scheduled for February, but following a scrubbed launch attempt, it was delayed. 4 March will also see the launch of the first flight of the second X-37B, atop an Atlas V 501. An article is needed for that flight, which will probably receive a USA designation once it reaches orbit. On 8 March, Discovery is expected to land, bringing to an end the STS-133 mission, and retiring from service 27 years after its maiden flight. On 11 March, a Delta IV Medium+(4,2) will launch the NROL-27 payload. Whilst the identity of this payload is classified, it is widely believed to be a Satellite Data System communications satellite, bound for either a molniya or geostationary orbit. An article for this payload is required. 16 March will see the return to Earth of Soyuz TMA-01M, carrying three members of the ISS Expedition 26 crew. A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle is expected to deploy the Resourcesat-2, X-Sat and YouthSat spacecraft during a launch in March. The flight has been delayed several times, and was expected to have launched last month, however it is currently scheduled to occur no earlier than 20 March. On 29 March, an Ariane 5ECA will launch the Yahsat 1A and New Dawn communications satellites. Both currently require articles. On 30 March, a Soyuz-FG will launch the manned Soyuz TMA-21 mission to the International Space Station carrying three Expedition 27 crewmembers. On 31 March, a Proton-M/Briz-M launch will carry the SES-3 and Kazsat-2 spacecraft into orbit, in the first dual-launch of commercial communications satellites on a Proton. Several other launches may occur in March, however their status is unclear. Last month, a Long March 3B rocket was expected to launch two navigation satellites; Compass-M2 and Compass-M3, however this launch did not take place. It is unclear if it has been delayed to March, or further. The launch of the Tianlian 2 communications satellite on a Long March 3C may also be conducted in March, or possibly April. Both the Compass and Tianlian launches would occur from the same launch pad, which requires a turnaround of almost a month between launches, so it is unlikely that both will happen in March. A Safir launch, which had been expected in February, now appears to have been delayed to April, but given the secrecy of the Iranian space programme, this is unclear. Article news Discussion regarding the merger of articles on launch and landing modes seems to have stagnated, with no consensus being reached on any existing proposal. A discussion regarding changes in the sizes of Soviet and American rockets during the 1950s and early 1960s was conducted, with claims that rockets became smaller in that period being dismissed, however it was noted that smaller rockets were developed with equivalent capacity to older ones were developed, as well as much larger ones with increased capacities. Category:Derelict satellites orbiting Earth was created as a result of discussion surrounding the categorisation of derelict satellites. Concerns have also been raised that satellites are being listed as no longer being in orbit whilst still in orbit and derelict, and a discussion was held on how their status could be verified. An effort to categorise spacecraft by the type of rocket used to launch them is underway, however the categorisation of satellites by country of launch was rejected. It was reported that a sidebar has been created for articles related to the core concepts of spaceflight. Editors noted that it should only be used for core concepts, and not where it would conflict with an infobox. An anonymous user requested the creation of an article on moon trees. It was pointed out that the subject already had an article, and a redirect was created at the title proposed by the anonymous user. Concerns were raised regarding the quality of the article Japan's space development. Editors noted that the article appeared to be a poorly-translated copy of an article from the Japanese Wikipedia, although there have been some signs of improvement. Discussion regarding moving the article to Japanese space program is ongoing, however a move request has not yet been filed. A particular concern was raised regarding false claims in the article Van Allen radiation belt. In one case a scientist to whom one of the claims had been attributed was contacted, and clarified that he had made a remark to that effect as a joke in the 1960s, but was not entirely sure how or why it had been included in the article. Other concerns were raised before the discussion moved to WikiProject Astronomy. A question was raised regarding the copyright status of images credited to both NASA and ESA, particularly with regard to images of the launch of the Johannes Kepler ATV. The discussion reached no general conclusions, however it was found that the specific images that were suggested for inclusion in the article could be used, since they were explicitly declared to be in the public domain. A template, Template:Spaceflight landmarks (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), was created to cover landmarks in the United States that are related to spaceflight. Several sources of public-domain NASA images were also discussed, and it was noted that almost all NASA images are public domain, however there are some exceptions. It has been proposed that Leonardo MPLM be merged with Permanent Multipurpose Module since the two cover separate uses of the same spacecraft. A review of the article STS-88 has also been requested. Three new Good Articles have been listed: Mission: Earth, Voyage to the Home Planet, Bold Orion and SA-500D. Orion (spacecraft) was delisted after concerns that it contained out-of-date content. SA-500D is currently undergoing good article reassessment, using the community reassessment method, after the review of its good article nomination was criticised for being lenient and not sufficiently thorough. Mir, Mark E. Kelly and Reaction Engines Skylon have been nominated for Good Article status and are awaiting review, whilst List of Mir spacewalks is undergoing a peer review with a view to it becoming a featured list. Editorial: Direction of the Project Well folks, its now been more than three months since the discussion that reformed the space-related WikiProjects, and in that time we've had a number of achievements we can be rightly proud of; we've gathered members up to a total of 43, improved awareness of the project via an interview in the Signpost, and refreshed the spaceflight portal into an attractive, up-to-date and useful page. Meanwhile, User:ChiZeroOne has made a sterling effort in clearing up talk page templates belonging to prior projects, we've managed to sort out various policies, started work on rearranging our templates, and User:GW Simulations has begun this excellent monthly newsletter for us. However, there are a few areas of the project that seem to be passing by the wayside, specifically the areas dedicated to fostering collaboration on articles and article sets between the project members, so here I present a call for more collaboration on the project. Presumably, the lack of collaboration is due to folks not being aware of what's going on, so here's a quick rundown of some of the ways you get involved in the group effort. Firstly, and most importantly, it'd be fantastic if more members got involved in the discussions ongoing at the project's main