Talk:Polaris Dawn

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A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

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• Polaris Dawn astronaut performing spacewalk.jpg

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Anna Menon

Redirecting a woman astronaut to her husband astronaut entry is really something hard to find acceptable nowadays. Even more since she is supposed to fly before him. Hektor (talk) 15:55, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

The French Wikipedia already did her bio: Anna Menon. Erick Soares3 (talk) 19:49, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

I assumed this was a mistake and was confusing due to their similar names so have removed the links from her name to him to avoid confusion. I propose we do not link to her husband and wait until she gets a page of her own. Hopefully someone translates that article soon.

101.98.135.42 (talk) 22:49, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Would also be nice to discuss about the "space tourism" definition: while Inspiration4 was more focused (even if it was PR) on regular people, the Polaris program seems to be a technological development program (something more complex than a mere "joy ride"). I also question about considering Soyuz MS-19 as space tourism, since the movie crew weren't the first employers from a private company to fly (the first one was Charles D. Walker, STS-41-D). Erick Soares3 (talk) 10:27, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

I think we should just avoid the term here and lay out the facts. That it is a private mission with little government support operating both for charity and for advancing science and technology. Tourist carry’s connotations that I don’t think we should be adding on. Let the reader decide. 101.98.135.42 (talk) 22:47, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Fair! Erick Soares3 (talk) 10:25, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Anna Menon's Picture

We must be able to get a better picture than that blurry stretched thing we have right now. Surely there are some pictures of Menon from the Polaris twitter updates or other mission outreach materiel that's in the public domain? Largely Legible Layman (talk) 05:17, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

@Largely Legible Layman: unfortunately, the Polaris team isn't releasing a thing on PD (as an example, it took about 6 months after the Inspiration4 launch and landing before we saw a NASA image from the crew). Maybe if anyone has the patience, it would be possible to track better images from NASA materials... Erick Soares3 (talk) 10:24, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Use dates that are not US centric

Please do not use phrases like "The launch date is Summer 2024." Not everyone who reads Wikipedia is located in the USA. Stick to months. You may consider that an order. ;-) blucat David — Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.30.51.24 (talk) 09:46, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

More than 85% of the world's population live on the northern hemisphere. It by far isn't US centric and I'm sure southern hemisphere denizens will understand which summer is meant. 2001:4BC9:1F9B:EE6:418F:53C2:2C22:65B2 (talk) 09:25, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Apollo 15

The article claims that Apollo 15 set the record of three people in the vacuum of space. However File:Gumdrop Meets Spider - GPN-2000-001100.jpg shows David Scott doing an EVA from the Apollo 9 Command Module while Rusty Schweickart (who took the photograph) was doing likewise from the Lunar Module. The Apollo spacecraft did not have an airlock, so with both the CM and LM depressurised, James McDivitt must have also been in the vacuum. I can't immediately find a reliable source to add this to the page, but I feel we should remove the Apollo 15 claim since it is demonstrably false. 2A02:C7E:30F9:A600:3476:6B:6DFF:FBB3 (talk) 18:08, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I did a little digging in the history…

The point the source makes is that the last time more than two people have been exposed to the vacuum of space at once was during STS-49, during the only recorded three-person EVA.

According to the page history an IP editor changed that. From my reading of their edit comment, they thought it was more appropriate to point out that since this mission will be the first time four people have been exposed to the vacuum of space at once, a more apt comparison is to the first time three people were exposed to the vacuum of space at once, which that editor claimed was on Apollo 15, but you are correct, Apollo 9 would be the first time three people were exposed to the vacuum of space at once.

But as it stands currently, that point is poorly written and unsourced. RickyCourtney (talk) 20:42, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Here's some primary source material that both ships were depressurized during the walk.

https://web.archive.org/web/20111027200206/http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4205/ch12-5.html 162.229.24.155 (talk) 23:50, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

There are other secondary sources in the article now.

