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

The article was promoted by Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 6 September 2019 [1].

Project Rover

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Nominator(s): Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:19, 27 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The people that build the atomic bombs decide to become rocket scientists. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:19, 27 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sources review

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  • No spotchecks carried out
  • Links to sources all working, per the checker tool
  • Formats:
  • Quality/reliability
  • The publisher for ref 99 is given as NASA, but are you sure about this? The article is written in a rather informal style, and the format is quite different from that of the NASA website. It's an interesting article, but it reads rather like a private blog, perhaps based on data obtained from NASA. (Would NASA refer you to "course notes for Physics 6"?)
    It's part of NASA's Public Outreach and Education (POETRY) program. See [2]. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:09, 5 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Otherwise, the sources appear to meet the required FA criteria.

Brianboulton (talk) 19:48, 5 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Vanamonde

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Read through "Pewee"; more to come later. Vanamonde (Talk) 22:03, 15 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Vanamonde93: Hi! Will you have further remarks? --Laser brain (talk) 14:04, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Laser brain: (and Hawkeye) due apologies, I'd forgotten I hadn't finished this. I'd like to finish up; I will do my best to do so today; but if I'm the only one holding up the review, feel free to close it. Vanamonde (Talk) 14:36, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Resuming: am I missing where you explain why RIFT was cancelled?
    I didn't cover it. Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:27, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Link, and I'd suggest gloss also, "half-lives".
  • Linked. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:27, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The acronym NTS is used once; I'd suggest dispensing with it altogether.
    Dispensed with. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:27, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "reactor could not be destroyed in space by blowing it up into small pieces." It's unclear why they would want to do so; I assume its for disposal, but I don't think I should have to read on to find that out.
    Added "so another method had to be found for disposing of it at the end of a space mission" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:27, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and it made it harder to charge the Soviets with violating the treaty." It's ambiguous whether the Soviets actually violated the treaty, or whether the US wanted to charge them for no good reason.
    My sources don't say. It appears that they had something in mind, but I cannot find it. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:27, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The accidents paragraph seems rather out of place, but to be quite honest it's hard to find a better place; would it possible to introduce one of the deaths at a point where its related to material you're discussing, and then shoehorn in the others there?
    Don't think so. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:27, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Link/explain "curies"
    Linked. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:27, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • To me, the first sentence of "Cancellation" has too heavy an editorial voice, and comes across as being unnecessarily "pro-Rover", if you will. There's many possible fixes, but I'll leave it up to you to tweak it.
  • Same with the first sentence of the next, specifically the word "plenty".
    Changed to "many" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:27, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cannon needs a gloss in the body
    I don't know what you are asking for. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:27, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm asking you to describe him as "Junior senator for Nevada" or something similar, when he is introduced in the body.
  • "Anderson and Smith killed Nixon's pet project, the Boeing 2707 supersonic transport (SST)"; with what, a pistol? This strikes as being both too colloquial and needing more detailed. Also, drop "SST".
    Added that it was their votes. Dropped SST but note that most sources refer to it as such; the Wikipedia is the only place I've seen that refers to it as the Boeing 2707. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:27, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The point about colloquialism holds true elsewhere as well; would be "good for"; "up to the task"; "near-record"; "well-sized"; some of these might be EngVar, but I suspect others may come from the more journalistic tone employed by books about the topic, but which I find to be jarring in an Encyclopedia entry.
    Tweaked wording. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:27, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Although its budget request was just $17.4 million, Congress allocated $69 million; Nixon only spent $29 million of it." Very confusing; why did Congress give more than asked for, and why was Nixon spending any of it?
    It's the US system; the executive says what it needs, Congress allocates the money, and then the executive spends it. Congress allocated more money because the senators determined that more was needed. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:27, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is a tone throughout the article, most apparent in the Cancellation section, that, boiled down, is something like "Rover was amazing and was going to give us nuclear rockets but nasty bureaucrats cancelled it". Now if this is actually reflective of the POV of the independent sources, then it's not necessarily a problem (and for all I know, it might be an accurate assessment); but I think you need to be aware that this is how it sounds, and I want to flag it for anyone more familiar with the subject.
    It would depend on whether you think space exploration is a good idea. Note that many people believe that NERVA and Rover were cancelled by Congress; as the article makes clear, it was cancelled over the objection of Congress. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:27, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    To be blunt, that's not answering my question, Hawkeye7 ... I, personally, think space flight is a good idea; but what I think is quite irrelevant. What do the sources think? Does the POV of the article reflect that of your most weighty sources? Vanamonde (Talk) 14:34, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes. The main source is Dewar, who wrote his PhD and later a book on the subject. The rest is sourced from books and reports published by NASA and LANL, both of whom are very thorough when it comes to making primary sources available. But the original point stands: if you want to explore deep space, then you need the nuclear rocket engine. The question really is whether this is something you want to do. So the article indeed reflects the sources; the question is whether more prominence could be given to the opposition. The obstacle here is the technology-focused article structure. My preference would be for the political to-and-fro to be in the NERVA article, which is about the NASA side of the project. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:48, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Hawkeye7: Okay, fair. But I would nonetheless ask that you elaborate a little more on the opposition; not necessarily to give it more weight, but perhaps to make it clear that it was based on a disinterest in planetary space-flight (which, if I'm reading you correctly, it was). Also, to be quite honest I think splitting the material the way you have is a mistake (I didn't even realise until you mentioned it that NERVA had its own article). A project-based structure might make sense from a historian's point of view, but to the layperson, I think it would make more sense to have an overarching "nuclear rockets in the US space program" article, with sub-articles for specific pieces of technology, or whatever, that required it. At the moment, you have a bit of an artificial dichotomy. That said, I'm not going to oppose over this, because I think that for the scope set out in the lead, this page is doing a good job. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:10, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I didn't create the structure; I merely improved the two existing articles. In some ways it would be better if Rover and NERVA were merged, which would remove a lot of duplication between the two articles, but the topic-based encyclopaedia structure militates against it: what would the merged article be called, and what would its scope be? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:27, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    As I said, with one article at FAC, that's not something I'm going to oppose over; if you bring the second one here without substantial restructuring, however, it might be. That said, I'm still asking you to add more detail about the opposition. Vanamonde (Talk) 02:05, 31 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    To implement that, I would have to withdraw this article, and demolish both to create a single article. My biggest concern about this is the scope of a combined article, as to how much of the work in the 1980s through 2000s would need to be covered. The sources are not nearly as available. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:40, 1 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'll come back to the lead after these concerns are addressed.
    Added a bit more on opposition to Rover. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:40, 1 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, concerns addressed, support. This article is comprehensive and well-written. I want to note again my dissatisfaction with the larger structure, though. Given the title and scope of this article, I'm willing to overlook any duplication of material here from other articles that haven't been through FAC. As they stand, however, I think NERVA and this page have too much in common for them both to be FAs. I don't think fixing the structure necessitates withdrawing this. The overall scope to me has to be the entire history of nuclear rockets in the US space program. This could quite reasonably be a sub-article of that, in which much of the technical detail is covered; but both this and NERVA can't be viable sub-articles. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:32, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support from Maury

