Wikipedia:Peer review/Underground rocket/archive1

Underground rocket

This peer review discussion has been closed.

Did a lot of research on the topic and decided that the article deserves to be translated for en:WP. The invention is rather old, but severely underused and definitely notable, judging even by the number of English language references alone. "Tsiferov's underground rocket" is the term preferentially used in Russian literature, while in English sources it's mostly referred to as "Rocket drill".

I could certainly use the suggestions for categories, too, as I'm pretty much drawing a blank here.

Thanks, Wesha (talk) 22:58, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I'll do this review. --Noleander (talk) 23:45, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

PS: I added a couple of categories. --Noleander (talk) 02:49, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Wesha: What specifically do you want the review to focus on (besides categories)? Do you want the article to reach WP:Good article status? Or do you just want to have another editor review it and provide feedback? --Noleander (talk) 23:46, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

It would be nice to go for good status, but I'm not sure it's achievable. -- Wesha (talk) 06:04, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Comments from Noleander

• The article has good footnotes & sources, so the WP:Verifiability requirement appears to be satisfied.
• The article does not appear to have any bias issues, so WP:NPOV is okay.
• Pictures are highly desirable. Check again to see if any are available that meet WP copyright guidelines.
• If no picture is available, consider drawing a diagram/schematic. If you don't know how to draw diagrams for WP use, post a query on Wikipedia:Graphic Lab and a volunteer may help.

  None with free license available. Request for free replacement has been submitted. -- Wesha (talk) 22:27, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

• Comprehensive? There seem to be several sources listed in the Sources section which are not yet mentioned in the footnotes (e.g. "Rockets for Drilling". The Chartered mechanical engineer ..). Because the article is a bit short now, I suggest that all those sources be consulted, and detail from them be incorporated into the article (unless they are all repeating each other).

  The sources that have not been mentioned in the article pretty much repeat the same information that others already have. -- Wesha (talk) 22:27, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

• Sections: It is customary to have a 1 or 2 paragraph "lead" at the top, which is a summary of the whole article. THen have "sections" below which give more detail. For example, look at Drilling riser article.

  I cannot think of any good section titles. Everything is sorta intertwined, both history and design, since it describes three different designs as they've grown out of each other. -- Wesha (talk) 22:30, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

• Wording: "The runtime of the solid fuel .." - "runtime" is a rare word that readers may not understand ... recommend state it in plainer terms.

  Reworded, see if it's any better. -- Wesha (talk) 22:27, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

• Clarify if this device has ever actually been used for a real, practical application (vs only for experiments/prototypes).

  No data, other than quite a few "practical/test runs" (according to the article, dug a bunch of wells for a Kolhoz.) -- Wesha (talk) 22:27, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

• Recent years? The article has events up to 1980, then stops. Conclude the article by either adding more material from after 1980, or some kind of statement that "No experiments have been conducted since 1980" or something like that.
• Citation needed: This cluster of sentences needs a footnote: "Most of the energy contained in the propellant (5 to 100 thousand hp) was spent on the actual digging, while the device was lowering itself deeper into the well under its own weight. Tsiferov's device was capable of drilling the well tens meters deep and 250-1000 mm in diameter, depending on the type of soil. Experiments have shown that the device is able to drill holes not only in regular soil, but is also able to travel through solid rock, permafrost, ice and aquifers."
• Wording: "the inventor was promoted to receive the ..." - should be " the inventor received the .."

  That's what the source says; it does not clearly state if he actually *received* it. He was clearly one of the finalists for the medal, but no idea if he was the actual winner. -- Wesha (talk) 22:27, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

• Title: "According to professor L. Derbenev, .." - Remove "professor", titles like that are discouraged.
• See Also: The article does not have a "See Also" section. (WP:SEE ALSO). Those are not required, but if there are any related articles that may interest readers, consider creating one.
• The article has a box with 2 external images ... those images are great, but boxes like that are supposed to go down at the bottom of the article, below the Sources/footnotes. The idea is that anything "external" to WP goes at the bottom. For example, see Rockwell B-1 Lancer
• I suggest that you implement all the above suggestions (especially (1) photo/diagram; and (2) more material from the unused sources) then nominate the article for Good Article status at WP:GAN.

End Noleander comments. --Noleander (talk) 16:39, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

RJH comments – it's an interesting topic, albeit rather brief. I took the liberty of performing some copy edits since there seemed to have a few issues with article usage and tense matching. Hopefully that looks okay.

• The first paragraph says it could achieve speeds nearing one meter per second. A subsequent paragraph says it reached drilling speed of 5 meters per minute. There's a vast discrepancy between these two rates. Was the first just an optimistic forecast? Or is it the modern drilling rate?

  If you read carefully, "The initial design [...] could achieve drilling speed of 5 meters per minute", that design was scraped later in the favor of the subsequent one which was tested and has shown 1 m/s. -- Wesha (talk) 22:15, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

• As mentioned by Noleander above, it would be beneficial to include some type of illustration, such as a line drawing, so that it is clearer to a non-Engineering reader what is going on.

  There's no illustration with a suitable license. The request has been submitted to the Graphics section of Russian Wikipedia, no response yet. -- Wesha (talk) 22:15, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

• Since this has international patents, I'd assume that it has been put to some productive use. Are there any commercial examples it could describe? (I'm going to guess probably not because of the control issues.)

  I was not able to locate any references regarding production usage. In USSR, it is understandable due to the bureaucracy (and those issues are discussed in the Russian articles provided in Sources). Why it's not being used abroad? I have no idea, probably because nobody knows about it / is afraid to use it / etc? -- Wesha (talk) 22:15, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

• Is this source of any use? What's strange is the date on this publication; barely two years after the drill was invented and well before the first Russian prototype. Can that be explained?
  • Apparently the jet-piercing machine (JPM-1) was produced by The Linde Air Products Co. and was in active use by the Erie Mining Co. in 1949.[1] As best I can tell, the primary difference seems to be that the American design uses steam while the Soviet model uses hot gas. Some discussion of the similarities and differences may be beneficial. Regards, RJH (talk) 20:17, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
• Finally, in order to establish his credentials, it would be good to clarify who is professor L. Derbenev. Is he a Russian engineer?

  Soviet/Russian geologist. Updated. -- Wesha (talk) 22:27, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Regards, RJH (talk) 20:24, 1 July 2012 (UTC)