But to astronomers who have criticized the naming decision, Webb is also known for holding a high-level position in the State Department during the “Lavender Scare” of the 1950s, during which LGBTQ federal employees were identified and fired or forced to resign.
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, assistant professor of physics and core faculty in women’s and gender studies at the University of New Hampshire, co-authored the Scientific American piece. She told CNN that Webb’s name and legacy are “overshadowing what should be a story about an amazing feat of human engineering.”
NASA declined to rename the telescope after conducting an investigation into Webb’s career, the agency told CNN. But, just under one month before its grand launch, the telescope’s namesake is still a point of contention.
Webb worked at the State Department during the Lavender Scare
Webb and two White House aides then met with Sen. Clyde Hoey, who led the committee, “to establish a ‘modus operandi,'” Johnson writes.
Astronomers have urged NASA to change the name
In March of this year, less than a year away from the long-awaited launch of the advanced telescope, four scientists in the astronomy and astrophysics fields wrote the Scientific American article calling on NASA to rename the telescope.
The group wrote that while “many astronomers feel a debt of gratitude for Webb’s work as NASA administrator,” his extended legacy “at best is complicated and at worst reflects complicity in homophobic discrimination in the federal government.”
“Now that we know of Webb’s silence at State and his actions at NASA, we think it is time to rename JWST,” the quartet wrote in the March article.
In response, NASA said in July it would investigate claims of Webb’s participation in discriminatory practices. After that investigation concluded, though, NASA decided to keep Webb’s name.
“NASA’s History Office conducted an exhaustive search through currently accessible archives on James Webb and his career,” the agency said in an October statement to CNN. “They also talked to experts who previously researched this topic extensively. NASA found no evidence at this point that warrants changing the name of the James Webb Space Telescope.”
NASA hasn’t publicly shared the results of its investigation.
A Tubman telescope?
Prescod-Weinstein said that, in naming future NASA projects, the job shouldn’t be left to one person.
She suggested NASA create a “formal mechanism for naming projects that require major public investment” so the decision-making process is a more democratic one.
“There are people who have argued that Harriet Tubman wasn’t a ‘real scientist.’ But to do science is to apply rational knowledge of the physical world,” she told CNN in an email. “Harriet Tubman represents the best of humanity, and we should be sending the best of what we have to offer into the sky.”