Re Apollo 15 and number of people simultaneously in the vacuum of space. We are looking for a post-spacewalk reliable source that says that; and the article statement is tagged requesting that. N2e (talk) 23:13, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Four person spacewalk

@RickyCourtney @98.45.25.216 read the definition of spacewalk by that all did spacewalk. ‍—🪦NΛSΛ B1058 (TALK) 15:54, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Jonathan McDowell notes all at https://planet4589.org/space/astro/lists/evas.html ‍—🪦NΛSΛ B1058 (TALK) 15:56, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I think the way we have it described in the article now covers it pretty well: all four were in vacuum, only two exited the capsule. I think if we try to start saying things like a "four-person spacewalk" or a "four-person EVA" you're going to run into the pedantic issue that not all four people exited the vehicle. In fact, an argument will be made by some that zero of them did a true spacewalk, since this was a "standup EVA." -- RickyCourtney (talk) 17:16, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Ya as you see this @RickyCourtney https://planet4589.org/space/astro/web/evas.html ‍—🪦NΛSΛ B1058 (TALK) 17:51, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Read this carefully Jonathan defines EVA as a redundant term now and depress is good term ‍—🪦NΛSΛ B1058 (TALK) 17:53, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

For what its worth, long time space journalist Eric Berger, in his article describing Day 3 events, uses "spacewalk" but never uses the term "EVA" or "extra-vehicular..." etc. His article is now used as a source for the wiki article. Don't know if this clarifies anything definitively, but it illustrates that descriptive language in new technologies and applications of that technology can, and does, change. What are other space-expert journalists calling the thing? N2e (talk) 22:20, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

It's largely a pedantic discussion. I've always seen extra-vehicular activity as the more "technical" term and spacewalk as the more "common" or "casual" term for the same thing... getting outside of a spacecraft and into space. Jonathan's point, and it's a very good one, is that astronauts only ever (deliberately) do this while still in another spacecraft - a tightly fitting one we call a spacesuit. So, conceptually it's hard to rigorously define the difference between a spacesuit and a spaceship. So his argument is that, a spacewalk should be defined as an activity carried out in vacuum conditions, even if the astronauts never leave the larger vehicle and exit to open space. Anyways, it's an interesting read from the "Orbital Police": https://planet4589.org/space/astro/web/evas.html RickyCourtney (talk) 23:50, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

His question is as confusing as say a mission ended in partial failure or partial success. He noted that outside definition is redundant and soviets and russians dont do follow it. Since nasa counts somewhat eva time from hatch open/close. They also use societs definition now maybe.@RickyCourtney ‍—🪦NΛSΛ B1058 (TALK) 02:45, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

He is EVA Police now ‍—🪦NΛSΛ B1058 (TALK) 06:35, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

NASA definition from old NASA publications

Not clear that an older NASA definition from a 2008 NASA publication remains relevant to this mission; have not seen a source that uses this old definition. So I've removed it from the article for now. Here is the source, and it deals with a "stand up EVA" in 2008. [NASA (2007). "Stand-Up EVA". NASA. Retrieved October 21, 2008.]

Moreover, without another source, we would not know—in 2024—that this is still an active/used NASA definition. N2e (talk) 22:14, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Problem is, the last time a stand-up EVA was conducted was 2008 on Shenzhou 7, prior to that was in the 1970s. It's not something that's been attempted a whole lot of times, because other astronauts generally don't venture outside simply to test an EVA suit. I would say that this spacewalk, falls under the classical "standup EVA" definition in that the astronauts stood through an open hatch but did not fully leave the spacecraft. In any case, it's not a critical detail. -- RickyCourtney (talk) 23:39, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

EVA duration

@Redraiderengineer Can you explain why you think we should be using the depress to repress duration instead of hatch open to hatch close duration? McDowell lists both.

As he explains on his site, NASA has used several definitions (and currently uses a very wonky one), Russia and China use hatch open to hatch close. McDowell says that he prefers the depress to repress measurement, but admits it's a personal preference as a historian and that it has the very real disadvantage of being of lower accuracy (because he's often guessing the values), but it's a less biased measurement. But that bias is not really something we need to "solve for" here. We're not trying to compare the length of this spacewalk to anything else. RickyCourtney (talk) 00:56, 13 September 2024 (UTC)