Wikipedia:Peer review/Spaceflight before 1951/archive1

Spaceflight before 1951

I've listed this article for peer review because…

It now has a lede I'm quite proud of, and the flight summary looks to be complete. I don't know if each launch needs to be individually sourced or if the list of references at the end be sufficient. Either way, I would enjoy making this a model for the other timeline articles and ultimately upgrade it to F.L. status.

Thanks, Neopeius (talk) 19:08, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for taking a look at the article, @Retired electrician:!

• 1951? The cutoff year is not explained anywhere (and does not ring any memories like 1957, 1961 and 1969).

This is how the Timeline group way back in 2009 decided to organize things. Originally, it was spaceflight before 1957, and then the years 1951-6 were added individually. So this article covers 1944-1950, which I think is a good period as 1951 is when ICBM research took off in the states, and it results in an article at around the 100K preferred limit. I'd really rather not make individual articles for 1944 through 1950.

• "Record" in conjunction with then-classified military experiments seems inappropriate, especially when there's a reference to World Air Sports Federation in the preceding paragraphs.

Bumper/WAC was not classified. It was famous and is in all of my period references (of which I have a lot). "Record" was the term used.

• The legend of the table needs some adjustment to the subject. Very few of those launches had any meaningful payload beyond basic telemetry, and certainly there were no cubesats.

I agree that this is awkward. However, this is the standard heading template common to all Timeline articles and carving out an exception is both beyond my expertise and also probably would be frowned on by the timeline group in general.

• The choice of one of three German flags for launch site is quite straightforward. Not so for the Rocket field. Is it about who designed it or who made it - ?

This is an interesting question and one that folks have gone back and forth on for more than a decade. It's who designed it -- so the V-2 is German even if some examples had their final assembly done elsewhere. The R-1 is joint German/Russian since the R-1 is a deliberate copy of the V-2 (with some production refinements). I think those are the only two rockets in question.

• OKB-1 was created in April 1950. The predecessor organization responsible for V-2s was the Division 3 of the NII-88. Anyway, the field "operator" is somewhat inappropriate for Soviet launches, especially for those early years.Retired electrician (talk) 22:56, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

You make a good point regarding the OKB-1 predecessor, and I can change the ones prior to April 1950, thank you. As for operator, again, I have the limitations of the template that are beyond my control.

Thank you again for taking the time to review the work. How do you like it other than these issues? :) --Neopeius (talk) 19:02, 21 January 2021 (UTC)