[MSN] The excitement around unprecedented new images of far-off galaxies has reignited calls from some within the scientific and queer communities to rename the James Webb Space Telescope because of Webb’s alleged involvement in past anti-LGTBQ government policies in the mid-20th century.
You saw this coming, right? Eventually they come for everything.
Images from the telescope, a project three decades in the making, were released on Tuesday by NASA. The observatory, which launched into orbit in December 2021, is about the size of a tennis court and can take more detailed images from deeper in space than any equipment of its kind.
NASA has billed the mission as an "Apollo moment," with the potential to answer probing questions at the frontier of space discovery, including about life on other planets. But the agency has also faced criticism for naming its signature project after former NASA Administrator James Webb, who previously had served as undersecretary of state during the Truman administration, when the federal government systematically purged its ranks of LGBTQ employees.
In a statement to NBC News, a NASA spokesperson said Tuesday the agency’s historians have conducted an "exhaustive search through currently accessible archives on James Webb and his career," which has included speaking with experts who "previously researched this topic extensively."
"NASA found no evidence at this point that warrants changing the name of the telescope," the statement said. "They are compiling their information now into an update the agency will share."
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, an assistant professor of physics at the University of New Hampshire and one of the authors of the Scientific American editorial, called this week’s release of the telescope’s images "bittersweet."
"I’m so excited for the new images and so angry at NASA HQ," she wrote on Twitter on Monday. "NASA leadership has stubbornly refused to acknowledge that what is now public info about (Webb’s) legacy means he does not merit having a Great Observatory named after him."
| Scientific American rolled left when global warming became the hot new thing — or maybe before, but that’s when I noticed it. This is just more of the same. |
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