July 12, 2022, 9:15 a.m. ET
July 12, 2022, 9:15 a.m. ET The telescope is named after NASA Administrator James E. Webb. Credit… Scan by Mike Ax
In 2002, Sean O’Keefe, then NASA’s administrator, announced that the agency’s next telescope would be named after James Webb, who led NASA in the 1960s as it prepared to land men on the moon. He was a staunch champion of space science.
Some astronomers were disappointed that it would not be named after an astronomer, while others objected on more serious grounds, namely that Mr. Webb bore some responsibility for an event during the Truman administration known as the Lavender Scare, which led to the purge of gay and lesbian State Department officials. At the time, Mr. Webb was Under Secretary of State.
That question gained prominence a year ago when four astronomers — Lucianne Walkowicz of the JustSpace Alliance and the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein of the University of New Hampshire, Brian Nord of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of Chicago, and Sarah Tuttle of the University of Washington — published an article in Scientific American, “The James Webb Space Telescope Should Be Renamed.”
NASA said it would investigate the claims and issue a report. Subsequently, last September, Bill Nelson, the current NASA administrator and former senator from Florida, announced that he saw no need to change the name. No report was ever published, infuriating critics.
In March, after the telescope was launched, the journal Nature reported, based on FOIA requests, that NASA took the allegations seriously enough that Paul Hertz, then NASA’s director of astrophysics, wrote to outside astronomers asking whether he should change the telescope’s name. The answer was no, but he didn’t talk to any LGBTQ astronomers.
The magazine also reported records of the Clifford Norton case. He was fired from NASA in 1963 — during Mr. Webb’s tenure — because he was gay, and archival materials mentioned an “agency custom” of firing people for homosexual activity. Mr. Norton appealed and won a landmark case against such discrimination in 1969.
In November 2021, NASA’s Astrophysics Advisory Committee asked the agency for a more detailed report.
Mr. O’Keefe, the former administrator, defended his choice in an email.
“It’s safe to say that if it weren’t for James Webb’s determination to fulfill the most audacious vision of his time, our ability to explore today would be radically different,” Mr O’Keefe said.
But that wasn’t enough for critics. “If he’s not responsible for the bad things that happened while he was in charge, why is he responsible for the good things?” Dr. Prescod-Weinstein said. “There seems to be a bit of double-mindedness going on here, where people are holding him responsible for the things they like about his legacy and pretending he’s only responsible for the things they like.”
“Our telescopes, if they’re going to be named after people, should be named after people who inspire us to be better than ourselves,” added Dr. Prescod-Weinstein.
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