Before its launch, I reported that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) rejected the demands of LGBTQ activists and diversity-inclusion minions to change the name of the James Webb Space Telescope.
The activists persisted. I am happy to report NASA is maintaining its current trajectory on the instrument’s name.
The James Webb Space Telescope launched in December 2021 amid calls for the observatory to be renamed. The observatory was named in 2002 after government bureaucrat James Webb, who served as the second administrator of NASA during the 1960s. But opponents of the name argue that Webb persecuted people known or suspected to belong to the LGBTQ+ community.Now, NASA has concluded an investigation into Webb’s role in what’s been dubbed the Lavender Scare, and the agency has decided to leave his name on the $10 billion telescope.”To date, no available evidence directly links Webb to any actions or follow-up related to the firing of individuals for their sexual orientation,” the report reads. “Based on the available evidence, the agency does not plan to change the name of the James Webb Space Telescope,” NASA officials wrote in a statement announcing the report.
The decision came after the agency did a deep dive into the actions of James Webb (the famed NASA administrator who oversaw the Apollo program), as recorded in the historical records.
In 2021, NASA started to investigate records related to Webb’s time in government, but the coronavirus pandemic meant that access to some archival collections was restricted.”A critically important part of this whole investigation was getting access to records,” says Brian Odom, NASA’s chief historian. “COVID presented a huge challenge to that.”…This broad review turned up nothing about Webb’s own opinions on the federal government’s employment policies, says Odom, other than his intention to implement the policies set by his superiors. For example, Webb was very concerned that NASA centers comply with new equal employment opportunity practices related to race and gender.”We really still don’t really know how he felt about any of these issues,” says Odom, saying that Webb’s main concern seemed to be understanding the administration’s policies and putting them into effect while also fulfilling other priorities, like going to the moon.In Webb’s communications about personnel issues at NASA, homosexuality just doesn’t come up, says Odom.
The full report from NASA is HERE.
For those snowflakes who would melt referring to the telescope by its full name, the American Astronomical Society will allow the use of the acronym when submitting scientific papers to the society’s journals.
Many AAS members are concerned about the response of NASA to the JWST name and process, and we wanted to provide a brief update. In response to our most recent letter, Administrator Nelson replied that NASA’s Acting Chief Historian as well as a contract historian were reviewing records and that NASA would share the findings publicly after completion. Nelson also agreed that the mission naming policy for NASA must be reexamined and that will also be shared. We await these results.The Publication Committee would like to remind members that it is the current policy of the AAS journals that the acronym JWST need not be spelled out upon its first use in scientific papers. This policy is documented in the AAS Style Guide on the journals web page.
Meanwhile, the James Webb Space Telescope is exceeding expectations and allowing scientists to glimpse at distant galaxies.
The James Webb Space Telescope (Webb or JWST), which launched in December 2021, has executed just five months of science observations. Astronomers knew the $10 billion telescope would offer a new view on the universe, but early observations have still blown those expectations away. In particular, JWST has carried scientists out deeper into the universe, farther from Earth and earlier in cosmic history than researchers had anticipated”We’re really on track to realizing the dream of understanding galaxies at the earliest times,” Garth Illingworth, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said during a NASA news conference held Thursday (Nov. 17) dedicated to early science results from the new observatory. “The last few months have been exciting, but a huge amount remains in front of us to learn and to gain insights into what is really happening in the first billion years of galaxies.”
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