This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Apollo program template. |
|
This template does not require a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: |
|||||||||||||||
|
Is there any reason why this template is so wide? Savidan 02:08, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
See Category_talk:WikiProject_Space_missions_templates#Template_layout. — MrDolomite · Talk 01:25, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
I think the mission in this template should be grouped. Something like this:
On April 24, 1967, NASA's Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, Dr. George E. Mueller, officially decreed two things in the wake of the Apollo 1 fire:
See Apollo 1#New mission naming scheme and its footnote reference 30 (NASA SP-4009) as authoritative citation. There is no way the prior state of the template, or redirection of Apollo 2 to AS-203 and Apollo 3 to AS-202, and calling Apollo 1 a "training exercise", can be considered anything other than original research. JustinTime55 (talk)
The most authoritative sources, NASA history, document how the policy was established for renaming the early missions. The Apollo Spacecraft: a Chronology, Vol. IV part 1<[1] gives the process George Mueller gave to number all the missions, honoring the Apollo 1 widows' wish while minimizing contradiction and confusion. George Low sent him two alternate suggestions, both of which he rejected. Using Apollo 2 and Apollo 3 appears to be based on one of these, but you're even getting that reversed.
So note that AS-202 would have been Apollo 2, not 3, and vice-versa. The fact that 202 wasn't ready in time, and thus was launched after 203, just adds more confusion. But moot, anyway; Mueller's final ruling:
Even a New York Times reporter (John Noble Wilford who is nominally a reliable 1960s-70s space source, can occasionally get it wrong. In We Reach the Moon he refers in a footnote to the first three flights being renumbered Apollo 1, 2, and 3 (with no mention of how that contradicts the widows' wishes) and generally indexes the fire as AS 204, but says it was "sometimes referred to as Apollo 1".
Plus, does universe.com really qualify as a reliable source? Its privacy policy says it is exclusively the work of one Frasier Cain, but it seems to be another wiki (the "Apollo 3" article is by a Jerry Coffey.) I can't find any source citations (wait a minute; here we are: "There is a great article on the Apollo 3 mission here." That would be a circular reference.) I've seen some editors express skepticism about Encyclopedia Astronautica, but that looks more scholarly than universe.com appears to be; at least Mark Wade provides references.
I have done some Google searching for references to "Apollo 2" or "Apollo 3", and haven't found anything reliable. I've found mirrors of Wikipedia, or people who cite Wikipedia, or fan- or student-level sites. I even found a complete absurdity: a "picture of Apollo 2" which was a Saturn V on its pad! (Explain that?)
This is why the verifiability rule is so important; Wikipedia should not contribute to spreading more misinformation than it already has. I don't think we should identify any particular mission as 2 or 3 (especially in contradiction to the only reliable potential source), since that never officially happened. JustinTime55 (talk) 18:37, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
Hi. Category:Apollo program's category members don't match this navbox. Either it should be renamed ("Template:Apollo missions" or something) or it should be updated to include the missing articles. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:09, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
Apollo 13's mission was to land on the Moon and explore Fra Mauro. It was unable to do that because of the spacecraft failure, so it failed, period. "Successful failure" notwithstanding. A failed mission does not necessarily result in astronauts or cosmonauts dying, and fortunately it did not in this case. This is a simple navigation template; we need to keep WP:original research out of it. JustinTime55 (talk) 21:10, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
@JustinTime55: Hey there! It is my understanding that Apollo 4 and Apollo 6 are flights of the Apollo CSM. Therefore, I am at a loss why it wouldn't be grouped with the other flights of the Apollo spacecraft. In addition, this is a navbox dedicated to the program's missions, and not the program in general. Thus, links to List of Apollo astronauts, Kennedy Space Center, and Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 would be out of the scope of this navbox. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 04:38, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
I still don't understand why we can't have non-Apollo CSM/LM flights and Apollo CSM/LM flights neatly and conveniently grouped together. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 06:35, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
Probably should be added back. The rover was much more than ground equipment, but an essential astronaut-driven vehicle which is as much a part of the Apollo program as the other Apollo crewed components. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:42, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
Even with many missions not being added the individual mission sections seem to feel like a template-size question. The 'Apollo 11 specific' section was added because of the historical nature of the mission and the first landing. The Apollo 15 section followed, and presents its many mission overview articles. But with each mission now being focused on, with some of the items tangential (the Surveyor camera bacteria not really part of the mission and I'm going to remove that), one option could be a combined 'Other mission specifics' if an individual section contains, or would contain, less than four items (i.e. 'Apollo 8: Earthrise etc.) Seem feasible? Randy Kryn (talk) 12:57, 30 July 2020 (UTC)