Talk:Project Rover/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: I'll have a go at this. Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 16:09, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Comments

Well the article reads very well. It's a fascinating engineering story, and has an interesting political aspect also.

Some small copy-editing is needed, I noted several small words missing, e.g. "output could be controlled rotating the rods" lacks "by".

Temperatures work well in Kelvin; I can quite see why you'd want to say "liquid at −34 C" so perhaps it'd be wise to add a conversion in Kelvin there.

Y Just following the source. Keeping all the temperatures the same is a good idea. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:00, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps the image captions should be a little more free-standing: e.g. "Test Cell A at the Nuclear Rocket Development Station" might add "Jackass Flats in the Nevada Test Site" complete with wikilinks. Incidentally that phrase is overlinked in the text.

Y Added. Text checked for duplicate links. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:00, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

In the caption "President John F. Kennedy (right) visits the Nuclear Rocket Development Station", are any other of the famous people mentioned in the text visible in the photo?

Y Yes indeed. To the left of the president are Glenn Seaborg, the Nobel-Prize-winning Chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission; Senator Howard Cannon from Nevada; Harold Finger, manager of the Space Nuclear Propulsion Office (unfortunately looking away); and Alvin C. Graves, director of test activities (J Division) at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:00, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

"The reactor was test fired with its plume in the air so that radioactive fission products could be safely dispersed." So the plume wasn't meant to be pure hydrogen? Perhaps a word of explanation is needed. "Plume" has connotations of reactor failure a la Chernobyl or Windscale, of course; if that is meant, it needs to be said.

Y That's unfortunate. "Rocket exhaust plume" is a technical term used for all rockets. Tried to make it clear that we are talking about a tiny amount. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:00, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

"Pewee became Phase Three of Project Rover." So it began as something else?

Y No, changed to "was". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:00, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

The story mentions quite a few figures for reactor power in MW, reactor mass in kg, and the duration of test runs (not to mention temperature and specific impulse achieved/intended). I wonder if these shouldn't be summarized in a table to facilitate comparison of the tests? There's quite a lot for readers to hold in their heads.

Good idea. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:00, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Y added a table. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:29, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Thinking about such a table, I suspect that what readers are missing at the moment is a bit more in 'Design concepts'. I guess that would mean explaining briefly about the trade-offs between launch mass, power, duration (power x duration = total energy), and specific impulse. A diagram or two might be useful for that.

"scrammed". I looked this up (signalling that readers might need a Wikt link or something here) and discovered it means shutting down a reactor in an emergency. Perhaps this meaning should be spelt out in full ("... emergency shutdown ... ") rather than using such a word, which still feels slangy; if you feel it's the term of art, then I'd suggest you link and gloss it.

Y Added a link to the Wikipedia article. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:00, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

The images occupy very different amounts of screen area. Perhaps the 'portrait' images should have 'upright' in their tags.

I've used it for the Phoebus image, but not for those that are nearly square. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:00, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps some more terms such as thermocouple, uranium carbide need to be wikilinked. I expect there are others.

Y Linked. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:00, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

The lead doesn't mention any politics. A summary of the text ought to include both 'Beginnings' and 'Cancellation', at least.

Y Added a bit. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:00, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

The lead also only mentions a few of the organisational 'players'. For instance Phoebus involved the Marshall Space Flight Center, and there are many other examples. I appreciate the desire to keep the lead simple (was that the intention), but perhaps the balance ought to include a little more detail. The key external events are plainly Sputnik/creation of NASA, and Nixon/Vietnam/cancellation of NERVA/SNPO/Project Rover. Perhaps these need summarizing in the lead. The most striking engineering fact is that despite the long programme and multiple reactors of differing sizes, nothing was ever flown: that too might reasonably find a place in the lead.

Y Added. MSFC was responsible for RIFT, which is covered in the NERVA article. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:00, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

NERVA is mentioned just a few times until the final section, when it's suddenly named 27 times: and "Project Rover" isn't mentioned at all! This seems somewhat surprising. The lead says NERVA is a "related effort" and both were cancelled together, which makes the decision sound administrative; the NERVA article however treats Project Rover as a subsidiary, which appears to be correct in engineering terms (if not politically or administratively, I can see it's a complex question), so perhaps the relationship needs to be explained a bit more. At the least, the final section needs a bit of rewording, and perhaps the lead does too (that may become clear once 'Cancellation' has been edited). The same may apply in the body of the article.

Y Tried to clarify this. "Project Rover became part of NASA's Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (NERVA) project. Project Rover dealt with the research into nuclear rocket reactor design, while NERVA involved the development and deployment of nuclear rocket engines, and the planning of space missions." Hawkeye7

(discuss) 23:00, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I still think Project Rover needs to be mentioned in 'Cancellation': this article is about PR not NERVA and the section is wholly NERVA at the moment.

Added a couple of mentions. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:30, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

By the way, when "Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application" is mentioned in full, I think it should be in Title Case rather than lower case as it's a program name.

Y Good. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:00, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I wonder if there ought to be a 'Legacy' section? Space propulsion remains mainly chemical rocket, with a bit of non-chemical in the form of ion thrusters, and occasional papers on nuclear. Power generation has mostly been chemical or solar (both not ideal for deep space ...), and only a few missions have used a radioactive source to provide electricity; reactors haven't flown again for various reasons. Perhaps these matters would be worth a brief mention, there are surely plenty of reliable sources to cite.

This is all part of one of SNPO's related projects, Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power. By 2000, 26 space missions had used SNAP reactors. I wrote a section on "Post-NERVA research" for the NERVA article; latest news dates back to May 2019. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:00, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

So a sentence or two relating to and linking to SNAP is called for? Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:19, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Y Not really, since it is off-topic. There is one sentence already; added a second. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:29, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Summary

Overall, this article is very close to GA, and I expect most of the comments can be dealt with in short order. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:45, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

All points addressed. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:29, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, I'm delighted with the summary table, and I found the Legacy section very helpful too. I hope you feel the small changes to the body of the article have made it flow more smoothly, and I wish the article well on its progress through FAC. I see you're already a prolific GAN reviewer; of course I hope you'll do some more, and if you fancy any of my current GAN articles of course I'd be very pleased! Great work. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:35, 27 July 2019 (UTC)