talk page, found at WT:SPACEFLIGHT. There are several discussions ongoing there, such as the relaunch of the spacecraft template, requests for assistance with various assessment and copyright queries, and conversations regarding category organisations, which affect many more articles, and thus editors, than are currently represented in the signatures so far. Secondly, it was established earlier on in the project's formation that a great way to attract more editors would be to develop some good or featured topics. There are a couple of efforts ongoing to try to see this idea to fruition, such as the Space stations working group and ChiZeroOne's own collaboration page, currently focussed on Skylab-related articles. These pages, however, have been notably lacking in activity lately, which is a shame, as their aims, given enough editor input, would really see the project furthering itself. Similarly, there are a number of requests for assessment for articles to be promoted to GA class, among other things, on the Open tasks page, which lists all of the activities needing input from members. If everyone could add this page to their watchlists and swing by it regularly, we could power through the good topics in extremely short order! Other things that could do with being added to people's watchlists include Portal:Spaceflight/Next launch‎, the many templates at Template:Launching/Wrappers and the task list at Portal:Spaceflight/Tasks. Finally, I'd like to try and get people involved in finally settling the organisational problem we have with reference to the task forces and working groups. Whilst the Timeline of spaceflight working group is a continuation of the old Timeline of spaceflight WikiProject and thus is ticking over nicely and the space stations working group has been mentioned previously in this editorial, the task forces (Human spaceflight and Unmanned spaceflight) in particular are currently dead in the water. I'm unsure as to whether or not this is because people are unaware of their existence, they clash too much with one another and the rest of the project or because people don't see a need for them, but if interested parties could make themselves known and others voice suggestions for getting rid of them, we can decide either if they're worth keeping and get them running again, or do away with a layer of bureaucracy and close them down. Any thoughts on the matter would be much appreciated. In summary, then, we've got a great project going here, with a nice set of articles, a good editor base and lots of ways of getting involved. Thus, a plea goes out to everyone to get involved, get editing with the other project members, and hopefully we'll see ourselves take off in a manner not dissimilar to the trajectory dear old Discovery took last week. Many thanks for everyone's hard work so far, and poyekhali! :-) The Charts Since it is useful to keep track of the most viewed pages within the project's scope, it seems like a good idea to continue this feature, which was originally included in last month's issue as a one-off. Satellite was the most popular article of February, up six places from seventh in December. STS-133 was the highest climber in the top 10, up 78 places from 88th. January's most popular article, Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, dropped seven places to eighth. Moon landing remains ahead of moon landing conspiracy theories for the second month in a row. Of the top ten, two articles are featured content, two are listed as Good Articles, and the remaining six are assessed as C-class. № Article Movement 1 Satellite ↑6 (7) 2 Space Shuttle ↑11 (13) 3 NASA ↑7 (10) 4 Neil Armstrong ↓1 (4) 5 Apollo 13 ↑4 (9) 6 Global Positioning System ↓1 (5) 7 International Space Station ↑5 (12) 8 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster ↓7 (1) 9 Apollo 11 ↓3 (6) 10 STS-133 ↑78 (88) For the full list of the top 1,500 popular pages within the project, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Spaceflight/Popular pages (or the archived record for February). Selected Article: Europa Europa was a rocket developed by a multinational European programme in the 1960s. Consisting of British, French and German stages, it was intended to provide a European alternative to the US rockets used for the launch of most Western satellites to that date. Although the British Blue Streak first stage performed well on all flights, problems with the French and German stages, as well as the Italian-built payload fairing, resulted in the failure of all multistage test flights and orbital launch attempts. The programme was abandoned after the failure of the Europa II's maiden flight in 1971. The article Europa (rocket), describes it: “ The Europa rocket was an early expendable launch system of the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO), which was the precursor to the European Space Agency and its Ariane family of launchers. The programme was initiated by the UK and the first launch occurred in August 1967. Tasks were to be distributed between nations: the United Kingdom would provide the first stage (derived from the Blue Streak missile), France would build the second and Germany the third stage. The Europa programme was divided into 4 successive projects : Europa 1: 4 unsuccessful launches Europa 2: 1 unsuccessful launch Europa 3: Cancelled before any launch occurred Europa 4: Study only, later cancelled The project was marred by technical problems. Although the first stage (the British Blue Streak) launched successfully on each occasion, it was the second or third stage that failed. ” The article is currently assessed as start-class, and is missing a lot of information. It also lacks some basic features such as inline citations. Since Europa was a fairly major programme, enough information should be available to produce a much higher quality article, and it could probably be brought up to GA status with enough effort. Published by WikiProject Spaceflight, if you have any content you wish to include in future newsletters, please contribute

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Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of Spaceflight at 09:26, 3 March 2011 (UTC).

WP:ECLIPSES

As a Moon expert, I wonder if you may any intimate knowledge of eclipses and just wanted to make you aware of the project. Cheers. --TimL (talk) 14:48, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Anoncoin

Hello Lunokhod,

I wanted to let you know that I just tagged Anoncoin for deletion, because the article doesn't clearly say why the subject is important enough to be included in an encyclopedia.

If you feel that the article shouldn't be deleted and want more time to work on it, you can contest this deletion, but please don't remove the speedy deletion tag from the top.

You can leave a note on my talk page if you have questions. Ging287 (talk) 19:25, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Sun

Template:Sun has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Ricky81682 (talk) 22:23, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:21, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Keep up the good work

From one scientist to another, just wanted to say keep up the good work. Wiki needs more PhD editors reenforcing the facts on controversial topics.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:13, 3 November 2018 (UTC)