Talk:Crew Dragon Demo-1

Requested move 27 February 2019

• SpX-DM1 → Crew Dragon Demo-1
• SpX-DM2 → Crew Dragon Demo-2

– The mission's official names via NASA are "SpaceX Demo-1" and SpaceX Demo-2", as noted on their Commercial Crew Program (CCP) subsite [1], their CCP blog [2], and their press releases [3]. Sources from SpaceX themselves are extremely scare, and their latest press release on these missions are dated August 2018, which is a long time ago, which refers to the first flight as "SpaceX’s first demonstration mission" in prose writing [4]. In reliable third party sources, Spaceflight Now refers to the mission as "Crew Dragon Demo-1" and "Crew Dragon Demo-2" in its launch schedule [5]. Space.com has referred to the missions since the beginning of 2019 as "Space X's Demo-1 Crew Dragon" [6], "Demo-1" and "Demo-2" [7][8], and "Crew Dragon Demo-1" [9]. Universe Today refers to these flights as "Demo-1" [10] and "Demo-2" [11]. Futurism refers to the mission as "Demo-1 (or DM-1)" [12]. Inverse refers to the missions as "Demo-1" and "Demo-2" [13].

No source in either article, nor any source listed here, refers to the missions as "SpX-DM1" or "SpX-DM2". They do not truncate the name of "SpaceX", nor is the hyphen located between "SpaceX"/"Crew Dragon" and "Demo". The hyphen is almost unanimously recognised among these sources to be between "Demo" and the number of the flight, and would make sense with NASA's mission naming practices à la Exploration Flight Test-1 and Exploration Mission-1. I am proposing that we rename the articles to "Crew Dragon Demo-1" and "Crew Dragon Demo-2". The titles would most importantly be precise enough, under guidelines on precision in disambiguation, to distinguish from SpaceX COTS Demo Flight 1, Dragon C2+ and Falcon Heavy test flight, SpaceX's other demonstration missions. "SpaceX Demo-1" and "SpaceX Demo-2" could easily be confused for these aforementioned missions. The names also have a strong case for common name recognition, as "Crew Dragon Demo-1" is more often used in third party sources. "Crew Dragon Demo-1" has nearly eleven million results on Google [14], while "SpaceX Demo-1" only has three and a half million results [15].

For the sake of straightforward and concise discussion, Support Crew Dragon is supporting a move to "Crew Dragon Demo-1" and "Crew Dragon Demo-2". Support SpaceX is supporting a move to "SpaceX Demo-1" and "SpaceX Demo-2". Oppose is an opposition to the move proposal entirely, and a support of the status quo of "SpX-DM1" and "SpX-DM2". – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 21:23, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

• In NASA's own documentation (see here [1], for example) "SpaceX" is often abbreviated "SpX". This document contains a manifest published by the Flight Planning Integration Panel, commonly known as the FPIP chart, from 2014 at the start of the COTS program. The earliest flights show up here as "SpX-3", "SpX-4", etc. This other NASA page [2] from 2016 has "SpX-Demo1" and "SpX-Demo2" as the first two Demo missions. Throughout the documents, "SpaceX" is generally (although not exclusively) referred to as "SpX" (with mixed "SpX-3" and "SpX3" in the 2014 document, and even "SpX-3" and "SpaceX-3" on the same page). This is just to point out that "SpX" is an accepted abbreviation for "SpaceX".

As for "SpX-DM1" specifically, there are admittedly only a handful of nasa.gov sites that have this terminology, but it does exist (see here[3] for example; I found just five examples at nasa.gov sites). Nevertheless, it's not in any sort of wide usage at NASA itself.

All that said, the fact that your very first sentence says that the official names are "SpaceX Demo-1" and SpaceX Demo-2" should be what the names of these pages should also be. If you want to disambiguate them at the top of the page - "For SpaceX COTS Demo-1, see here" - that's fine. Or redirect "Crew Dragon Demo-1" and "SpX-DM1" to "SpaceX Demo-1". I can get behind Support SpaceX to move the DM1 and DM2 pages to "SpaceX Demo-1" and "SpaceX Demo-2" respectively.

