The first images from the James Webb Space Telescope are astonishing. With its deep infrared eyes, the telescope illuminates regions of the universe with unprecedented clarity.
The telescope is a joint effort between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. More than 300 universities, companies, space agencies and organizations are participating.
In the excitement, it’s easy to forget that the Webb telescope has been subject to controversy. It is named after a NASA administrator who was associated with the pursuit of strange people in the “Lavender Scare” of the 1950s and 1960s.
Read more: A space time machine: how the James Webb Space Telescope lets us see the first galaxies in the universe
Who Was James E. Webb?
James Edwin Webb was born in 1906 in North Carolina. He earned degrees in education and law and spent time in the US Marine Corps.
He held a senior position in the State Department from 1949 until the early 1950s.
In 1961, US President John F. Kennedy appointed Webb to the post of NASA administrator, the second since the agency was established in 1958.
In this role, he was responsible for the Apollo program to land men on the moon. He was very successful in lobbying for support from Congress and also navigated NASA through the difficult aftermath of an accident in which three Apollo 1 astronauts lost their lives in a capsule fire on the ground.
Left to right: James Webb, Wernher von Braun and Kurt Debus at the 1964 Kennedy Space Center Awards Ceremony. NASA
Webb insisted that science be a priority in the middle of the Cold War, where every space mission was a political tool. It also promotes “psychological warfare” (or propaganda).
Webb left NASA in 1968, before Apollo 11 flew to the moon. He later served on various advisory boards and was involved with the Smithsonian Institution, America’s leading cluster of museums, education and research centers. He died in 1992.
What was the “Lavender Scare”?
During the Cold War, Western capitalist democracies feared communist infiltration. This became known as the “Red Scare”. The “lavender scare” was intertwined with this paranoia.
Proponents of these ideas argue that because of the social stigma attached to their sexuality, LGBTQ+ people are at risk of being blackmailed into becoming Soviet spies. Since the late 1940s, under the influence of Republican politician Joseph McCarthy, LGBTQ+ people have been purged from the US civil service.
Webb’s exact role in the Lavender Scare is hotly debated. Several astronomers petitioning to rename the telescope noted that Webb (while at the State Department) had participated in high-level meetings regarding Lavender Scare policies.
In a Scientific American article last year, authors led by cosmologist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein wrote:
The records clearly show that Webb planned and participated in meetings during which he transmitted homophobic material. There is no record of him choosing to stand up for the humanity of those who were persecuted.
But according to a 2021 Nature paper:
David Johnson, a historian at the University of South Florida in Tampa who wrote the 2004 book The Lavender Scare, says he knows of no evidence that Webb led or instigated a persecution. Webb did attend a meeting at the White House about the supposed threat posed by gays, but the context of the meeting was to contain the hysteria that members of Congress were stirring up. “I don’t see him as the lead in Lavender Scare,” says Johnson.
Is it better if Webb passively enforces the policies instead of leading the chase? Other government departments have actively opposed the investigation and firing of LGBTQ+ employees.
Echoes of disputes
Space instruments are usually named through a consultation process, often with the public invited to contribute their ideas. It is also not uncommon for spacecraft names to be changed. For example, the 1991 Gamma Ray Observatory was renamed after physicist Arthur Holley Compton after its launch.
The Webb Telescope name was reportedly chosen by NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe in 2002.
NASA’s official response to the controversy is that “at this stage there is no evidence to justify changing the name of the telescope”.
Whatever Webb’s role in the Lavender Scare, the question for some observers seems to boil down to whether he was personally homophobic.
Framing the issue in this way echoes another controversy: the complicity of German rocket scientist Werner von Braun in the Third Reich.
Von Braun, who was a member of the Nazi Party and an SS officer, played a central role in the US space program.
Today, NASA mentions von Braun’s Nazi past on its website. But space historian Michael J. Neufeld says that “his Nazi story was not widely known until his death.”
Many justify von Braun’s political allegiance by claiming that he simply wanted to launch rockets into space.
Read more: Two experts break down the first James Webb Space Telescope images and explain what we’ve already learned
Where to from here?
The James Webb Space Telescope is a touchstone for issues that have come to the fore in recent times.
For example, there was a backlash against the perpetuation of colonial “heroes” who committed violence against indigenous and enslaved people, resulting in statues being torn down around the world.
Some decry the idea of inclusivity as the ultimate in “wokeness.” Others argue that maintaining historical barriers to participation in science—based on race, class, gender, and disability—means we are losing potential talent.
Science must be objective and unbiased. In reality, scientists and scientific administrators are people like everyone else, with their own ideologies and flaws.
The question is whether we judge them by the standards of their time or by those we hold today.
After all, perhaps we should remember that the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 proclaimed that space belongs to all mankind.
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