Talk:Woomera, South Australia

message: Was the town of Woomera traditionally called that, or was it named so only when the rocket/weapon range was created (i.e drawing an allusion between the rockets and the original woomera)?  The history page exlinked from here seems to suggest the village didn't exist before the range, in which case the allusion case seems pretty clear. -- John Fader 23:29, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Origin of name

message: This article says that JAXA is using Woomera as a testing ground, but the Wikipedia article makes no mention of the Japanese use. I don't know anything more, but someone else might. Riobranden 17:29, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  JAXA using Woomera? 

message: Since the information was just a random mess of odd facts, I tried to reorganise the material that was there into sections. The problem that remains though is whether the information on the rocket and aerospace research really belongs on the page about the town or whether it should be moved to the page about the Prohibited Area (which doesn't really have much content currently). --Kerry (talk) 00:17, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Restructure 

message: Background to Establishment. Why does the Woomera Village exist? It exists because of the need for a support base for the Woomera Test Range, and the need for the range grew out of the rapid progress in rocket based weaponry developed during the second world war and which subsequently translated into that period of 'west vs east' stand-off of "mutually assured destruction" that was known as 'The Cold War'.
I have removed this paragraph from the main article, with my reasoning as follows: (a) The question and answer form of the paragraph is not the style of an encyclopedia.  (b) The village, airfield and test range were planned as an integrated establishment, one did not come before the other as implied by the paragraph.  (c) The "need for the range" is duplicated in the following paragraph. (d)  The quote "mutually assured destruction" is not referenced. --Summerdrought (talk) 23:13, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  excerpt from Woomera, South Australia main article 

message: The excerpt below, plus other statements in the Establishment paragraph, could be seen as running counter to Wikipedia's policy of maintaining a neutral point of view.  See WP:NPOV
For both Woomera and Australia, there was no vision from the politicians at the time 
--Summerdrought (talk) 10:47, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi, Summerdrought, yes I agree it would probably be best reworded to make it more neutral. If it is an argument that has been made by a reliable source, e.g. a journalist or a writer, it could be reworded something like this: "Noted journalist Joe Bloggs argued that...[blah blah]..." or "According to Joe Bloggs, an Australian historian, at the time there was no vision...[etc. etc.]". It could then be backed up with an inline citation to the source where the claim is made. I've tried to make a few tweaks here and there, but unfortunately I don't have access to any decent sources on this topic. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 04:19, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The following sentences from the Establishment paragraph contain opinions by an author which are unsubstantiated and could be viewed as biased.  The Establishment paragraph has been tagged, and requires editing or removal.
However, by the end of the 1960s the Anglo-Australian Project was rapidly winding down following the UK Government's dwindling interest in further experimental work. Additionally, and in the absence of any long-term plans for Woomera by the Australian Government, the test-range elements of Woomera were destined for a long period of withering – despite some passionate forward thinking by a small number of nationalistic visionaries about what Australia should be doing for itself in air and space research and development.
--Summerdrought (talk) 00:48, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

text: @Summerdrought. I have had a look at some of the links at the bottom of the article. One of them uses a phrase something like this, "an RAAF 'Capability'", to describe a wide range of facilities at different geographical locations all of which might operate together at some time via shared aircraft, radio links, or orbiting satellites.  It seems that taken together, such an arrangement is a 'capability'. I imagine that a flight of A4s in the air, together with an aircraft carrier on the sea, might be seen as a 'capability'.
--Greg Winterflood (talk) 02:52, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Having looked at a link, it certainly is a capable place.  I note though in the list of Categories, it appears under "1947 establishments in Australia" --Summerdrought (talk) 05:06, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I noted that one of the links [I'm pretty sure it is the one with a red sand background] also describes Woomera as being in the north west of SA. It may be north west of Adelaide; but to me it is south central SA, especially when compared to somewhere like Pipalyatjara  --Greg Winterflood (talk) 06:49, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Establishment paragraph 

message: Woomera, the Town - seems to have morphed into Woomera, the Village. Is this change connected to the commercial development of Woomera as a tourist destination or is there something specific in the description of the facility which has altered its name from town to village? The term 'village' is usually used in contexts such as 'Retirement Village', or 'Tourist Village' but, in Australia, is not used to describe local government jurisdictions. Comments? 
-- Greg Winterflood (talk) 07:51, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: In Beadell's book "Still in the Bush", he refers to the 'village' on pages 99 and 106.  This book is about the early days of the project from Mar 1947 to Dec 1947. Summerdrought (talk) 12:24, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: On a quick count, the word "town" is mentioned nine times throughout the article also.Summerdrought (talk) 20:56, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

text: * Aerolor, thank you for the background discussion regarding 'town' or 'village', I would recommend that the main article be altered to read something like "Woomera is a Defence base open to the public" as you have noted.  I am busy working on another project ay present, but as you seem to have a copy of 'Fire Across the Desert' would you kindly check the name of the Group Captain credited with naming 'Woomera'.  A book by Len Beadell, "Blast the Bush" names him as George Pither on page 31.
Summerdrought (talk) 04:13, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Town or Village? 

message: The main article section Air and Space Research states that HiFire and Jaxa "programs launch to around 330 km, or about twice the altitude of the International Space Station." The article on the International Space Station states that it orbits between 278 km and 460 km, an average say, of 369 km. This discrepancy needs clarification.--Summerdrought (talk) 06:38, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: There is some information on apogee height and down range travel distance for the HyShot trials in the Woomera Test Facility pdf document. Around 300km seems right for height and 400km down range for distance from launch. I Googled outside Wiki and found ISS orbit height about 352km. I would think that it would be safe to say that HiFire and JAXA were launched to approximately the same height as the ISS. Just my 2 cents. Greg Winterflood (talk) 00:32, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Launch altitude discrepancy 

message: I'd like to propose a partial merge of Woomera, South Australia into Woomera Test Range. The idea would be for detailed content related to the range and its operations (particulary the sections "Evolution of the Woomera Test Range" and "Air and Space Research", along with some of the detail from the "History" section) be moved into the second article, while this article focuses more on the township, its establishment, and the support it provi(ed/es) to the Test Range, the US satellite surveillance facility, and the detention centre. Thoughts? -- saberwyn 01:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I've moved some of the information from the "Evolution..." and "Air and Space..." sections to the Test Range article, but most of the content was either unsourced, unreliably sourced, or too nitty-gritty for inclusion in either article. I've left a note at Talk:Woomera Test Range linking to the removal diff, so if anyone can source the content that was there, they can recover it. -- saberwyn 23:19, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Anything to improve the article would be OK by me.  See my criticisms above, especially regarding the non-neutral points of view expressed. Summerdrought (talk) 00:26, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed content move 

message: The statement claiming Woomera was the "second busiest rocket range in the world next to Cape Canaveral during the 1950s and 60s" possibly ignores what was happening in the USSR at the same time, and needs to be verified.  After all, the Russians launched Sputnik 1 in 1957, and the first man in space Yuri Gagarin in 1961.  Surely the USSR was a likely candidate for the claimed position. Summerdrought (talk) 22:04, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second busiest rocket range in the world? 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified