July 12, 2022, 9:15 am ET
July 12, 2022, 09:15 The telescope is named after NASA Administrator James E. Webb. Credit … Scan by Mike Acs
In 2002, Sean O’Keefe, then NASA administrator, announced that the agency’s next telescope would be named after James Webb, who led NASA during the 1960s, when he was preparing to land people. to the Moon. He was a staunch supporter of space science.
Some astronomers were disappointed that he did not have the name of an astronomer, while others objected for more serious reasons, namely that Mr. Webb took responsibility for an event during the Truman administration known as the Lavender Scare that led to the purge of gay and gay people. lesbian employees of the State Department. At that time, Mr. Webb had been the undersecretary of state.
This topic gained prominence a year ago when four astronomers: Lucianne Walkowicz of the JustSpace Alliance and the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein of the University of New Hampshire, Brian North of the Fermi National Laboratory and the University of Chicago and Sarah Tuttle. of the University of Washington, published an opinion piece in Scientific American, “The James Webb Space Telescope Needs to Be Renamed.”
NASA said it would investigate the allegations and publish a report. Later last September, Bill Nelson, the current NASA administrator and former Florida senator, announced that he saw no need to change the name. No report was ever published, which outraged critics.
In March, following the launch of the telescope, Nature magazine reported on the basis of FOIA requests that NASA had taken seriously enough the allegations that Paul Hertz, then NASA’s director of astrophysics, had written to external astronomers asking him if he should change the name of the telescope. The answer was no, but he did not speak to any LGBTQ astronomer.
The magazine also reported records of the Clifford Norton case. He was fired from NASA in 1963 – during the tenure of Mr. Webb— for being gay, and archival materials alluded to “a custom in the agency” of firing people for homosexual activity. Mr. Norton appealed and won a historic case against this discrimination in 1969.
In November 2021, NASA’s Astrophysics Advisory Committee asked the agency for a more comprehensive report.
Mr. O’Keefe, the former administrator, defended his election in an email.
“Perhaps if it weren’t for James Webb’s determination to fulfill the boldest vision of his time, our ability to explore today would be totally different,” O’Keefe said.
But that was not enough for the critics. “If he’s not responsible for the bad things that happened while he was in charge, why is he responsible for the good things?” Said Dr. Prescod-Weinstein. “There seems to be a bit of double thinking here, where people attribute responsibility to him for the things they like about his legacy and pretend he’s only responsible for the things they like.”
“Our telescopes, if they are to be named after people, should be named after people who inspire us to be better,” Dr. Prescod-Weinstein added.
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