NASA won’t rename James Webb telescope – and astronomers are angry

NASA has decided not to rename its soon-to-launch flagship observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), after investigating whether its namesake, former NASA administrator James Webb, was involved in the persecution of gays and lesbians in the 1950s and 1960s. The agency says it found no evidence to support these claims.

The decision and the lack of transparency with which it was announced – NASA has not released any report on the scope of the investigation – has angered a number of astronomers.

“I’m disappointed,” says Johanna Teske, astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC. “Without knowing what factors were taken into account, it is difficult for me to respect the decision to keep the current name.

Since May, more than 1,200 people, including scientists who are expected to use the telescope after its scheduled launch in December, have signed a petition calling for the JWST to be renamed. Webb held several senior positions in the U.S. government during a period in which federal gay and lesbian employees were routinely fired because of their sexual orientation. For example, he was a NASA administrator when an agency employee was fired in 1963 on suspicion of being gay.

In response to concerns, NASA began an internal study of historical documents that may shed light on Webb’s behavior towards gays and lesbians. On September 27, current agency administrator Bill Nelson released a one-sentence statement to some media outlets, including Nature, saying, “We have not found any evidence at this time to justify changing the name of the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA Acting Chief Historian Brian Odom, who led the investigation, said Nature on September 30 that he considered the investigation closed.

” punch “

A NASA official said in June that the agency would be transparent with the scientific community in its decision, but no final written report could be released. Odom says that “under the circumstances of COVID, the investigation was as thorough as possible and very objective.” He says these were several archivists reviewing internal NASA files, interviewing other historians who had studied Webb, and hiring an outside historian to explore aspects such as Webb’s career in other agencies. government. Several relevant repositories, such as the Washington DC National Archives and the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri, have been closed for extended periods due to the COVID-19 pandemic; Odom’s team were unable to study material from them that was not already digitized.

Odom says he met Nelson on several occasions to show him the material investigators were able to collect. “The administrator’s involvement in this was very thoughtful and very objective,” he says. Nelson made the decision to keep the name of the telescope.

But some believe NASA’s decision is the wrong one. Webb, they say, was the head of the agency during a time of discrimination and bears responsibility for it. “The punch is in the categorical refusal to hear the voices of queer astronomers,” says Brian Nord, an astrophysicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois. “It’s a refusal to face history. If we can’t have this, how are we going to shed light on the oppression people are facing? “

Nord is one of four astronomers who led the petition for the telescope to be renamed. The other three are Lucianne Walkowicz at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Illinois; Chanda Prescod-Weinstein at the University of New Hampshire at Durham; and Sarah Tuttle at the University of Washington in Seattle. In an email to Nature of NASA’s decision, they wrote: “Despite all the talk of the institution on equity and diversity, they do not seem particularly concerned with the public accountability of sensitive issues that have impacted a historically marginalized group.

Naming a telescope

At the heart of the controversy is the accountability of government officials for discriminatory actions and policies in the agencies they run. Webb led NASA between 1961 and 1968, at the height of exploration programs that eventually sent astronauts to walk on the moon. Critics point out that Webb was therefore in charge in 1963, when Clifford Norton, an alleged gay employee, was fired.

Odom says he took a close look at the Norton case to find out if Webb was involved in directing the fire. “It just didn’t happen,” he says.

But the larger context is important in assessing Webb’s legacy, critics say. Webb worked in the U.S. system of government – most notably serving as an influential Under Secretary of State from 1949 to 1952, under the Truman administration – when the dismissal of homosexuals was seen as acceptable and even encouraged. Rolf Danner, an astronomer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., Who chairs the American Astronomical Society’s committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Minorities in Astronomy, says Webb was likely an effective manager in this setting. “I don’t think that makes him the right choice for NASA’s first science project more than 60 years later.”

As a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, the JWST will study cosmic phenomena, including star formation, the evolution of galaxies and exoplanets. The mission’s international partners include the European and Canadian space agencies. He was appointed in 2002 by former NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe, who wanted to recognize Webb’s accomplishments in government. Webb “had the ability to bring people from multiple disciplines together and work together to achieve something bigger than them,” says O’Keefe, who is now at Syracuse University in New York City. He says NASA wouldn’t be the same today if Webb hadn’t been a director, and that the agency’s investigation reinforces the conclusion he and others had reached: that “indeed, he is a person of character ”.

Still, some say Webb’s accomplishments do not justify giving the telescope his name, given the context in which he worked. “Webb has done his job, for better or for worse, and he will be remembered in history,” said Peter Gao, planetologist at the Carnegie Institution. “There is no need to celebrate him any more given what happened under his tenure.”

Astronomers who disagree with NASA’s decision are now looking to the future. For many, boycotting the JWST is not an option, due to its transformative capabilities. Some talk about ways to acknowledge the controversy while working with JWST data, perhaps putting information about Webb’s associations with anti-LGBT + actions in the acknowledgments of articles. Others might call the telescope another way in their dealings with it. For example, Prescod-Weinstein tweeted on September 30, “I am personally delighted with the Just Wonderful Space Telescope (JWST).