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Revision as of 12:03, 14 October 2013

Rocketry Unassessed

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Spaceflight Start‑class Mid‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Spaceflight, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of spaceflight on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SpaceflightWikipedia:WikiProject SpaceflightTemplate:WikiProject Spaceflightspaceflight Start This article has been rated as Start-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Since I've added some references and I as well as others have expanded and wikified the article, should some of the article issue tags at the beginning of the article be removed?PistolPete037 (talk) 01:23, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, I've removed the "notability" and "wikify" tags, and replaced "unreferenced" with "refimprove". This means that the article is still missing references to a couple of sentences, would require some cleanup, and needs more articles linking to this one. Victao lopes (talk) 00:31, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Potential sources for Lynx

• Here is a recent article from Parabolic Arc on Lynx: Lynx Development Proceeds Towards First Test Flight, 23 Feb 2011. Enjoy. N2e (talk) 07:17, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Current status?

There seems to be little in the way of hard facts on current status. Um, what is it? --Pete (talk) 17:43, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, you are asking at a fortuitous time. XCOR is heavy into the year-long process of the build of the first Lynx rocketplane right now, and they began a serious effort at openly communicating their progress during the next year just about two or three weeks ago, with a commitment to do five blog posts a week on the company blog about what's up with them. Those are appearing at XCOR Aerospace blog, five weekdays each week.

While that is a WP:primary source, and thus not the best as a reliable source (by Misplaced Pages standards), a little bit of searching around will no doubt find reliable source space media that are covering the XCOR Lynx build process. I recommend looking at parabolicarc.com or newspacewatch.com.

In the meantime, do keep in mind that this is Misplaced Pages and anyone can edit! So why not take a stab at finding a source or two, and writing that prose for the article yourself, being sure to add a citation (or two, if needed) to support your statement(s). Ping me if you would like some help. Cheers. N2e (talk) 04:09, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks - I have an interest in the subject, but the article seems to be mainly press releases and little of substance. I'd be astonished if that Jan 2014 date for operations is met. --Pete (talk) 04:13, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

You're welcome. And I agree with you. In fact, I think it is clear now, per recent published info, that they are not on a glide path for first flight until the roughly year-long build effort (their words) is complete. So quite obviously, as soon as WP:RS are found, and editor interest is marshaled, the article does need updated. Cheers. N2e (talk) 13:20, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

We're not in the business of promoting fantasy. I think a couple of paragraphs on plans and a photo of activity to date - a partial test-firing - should suffice. If any reader wants more information we can point them towards the company's website, which is perhaps the most substantial part of the enterprise. --Pete (talk) 19:30, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Further to above, I've reviewed the blog, which purports to show bits and pieces of the finished vehicle. There are no photographs of anything resembling a body. Computer graphics and an off-the-shelf nosewheel do not make a concept into a spaceplane.

The most substantial bit of hardware on display is a small trailer with a fuel tank on it - supposedly the engine test stand. Really? One tests a spacecraft engine on something you tow behind your car?. The whole project is little but website and people in a garage, going by the actual evidence. I don't think that we as an encyclopaedia should lend credibility to this puffery. --Pete (talk) 06:54, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, Misplaced Pages is not for promoting fantasy, but Misplaced Pages also does not allow original research; we editors don't get to look at photographs released on a company website and ascertain that "this type of engineering work is NOT development" while "this other type of work IS development."

Multiple reliable sources say the company is currently actively building the first prototype of this spaceplan. The company website says the same thing. NASA has signed some contracts for (future) suborbital spaceflights on this company. Customers have done the same. Advertisers have done the same.

This little spaceplane is WAY beyond mere "concept". At minimum, it is totally appropriate for Misplaced Pages to say it is "being developed". So, yes, the article needs a lot of improvement, but it is not merely a vaporware concept that we are talking about here. Cheers. N2e (talk) 13:43, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Can you point me to an actual photo of the craft? No. Just small, off-the-shelf parts and some CGI. The thing doesn't exist. I don't need an engineering degree to point out that the emperor has no spaceship. --Pete (talk) 14:44, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

(Uninvolved editor coming here from WT:SPACEFLIGHT) The absence of proof is not proof of absence. There are plenty of other possible explanations for a lack of photographs besides the hardware not existing, and you're going to need to present much stronger evidence if you wish to contest the sourced assertion that it is under development. --W. D. Graham 14:51, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm going through the sources, and those that actually exist either come from one source - XCOR - or are obviously written based on a press release, such as the Popular Mechanics article. Without significant external sourcing, this looks very much to me like a deliberate attempt by someone - presumably XCOR - to boost the visibility of their project. Clearly the article needs a lot of work to reflect the actual status. Now, you're talking about absence of proof. Seems to me that if we don't have good sources, it doesn't matter if XCOR has a fleet of them ready to roll - we need sources, this being Misplaced Pages and not Popular Mechanics. Where are the non-XCOR sources showing that there is an actual vehicle being built? Do we run on press releases and promises? --Pete (talk) 15:07, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Further to above, I think it's pretty obvious that the article as it currently stands is poorly sourced, namely that far too much of it is based on primary sources, when there are good secondary sources available. WP:No Original Research#Primary, secondary and tertiary sources is our guiding light here:

• Do not analyze, synthesize, interpret, or evaluate material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them.
• Misplaced Pages articles usually rely on material from reliable secondary sources. Articles may make an analytic or evaluative claim only if that has been published by a reliable secondary source.

What I'm seeing in the list of thirty sources are thirteen from XCOR (manufacturer) or SXC (ticket sales). I think we can safely list XCOR and SXC as external sources and use the remaining secondary sources and any others that may come up. Some of the sources look very good, some not so much. There's a private blog, and a couple of dead links. We can talk about them on a case by case basis and refer to WP:RSN if need be. Anyone see any problems in rewriting the article to conform to wikipolicy? --Pete (talk) 12:03, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

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