Talk:Long March (rocket family)

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Long March (rocket family) article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

This article has not yet been rated on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.

China

	China portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject China, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of China related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ChinaWikipedia:WikiProject ChinaTemplate:WikiProject ChinaChina-related
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Template:WPSpace

Template:HSF Project

Military history: Asian / Chinese

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion not met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

Associated task forces:
/
	Asian military history task force
	Chinese military history task force

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.

Rocketry Top‑importance

	Rocketry portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Rocketry, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of rocketry on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.RocketryWikipedia:WikiProject RocketryTemplate:WikiProject RocketryRocketry
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Caption

the photo in the article goes without a description. can anybody add one to it? Roswell Crash Survivor 03:31, 23 September 2006 (UTC)I'm so new to Wiki I couldn't even get a caption right.[reply]

Dates

I'm editing the Freja (satellite) article, and this article claims that it was launched on October 5. However it was lunched on October 6 UTC (see that article and references). I'm not sure what timezone the other dates are in this article. Should we change? Kricke 22:46, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I searched the web in Chinese, some sources (11 results) claim it was October 5, while others (223 results) claim October 6. Yao Ziyuan 12:30, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

More web searches reveal the launch time might be 14:20 Beijing time on October 6, I'm not sure if the time was Daylight saving, it could be 06:20 UTC (no daylight saving) or 05:20 UTC (daylight saving), can't be 07:20 as claimed by the article Freja (satellite). Yao Ziyuan 12:36, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not a daylight saving time, the launch time was 06:20 UTC on October 6. Yao Ziyuan 12:38, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I got 07:20 UTC from the NSSDC Master Catlalog. Kricke 17:12, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I mailed NSSDC, and they've corrected the problem. Yao Ziyuan 15:18, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

God job! I found more errors in the MSSDC master catalog, but I never got a reply when I e-mailed them. See launch date for the Hubble Space Telescope and its launch vehicle STS 31. One would imagine they should have the same launch date? :) E-mail them if you want to, I won't do it again. If you do, you can confirm that they NSSDC are the maintainers of the International Designator Catalog and not COSPAR. Se discussion on Talk:International_Designator. Kricke 17:22, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Specifications table

Good work adding the specs table showing details for for each version. It would be even better if it included columns like "Date of first launch", "Date of most recent launch", "Number of launches" and "Active/inactive".

Internal Links

The internal links in the table all just direct straight back to the main Long March page.

Is there any point in keeping them? Lethe naiad (talk) 13:06, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Long March 5

I am concerned about the Long March 5 entry in the table of variants. Firstly, an anonymous user keeps changing it to "Long March 6", without providing any evidence. If anybody corrects his edit, then he changes it back and accuses them of vandalism. Secondly, some of the sources provided for this entry seem irrelevant, particularly this, which I cannot read, but it appears to be a book cover, and I find it unlikely that it could provide much information on the status of the programme. This source appears to contain some information on a Chinese programme, but it is unclear if it is CZ-5. The main text of that article contains little or no useful information. Finally, this source appears to be completely irrelevant. Please can we try to address these issues. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 10:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, none of those items have anything to do with LM-5 and the change to 6 confuses me. The second photo is of a small rocket, certainly not LM-5. The only thing I can think is that this individual is trying to imply that there is another rocket on the roster which has not been included in official chinese lists. Though I suppose there's a potential coverup issue or something of that order, this isn't an appropriate way of expressing that, especially since it isn't at all effective. Even if there was another rocket, it is unlikely China would simplye redesignate 5 as 6 and drop this one in the middle. My guess is the second link (Which doesn't have the Hanzi for 5 or 6 though with only rudimentary knowledge of Hanzi I don't know much else), is a picture of another one of the chinese rockets we are already aware of. The editor in question should be reported if he continues. aremisasling (talk) 19:40, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Upon further looking there does appear to be a hanzi for LM-6 in the third source. It has the same initial characters as the writing in the article with the hanzi for 6 after it. (长征六) I can't verify that the article containing it says anything about Long March 5 being reclassified as Long March 6. I can say it seems rather unlikely that a reclassification would go unnoticed in the international space community. If it has, I'm sure there is an article out there somewhere. aremisasling (talk) 19:50, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A quick search of google news turns up absolutely nothing on Long March 6 at any point. This article [1] mentions long march 6 as their moon rocket, but doesn't cut out long march 5. Either way, long march 5 is a real rocket that is all over the place in the news as long march 5. Long march 6 is a proposed rocket that, if it ever gets built which it probably will, would follow LM-5. The edits make no sense and the accusations are rather obnoxious. If the editor has info on LM6, it would be useful to add it to the article. Reclassifying LM-5 as LM-6 is, however, unjustified. aremisasling (talk) 19:59, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

missing articles

70.55.203.112 (talk) 04:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Recentism?

I don't get recentism out of the launch history at all. In fact, most of the section deals with demonstrated and claimed results of launches that happned over a decade ago and are well understood historically. The second paragraph could be fixed or removed on recentism, I guess, but I think it takes just removing 'flawless' claims to remedy it, not a complete scrapping of the section. aremisasling (talk) 18:52, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As no one seems to object, I'm removing the recentism tag. aremisasling (talk) 14:22, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Intelsat 708 death toll figures not verifiable

The Intelsat 708 accident where the Long March 3 missile landed on a rural village killed a large number of civilians was bad enough without people resorting to excessive levels of speculation. People died. This much we know and this is all.

That the Chinese officials changed their figures shortly after an Israeli tape was released does not prove that there was any intention to deceive. For example, shortly after the Black Saturday bushfires in Australia the death toll rose exponentially as the days went by and was expected to be around 300 but weeks later was confirmed at 173. As time goes on more information becomes available and a more accurate assessment can be made. Any suggestion that the Chinese changed their figures because of an Israeli tape is a post hoc ergo propter hoc argument and not logical regardless of what Chinese intentions may have been. Furthermore, we have no idea whether this is the final figure or not.

To then include a totally unverifiable figure of "upwards of 500 killed" citing the Washington Post article - which makes no mention of that figure - is nothing more than hype. Even the Washington Post article does not say this. Plucking arbitrary figures out of the air like that is not appropriate. A quick check of Google Maps at 102.0371E, 28.233N and satellite view shows that the area is sparsely populated and the local concentrations are quite small so that the figure of 200 would probably be the upper limit.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Flanker235 (talk • contribs) 02:34, 22 November 2009 (UTC) --Flanker235 (talk) 11:11, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]