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Ahhh, right up my alley!

  • "while NERVA involved the development and deployment" - "overall development"? I'm not sure I see the distinction between the development of the engine here and Rover.
    "Project Rover became part of NASA's Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (NERVA) project, and henceforth dealt with the research into nuclear rocket reactor design, while NERVA involved the development and deployment of nuclear rocket engines, and the planning for space missions." Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:25, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "reactors were fueled with uranium-235" - I would add "highly enriched here", but I'm not totally sold on it.
    I could say "highly enriched uranium" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:25, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "protective cladding to withstand hydrogen propellants" - unless I'm mistaken, the issue here is that the hydrogen is highly corrosive in these environments. If there is a direct statement to that effect I would suggest adding it, otherwise the reader may be led to believe it's something natural to hydrogen, or the fact that its in liquid form.
    Added a bit. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:25, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Plutonium was rejected because it tends to form compounds" - I don't think that is what Dewar is saying, as the next sentence notes that it is an attractive quality. This appears to be solely due to the temperature concern, although I'm somewhat at a loss as to why this might be. I *think* it's that the Pu compound does not have the same temperature capacity as UC2, but I'm not sure Dewar is being clear.
    My fault. Re-worded to "Plutonium was rejected because while it forms compunds easily, they could not reach temperatures as high as those of uranium." Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:25, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • And I'm even less clear why U233 would be better than U235 in that case. Is there any other source that talks about this?
    "Uranium-233 was seriously considered, as it is lighter and therefore held the prospect of saving weight" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:25, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "various ovens and later the Nuclear Furnace" - (edited) the explanation of what this is is much later in the article. I think a couple of words here "a custom test reactor, the Nuclear Furnace", is warranted
    Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:25, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "concrete wall 3 feet (0.91 m) thick to protect the electronic instrumentation from radiation from the reactor" - gebus, in the tube era? Thank god these things never flew.
  • "but its timing was off" - "but events interceded"?
    "overtaken by events" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:25, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Silverstein appointed" - I know he's been mentioned in passing already, but Silverstein's role here really needs to be explained. So far we only know him as some guy on a panel several years earlier. Yet now he's appointing the leader of the entire program? If I am reading the timeline correctly, by this time, 1959/60, he was the lead of the Silverstein Committee. I think that needs to be mentioned to property frame the events that are taking place. A full para on the Committee and the various Saturn concepts blends this time smoothly and also explains why NASA would want to have anything to do with it.
    I've written "Silverstein had long had an interest in nuclear rocket technology. He was the first senior NACA official to show interest in rocket research, had initiated investigation into the use of hydrogen as a rocket propellant, was involved in the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) project, built NASA's Plum Brook Reactor, and had created a nuclear rocket propulsion group at Lewis under Harold Finger." Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:25, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and in February 1962" ... "1 February 1961" - I think this should be re-arranged to be chronological.
    Moved sentence. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:25, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • " also as a coolant" - I am having difficulty seeing how an isolated tank would act as a coolant. Was it itself cooled?
    Tweaked the wording. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:25, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Temperatures were much higher than expected, up to 2,900 K" - is this the design temperature or the "higher than expected"? Add the "other one" in either case.
    Added a bit. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:25, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Kiwi A Prime test.[47] Finger called" - para break.
    Inserted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:25, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and have a RIFT of a production engine" - a what? this does not appear anywhere else in the text.
    Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:25, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and a bootstrap start" - this needs explanation.
    Added and linked. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:25, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, GTG, back tomorrow. Maury Markowitz (talk) 01:39, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Done!

