Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Neil Armstrong

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article promoted by Peacemaker67 (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 01:30, 29 April 2018 (UTC) « Return to A-Class review list[reply]

Neil Armstrong[edit]

Instructions for nominators and reviewers

Nominator(s): Hawkeye7 (talk) and Kees08 (talk)

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 is coming up next year. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:31, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from AustralianRupert[edit]

Support: G'day, Hawkeye, thanks for tackling such an important article. I have the following suggestions: AustralianRupert (talk) 07:11, 4 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

in the lead, becoming NASA's first civilian: suggest linking NASA here
working at the NACA's Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory: I don't think the abbreviation has been formally introduced at this point
this time even faster than the other engine's: the apostrophe here doesn't seem correct
a civilian project run by NASA: I wonder if it should be clarified here that NACA had been disolved and personnel transferred to NASA at this point?
the following terms appear to be overlinked: Glenn Research Center; Edwards Air Force Base; Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star; Nevada; Lockheed F-104 Starfighter; William H. Dana; Deke Slayton; Valentina Tereshkova; Gus Grissom; Ed White (astronaut); Roger B. Chaffee; Apollo Lunar Module; Lebanon, Ohio; David Scott; Gemini 8; Peter Conrad; Richard Nixon;
in the Notes, 288-289 should have an endash
in the Notes, several web citations seem to be missing accessdates, for instance # 153, 220 and 223
there is some inconsistency in date format, for instance January 8, 2013 v. 2013-08-27
citation # 129 and 215 probably need page numbers
Y All done. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 12:10, 4 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Dank[edit]

Hi Hawkeye, welcome back Kees. What's the ETA at FAC for this one? - Dank (push to talk) 18:51, 7 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As soon as this review is complete. I have asked the FAC coordinators to withdraw Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki/archive2 to make way for it. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:34, 7 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Understood. Okay, I'll dive in and have a look around. - Dank (push to talk) 20:50, 7 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"He flew to a height of over 207,000 feet (63 km) (the highest he flew before Gemini 8), but the aircraft nose was held up too long during descent (to demonstrate MH-96 g-limiting performance) and the X-15 ballooned back up to around 140,000 feet (43 km) (sometimes erroneously described as "bouncing off the atmosphere").": Too many parens.
Y Removed some parentheses. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:32, 8 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good.
"Throughout the astronaut office there were a few people, most notably Walter Cunningham, who felt": Are we talking about people throughout the office, or was it a few people? In what way was Cunningham notable?
* Walter Cunningham is notable because he was an astronaut who flew in space on Apollo 7. He's quotable because he wrote a tell-all memoir, The All-American Boys. If I say "some people" on Wikipedia, someone will hit me with a {{who}} tag. So you need to back up an opinion with someone notable. Hansen spoke to Buzz Aldrin, Alan Bean, Mike Collins, Dick Gordon and Jim McDivitt, all of whom confirmed the story. Personally, I think it is quite understandable, given that that it could have been any one of them facing the same problem. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 08:45, 8 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good.
Support on prose per my standard disclaimer. Well done. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 23:41, 8 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support from Factotem[edit]

Prose (nitpicky comments - treat with respect or disdain as you see fit)

Navy service

While making a low bombing run at about 350 mph (560 km/h), Armstrong's F9F Panther was hit by anti-aircraft fire. While trying to regain control... Bit of repetition with "while". Maybe start 2nd sentence with "In"?
Y Deleted the first "while" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:57, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Planning to eject over water and await rescue by Navy helicopters, he flew to an airfield near Pohang, but his parachute was blown back over land. There's a bit of a leap between returning to Pohang and events on bailing out here that makes it sound like he flew by parachute to Pohang. Maybe bridge the last two clauses with something like "...but after ejecting his parachute was blown back..."?
Y Deleted the bit about Pohang to tighten the text. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:57, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Test pilot

As a research pilot, Armstrong served as project pilot... Is there any way to eliminate the "As...as" repetition?
Y Deleted "As a research pilot" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:57, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The first occurred during his sixth X-15 flight on April 20, 1962, while Armstrong tested... I think "was testing" is correct here.
Y Changed to "when" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:57, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
...distance from the ground track Distance by ground track?
Y Changed "from" to "of" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:57, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Astronaut career : Gemini 8

