NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is about to launch. Some want to rename it

news7g11/21/2021

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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is about to launch. Some want to rename it

A former NASA official named the telescope to James Webb, the second NASA administrator who oversaw the moon landing program that would develop the agency into a major scientific force. NASA says Webb “has done more for science than any other government official.”

But to astronomers who have criticized the naming decision, Webb is also known for holding a senior position in the State Department during the “Fear of the Lavender” era in the early 1990s. 1950, in which LGBTQ federal employees were identified and fired or forced to resign.

The name of such a revolutionary telescope must “reflect our highest values”, a team of four astronomers wrote in American Science this early year.

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, assistant professor of physics and core lecturer in gender and women’s studies at the University of New Hampshire, and co-author of Scientific American. She told CNN that Webb’s name and legacy is “eclipsing what should be a story of a great feat of human engineering.”

NASA declined to rename the telescope after conducting an investigation into Webb’s career, the agency told CNN. However, less than a month before its first launch, the telescope’s name was still a matter of controversy.

Webb worked at the State Department during the Lavender Incident

Prior to Webb Appointed in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy to lead the then fledgling NASA and oversee its Apollo lunar program, he was deputy secretary of state for part of President Harry Truman’s administration.

In 1950, a State Department official testified that the department had fired 91 gay employees because they were considered a “security risk,” an action led by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s unfounded association between homosexuals and homosexuals. and communism, according to The National Archives’ Inaugural Journal.

James Webb ran NASA from 1961 to 1968 and oversaw the Apollo lunar program.

Webb is not mentioned in most governments file or the source recounting the Lavender Peril. However, in his 2004 book “The Lavender Scare: The War Cold War Persion of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government,” historian David K. Johnson Written Webb, then deputy minister, met with the president to discuss how Hoey Committee – a Senate subcommittee set up to determine whether gay government employees pose a security threat to the US government – and the White House “could ‘work together on homosexuality investigation’ gender.'”

Webb and two White House aides then met with Senator Clyde Hoey, who led the committee, “to establish a ‘model of operation,'” Johnson wrote.

Archives, shared Online by astronomer Adrian Lucy of Columbia University, also shows that Webb participated in a meeting with Hoey in which they discussed how the committee hearings would unfold.

Astronomers urged NASA to change its name

Name for telescope, an idea first conceived in 1989, picked up in 2002, according to the scientific journal nature, by former NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe. Webb, who had died 10 years earlier, was considered an unusual choice, as most telescopes at the time were named for scientists.

In March of this year, less than a year since the launch of the long-awaited advanced telescope, four scientists in the fields of astrophysics and astrophysics wrote a Scientific American paper calling on NASA to telescope name change.

The team wrote that while “many astronomers feel gratefully indebted to Webb’s work as a NASA administrator, his ‘extensive legacy’ is at best complex and deplorable.” most notably reflects complicity in gay discrimination within the federal government.”

The most powerful telescope ever built is about to change the way we see the universe

“Now that we know of Webb’s silence at State and his actions at NASA, we think it’s time to rename JWST,” the quartet wrote in the March article.

Astronomers who wrote American Science also make a petition to rename the telescope which has since attracted more than 1,700 signatures from experts and students in the field.

In response, in July, NASA said it would investigate claims that Webb engaged in discriminatory activities. However, after the investigation ended, NASA decided to keep Webb’s name unchanged.

“NASA’s Office of History has conducted an exhaustive search through currently accessible archives about James Webb and his career,” the agency said in a statement. October with CNN. “They also spoke with experts who have previously done extensive research on the subject. To date, NASA has found no evidence to warrant a name change for the James Webb Space Telescope.”

NASA has not publicly shared the results of its investigation.

You Asked, We Answered: NASA's New Telescope and Finding Clues About Our Universe Explained

The Tubman Telescope?

Prescod-Weinstein says that, when naming future NASA projects, the job shouldn’t be left to one person.

She suggested that NASA create a “formal mechanism for naming projects that require large public investment” so that the decision-making process is a more democratic one.

The University of New Hampshire associate professor suggested another name for the first telescope of its kind, a name her co-authors have supported: Harriet Tubman.

“There are those who have argued that Harriet Tubman is not a ‘real scientist.’ But doing science is applying rational knowledge about the physical world,” she told CNN in an email. “Harriet Tubman represents the best of humanity, and we should send the best of what we can to the skies.”

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