Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Advanced Space Programs Development

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was DELETE. —Whouk (talk) 08:34, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Advanced Space Programs Development

Unverifiable autobiographical self-propaganda from an established liar. Nothing on google except self-propaganda from said person. It's a non-notable O-5 or O-6 command with a tenuous link to SDI. The only source for this is one Robert M. Bowman, who has hyped up his credentials in order to boost his political credibility. However, his lack of integrity is galling:

1. He claims to have won the Eisenhower Medal, without specifying from which group. There is a prestigious one awarded to the likes of George Shultz, Colin Powell[1]. Bowman did not win this one, but some other one which google has failed to turn up. This is fairly dishonest claim given the notability of the Eisenhower Medal. It would be equivalent to claiming to be a Nobel Laureate on the basis of having won the youth Nobel prize from your high school science fair.
2. He claims to have won the "George F. Kennan Peace Prize", which google has also failed to turn up. (all this was heavily examined when Bowman's article itself was up for deletion).
3. Most damning, he claims to have won the SAME (Society of American Military Engineers) Gold medal twice, but SAME says otherwise: [2]

If you google this group, you turn up only Bowman's self-propaganda. Remove Bowman, and you get NO links. [3] The only reference is to a program with the same name, at Boeing.

--Mmx1 15:34, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

• Delete as per nom. --Mmx1 16:04, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
• Strong delete per nominator's excellent argument. -- Kicking222 18:12, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
• Redirect I created this, but Mmx1 brings up a good point. Im not sure if im convinced about the lier stuff, but it giving no google hits does cause it hard to source. However, we still have lots of places in WP where he is presented as the former head of ASPD, and they should redirect to SDI. It could be argued that it has so little sources about it since it was a secret project, and it was later known as SDI, so the secret project name was droped. Ill go ahead and make the page a redirect. Mmx1, good work on a good nomination.--Striver 19:40, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom unless reliable sources surface. Do not redirect as a redirect would suggest the term and the "secret project" is real and that would be untruthful. If ASPD must be mentioned it would need to be verifiable information, e.g. documenting the hoax organization, the liar who invented it, and the conspiracy theorists who swallow everything hook, line and sinker (though good luck on finding non-OR sources on that.) Weregerbil 19:55, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Without sources, it has to go. Шизомби 21:10, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - I believe user:Striver is probably right: A.S.P.D. was renamed "SDI" before it got any press, which is why Googling it returns nothing but Bowman's resume. Unfortunately, try as I might, I can't verify that that's the case. No one but Bowman is claiming this program ever existed, and I'm uncomfortable using him as the sole source. Even a redirect doesn't meet WP:V - until we get sources, this needs to be deleted outright. --Hyperbole 07:39, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I've asked around on the SDI page and that's not the story I've gotten: Talk:Strategic_Defense_Initiative#Merger. The SDIO (Strategic Defense Initiative Organization) had no precursor, it pulled together existing ABM programs from different branches. Moreover, when Bowman's bio was up for AfD, I asked if anyone had heard of him as a prominent SDI critic; the response was no. Sigh...if only there'd been a blogosphere in 1980. --Mmx1 15:08, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.