The release of the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful ever launched into space, has renewed calls from astronomers for NASA to change the name of the instrument amid allegations that Webb was complicit in the chase. history of LGBTQ + people.
The $ 10 billion telescope gets its name in honor of James Webb, a U.S. official who was NASA’s second administrator. Webb headed the space agency during many of the Apollo missions in the 1960s and also served as United States Undersecretary of State from 1949 to 1952.
The name of the telescope has been criticized by many scientists amid allegations that Webb was linked to the persecution of LGBTQ + people in the 1950s and 1960s. of the US in the middle of the twentieth century.
Researchers have been asking NASA to change the name of the telescope (JWST) since early 2021. More than 1,700 people in the astronomical community have signed a petition.
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, an assistant professor of physics at the University of New Hampshire and one of four researchers leading the name change petition, tweeted Monday: “As one of the people who has led the drive to change the name, today it feels bittersweet., I am very excited about the new images and very angry at the NASA headquarters.
“NASA’s leadership has stubbornly refused to acknowledge that what is now public information about JW’s legacy means it doesn’t deserve to have a large observatory that bears its name,” he added.
During Webb’s time as administrator, NASA employee Clifford Norton was fired in 1963 for “immoral, indecent and shameful conduct” after being questioned on suspicion of homosexuality. Norton later successfully sued for unfair dismissal.
In September last year, NASA announced it would not change the name of the telescope. “At this time we have not found any evidence to justify changing the name of the James Webb space telescope,” current NASA administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement in September.
In March, the journal Nature published 400 pages of NASA’s internal documents obtained through a request for freedom of information, including a white paper that said “NASA had decided that its policy would be to expel of homosexual employees “. They had an option during Webb’s term as administrator to establish or change this policy. “
“Many astronomers are very unhappy that the observatory bears his name,” American astronomer Phil Plait wrote in his Bad Astronomy bulletin. “It’s hard to want to use an instrument when you know you’re going to have to write about it with the name of someone who worked to deny your very existence.”
“The observatory will produce amazing science and beautiful images, no doubt the same as anything Hubble has done,” Plait tweeted. “But it bears the name of someone irrevocably linked to bigotry and homophobia, and moreover, NASA has ruined the way they handled the situation.”