Nothing to do with the review but worth noting: practically every test of these systems resulted in various degrees of fuel loss to the environment. It's difficult to imagine any situation short of Footfall where one of these might actually be cleared to fly. I can only conclude it was the odd partnership of NASA and the AEC that kept it alive, the later was still trying to come up with new uses for atomic energy (building a harbor, anyone?) through this period and the combination of high-ranking officials involved in AEC with their geographic distribution made it, for a time, unkillable. Maury Markowitz (talk) 12:51, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Dewar goes into greater detail about the political battles that Anderson, Cannon and Smith fought to preserve and protect Rover and NERVA. A favourite scene in the article is Milton Klein being called to explain President Johnson's abrupt U-turn on NERVA when he had no clue. Note though that Smith's state of Maine was not much involved in NASA or AEC work, and that she was a Republican while the others were Democrats.
That fact is that if you want to go to Mars, or beyond, then you have to use a nuclear thermal rocket. Only it has the power the mission requires. Only it can be parked in space for several months and then restarted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:25, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ok I have inserted one word in the lede and a couple of gr and sp touches here and there, and have a couple of more items:

  • where the first atomic bombs were designed - I think this para would read much more easily if this statement is removed. I think people will understand LANL's history, but it not I think it deserves as separate short para.
    Okay, removed this. I wasn't sure how familiar people were with the Manhattan Project or the LANL. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • best reactor material - moderator material? or is this, as later, the construction material as well?
    Changed to "neutron moderator". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "but they assumed ... beyond the capabilities of available materials. Their work used very conservative numbers" - something appears to be missing. assuming temperatures beyond available materials does not seem conservative!
    Re-worded. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Official sanction" - in common use, a sanction is a penalty. I think you should use a different term here. Perhaps "development begins"?
    "Sanction" means "official permission or approval for an action". Changed to "approval". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "from Ramo-Wooldridge.[12] After hearing" - para break.
    Inserted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "longer distances therefore seemed weak" - no therefore?
    Deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "as it is lighter and therefore held the prospect of saving weight" - one hopes that something that is lighter would save weight... but the issue here is "how much lighter and why"? 235.0439299 vs. 233.03963 is less than 1% difference, and I find it very difficult to believe this would have any measurable effect on the overall design mass. Is this really all the source has on this? Perhaps there is some other reason that 233 would be lighter, like a smaller core size or such.
    I wondered about this too. The second sources says "large ν-value an a high probability of fission" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The size of the core determines" - this statement seems out of place in a para on control drums. It seems it would fit better in the various places where different sized reactors are mentioned.
    Moved. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "overtaken by events.[31] Two days later" - maybe separate this. "overtaken by events.[para break]Two days later, on 4 October,..."
    Split-p. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Jackass Flats" - was this the area's name, or did they call it that after they set it aside? If the former, "The AEC allocated a 127,200 hectares area known as Jackass Flats in Area 25..."
    It was the area's name before it became part of the NTS. Re-worded. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the remotely controlled electric L-1," - to keep the sense of the statements the same, "the electric L-1 was remotely controlled,"
    Changed. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "leak through microscopic holes that would contain other fluids" - I think there is a missing "into" here - do the holes themselves contain the fluids?
    Changed to "too small to permit the passage of other fluids" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "for the development of NASA's Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (NERVA) based" - NERVA has been explained and linked already, remove
    No, it hasn't. That was in the lead. This is the article. It is necessary to repeat it here, becuase this is where the references are that the lead was generated from. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "controlled.[60] LASL's original objective" - para break
    Moved text. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "November 1961, but on the morning" - new sentence at the comma
    Inserted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the technicians in the control room chose to believe the faulty " - This section never actually states which was faulty. I assume the quarter-full?
    Correct. Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"high pressure 5,171-kilopascal (750.0 psi) " - given the rounding I'm guessing the actual provided number is 750 psi? If so, put that as the main unit.