- Wizardimps (talk) 01:33, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

@Wizardimps: Just because it's the official name, doesn't mean it isn't the most commonly recognizable name and the most precise and least confusing name for the mission, per my arguments above. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 03:09, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

• Comment: Launch is set to 3/2/2019, there is potential that SpaceX will release a press kit on their site, usually posted here. Presumably on their press kit they will have the official name of the mission. SpaceX usually posts the press kits 1-ish days before the launch. Also there's SpaceX's official flicker page here which says "Crew Demo-1 Mission" when they released photos of their Crew Dragon. Their manifest here, scrolling down says "NASA CREW (DEMO 1)".

Also (you may already know) a redirect page called "SpaceX-DM1", already exists. However this is confusing, on the edit history here says "N2e moved page SpaceX-DM1 to SpaceX DM-1: move the dash to make fully consistent with a large series of other articles in the "SpaceX CRS-n" series of article names". However looking at the 2015 edit history here, an edit summery says "N2e moved page SpX-DM1 to SpaceX-DM1: consistency with full name of the mission; same as other SpaceX missions contracted to NASA; "SpX" is just NASA shorthand on presentation slides". I just wanted to post evidence. If my evidence seems confusing please notify me and I will try to make it clear. Thank you! OkayKenji (talk) 02:14, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

• Support Crew Dragon - the Wikipedia article name should reflect what the test is testing. Rowan Forest (talk) 02:57, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

• Support Crew Dragon: Even if there were to be a single official name (which doesn't seem to be the case, in that NASA and SpaceX seem to refer to the mission in different ways), WP:COMMONNAME clearly states that Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources). A quick search of news articles reveals a wide variety of names ("DM-1 mission", "SpaceX's Demo-1 Crew Dragon test flight", "the SpaceX Demo-1 mission", "SpaceX Crew Dragon test launch", "Crew Dragon Demonstration Mission 1", etc.). Given that no single name leaps out as being the most common, "Crew Dragon Demo-1" seems sufficiently WP:CONCISE and rather more WP:PRECISE than "SpaceX Demo-1" (which could also refer to SpaceX COTS Demo Flight 1). Alternatively we could aim for consistency with that previous demo flight, which would imply SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo Flight 1. Rosbif73 (talk) 07:37, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

@Rosbif73: Is there any reliable official or third party source that can verify that "SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo Flight 1" is a name that is really used? Wikipedia's guidelines on disambiguation also states, "Do not, however, use obscure or made-up names." – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 08:41, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

No, googling "SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo Flight 1" gives just one hit. But then again googling "SpaceX COTS Demo Flight 1" gives very few non-wiki hits, so maybe we should consider moving that article to be consistent with whatever we decide for this one! Rosbif73 (talk) 08:53, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Also, once we reach consensus here, the same logic should be applied to Boe-OFT and Boe-CFT. For now, I'll add a note to the talk pages of those articles, pointing to this RM discussion. Rosbif73 (talk) 08:40, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

• Support Crew Dragon As a SpaceX source, they released a press kit, [4] recently, where they call their mission "Crew Demo 1 Mission". It might be nice to reflect that. Also adding "Dragon" to the title is okay because it Precison, making it different from Boeing's test missions. Also seems more "Recognizability" "Naturalness". (quoted from Wikipedia's policy on titles) OkayKenji (talk) 03:56, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
• Support Crew Dragon Demo-1 and Crew Dragon Demo-2. We do not go by official names; clarity and precision are more important. — JFG ^talk 15:25, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
• Comment: Should the same logic be applied to cargo missions?

SpaceX CRS-xx → Dragon CRS SpX-xx -PSR B1937+21 (talk) 06:30, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Updates

Page 12-14 of NASA's Press Kit contain a good amount of information about the objectives/facts about the mission (Demo-1). I don't feel confident enough to know what info to add from this Press kit (plus I make a lot of mistakes, something I need to work on). If possible, can anyone, if they have the time to do so, add some of the press kit info into this page? (only if they find the info useful). Thanks! OkayKenji (talk) 04:18, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Cargo?

There is a mention in this WP article of the spacecraft carrying cargo. I wonder if this is the mass simulator(s) or of it actually carries supplies to the ISS. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 21:51, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

This mission does carry some 400 pounds of routine ISS supplies. Source: launch readiness review press conference. The panel was asked whether payload mass would be any different than for a crewed mission, and they answered that it would be roughly similar, without mentioning any ballast mass. I infer from those statements that the 400 pounds of cargo + the mannequin and its instrumentation would weigh about the same as 2-3 astronauts. — JFG ^talk 22:31, 1 March 2019 (UTC)