It was later thought that damaged wiring made one of the thrusters become stuck in the on position Reads a bit clunky to me. Perhaps "It was later thought that damaged wiring resulted in one of the thrusters becoming stuck in the on position"?
Y Changed to "caused one of the thrusters to become stuck in the on position" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:57, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Might I suggest "caused one of the thrusters to become stuck open"? That is how I would phrase it at my job. Kees08 (Talk)

Legacy

In September 2012, the U.S. Navy announced that the first Armstrong-class vessel is named RV Neil Armstrong. "...would be named..."
Y Done. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:57, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sources

Inconsistent location information. It's provided for some publications, but not for others (missing, for example, from the works of Chaikin, Collins and Cunningham).
Y All now have locations. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:57, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Inconsistent ISBN formats - some are ISBN-10, others ISBN-13
It follows what the books say in the indicia. I could derive the ISBN-13s. We have no ability to supply both. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:57, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I have no problem with inconsistent ISBN formats. As far as I'm concerned, the important thing is to be able to locate the source, but it seems to be a thing at FAC. Factotem (talk) 23:22, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I did a partial review of the ISBN and OCLC links up to and including Hansen's work, and found some inconsistencies as follows:

Confusing OCLC and ISBN refs given for Abramson's Religious Perspectives in Modern Muslim and Jewish Literatures. The OCLC ref is for a book published in 2010 by Glenda Abramson and Hilary Kilpatrick. The ISBN ref is for a book published in 2004, again by the two authors.
Y Corrected the OCLC. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:57, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The OCLC link for Brooks's et al's Chariots for Apollo : the NASA history of manned lunar spacecraft to 1969 appears to refer to the original 1979 publication, and not the 2009 publication (for which a different OCLC exists according to Worldcat).
Y Corrected the OCLC. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:57, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The edition of Cernan's The Last Man on the Moon appears to have been published in 2009
What makes you think that? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:57, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Worldcat entry linked to says "Publisher: New York : Griffin ; Godalming : Melia [distributor], 2009. Factotem (talk) 23:22, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

My copy has a different cover; it shows Cernan on the Lunar rover. It was definitely published in 1999. Reset the iSBN/OCLC to my copy. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:33, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Chaikin's A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts. Penguin books. appears to have been published in 1994 according to the Worldcat record corresponding to the ISBN and OCLC given.
Y Corrected. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:57, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The ISBN link to the Worldcat entry for On the shoulders of titans : a history of project gemini shows a publication date of 2010.
Y Corrected. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:57, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As a general comment, is there a reason for including both ISBN and OCLC refs? It seems to generate a lot of inconsistencies, and I would have thought that ISBN refs were adequate.
The idea of the OCLCs is to enable the readers to find copies in their local libraries. As a rule they are far more useful than the ISBNs, as not all books have them for a start, and to find other additions and locate copies it's easiest to go to WorldCat and search on the ISBN. The OCLCs suffer from lack of consistency and multiple OCLCs being allocated to the same book. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:57, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The link provided for On the shoulders of titans : a history of project gemini is http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4203/toc.htm, but googling this title returns http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4203.pdf in the results. Given the retrieval date of 2013, I wonder if the URL has changed, but...
NASA fiddles with the URLs a lot. It has multiple copies available online. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:57, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
...having said that, the domains hq.nasa.gov and history.nasa.gov, used in a number of refs and sources, are unreachable.
Ref #5 to CBC News is a deadlink.
Y Repaired. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:57, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I completed a few random checks of refs #3 & #4, #25, #47 & #48, #120, #139, #143, #170, #187, #217. I found a few minor flaws...

Refs #3 & #4 don't appear to support the statement that Armstrong had German roots.
Y added a source. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:21, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I was a little concerned that ref #170 only supports the "If you shove..." quote, but not the preceding statements about refusing requests for autographs and the reasons why. Ref #171, at the end of that para, cites Hansen p. 623. I don't have access to that, and GBooks preview won't show that page for me, but it does tell me in the index that pp. 621-626 cover the issue of autographs, which is I'm guessing the source for those statements. Not sure if you want to adjust the referencing to avoid confusion about that.
Y Yes, that would be the correct source. I have a copy. Added a reference. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:21, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Factotem (talk) 14:13, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

G'day Nikkimaria, this one is otherwise ready to go. I wondered if you would mind checking the image licensing? Regards, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:13, 17 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Image review - We're discussing the use of NASA insignia in the John Glenn ACR wrt restrictions on use. Other images are fine. Nikkimaria (talk) 11:48, 17 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.