OT but interesting historically: "The plastic coating on the control cables was chewed by burrowing rodents and had to be replaced" - this is a common problem today with residential solar panels. All that is old...

Query from WereSpielChequers

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Hi, that was interesting, thanks for writing it. I have made a few tweaks, hope you like them, if not, its a wiki.....

ϢereSpielChequers 18:17, 8 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Specific impulse relates to the efficiency of use of the propellant, but overall efficiency includes weight of the engine, so unlike civil and even naval nukes, these rockets had to be built light, with very highly enriched Uranium and presumably minimal shielding and safety. I still doubt that before loading propellant they'd be light compared to an unfuelled jet/rocket engines of the same thrust. That makes sense when you are talking about long periods of gentle thrust for spaceships heading from orbit for Mars etc, less so for ships taking off from Earth. The article alludes to some of this, and implies use of pure U235. I suspect the actual enrichment percentage might be classified, or would have been at the time as the higher the enrichment that could be achieved the lighter an atomic bomb could have been. But the actual percentage of enrichment would be good to add if possible (I really doubt it would have been 100%), and a comparison of rocket weight between nuclear and chemical would be relevant. Part of the concern re safety and security of the devices would be related to the percentage of enrichment, especially if they were using bomb grade enriched Uranium. ϢereSpielChequers 15:18, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The exact ratio was classified, at least at the time the reports were written. I'm pretty sure they used the standard weapons grade product (93%), and I'll keep an eye out for a document with the exact enrichment. I've made it clear that Rover used highly enriched uranium and not pure U-235. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:32, 1 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to be able to include the nuclear reactor template inside the rocket engine template, but the latter does not permit this. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:35, 1 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Suggest adding alt text
  • File:Kiwi_A_at_test_cell_post_plan.jpg: the wording of the tag seems to suggest that it only covers images created between 2007 and 2018? Same with File:Raemer_Schreiber.jpg, File:Bradbury_in_front_of_Kiwi_B4-A_reactor_N6211910.jpg, File:Kiwi_A_fire-up.jpg
    The contract has been running since 1943, with renewals every five or ten years, and was evidently renewed in 2018. It no longer bothers to quote those dates. All images are freely available. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:26, 17 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Nikkimaria (talk) 19:26, 17 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

CommentsSupport by CPA-5

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  • centimetres
  • kilometres
  • metres
  • organise
  • litre
  • square metre
  • millimetre
  • micrometres
  • cubic metres
  • aluminium
  • backwards
  • modelling
  • ageing
    All corrected.

That's anything from me and greetings from the MILHIST. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 12:42, 18 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments from JennyOz

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Hi Hawkeye, I just fixed some minor typos before noticing a review was underway. Here are a few questions I had...

That's it for now... Thanks, JennyOz (talk) 21:41, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for review, and your help on Tim Fischer too. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:17, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Had another read through, a few more comments...

That's it from me. Thanks JennyOz (talk) 06:40, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, happy to sign support (pls check my last tweaks), regards, JennyOz (talk) 08:58, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Kees08

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Looks like this is close enough to the end I will not have time for a full review, but perhaps look through my comments on the recent GA to see if any are applicable here? For instance, I saw:

Not sure if any other comments apply. Kees08 (Talk) 15:21, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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