NASA says there's no evidence linking James Webb Space Telescope namesake to firings of LGBTQ staff - CNN

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Despite numerous calls from astronomers to rename its powerful caller telescope, NASA officials stood by the naming of the James Webb Space Telescope earlier its launch.

With the scope astir a twelvemonth into its stint successful space, the bureau has released its main historian’s investigation into the namesake of the telescope. James Webb, NASA’s second-ever administrator, worked astatine the US State Department during the Lavender Scare, a play successful which LGBTQ national employees were often fired oregon forced to resign, and the determination to sanction the scope for him courted disapproval from researchers.

There’s nary grounds that proves Webb was straight progressive successful those firings successful the 1950s oregon successful the 1963 firing of cheery NASA worker Clifford Norton, according to Brian Odom, the NASA historiographer who completed the investigation.

Officials astatine NASA announced successful 2002 that the scope would beryllium named for Webb, who oversaw the Apollo satellite landing programme successful the 1960s and helped burnish the fledgling agency’s reputation. It was considered an antithetic prime astatine the time, since Webb was an head and not a scientist.

Months earlier the scope was acceptable to yet launch, though, respective astronomers called connected NASA to region Webb’s sanction from the telescope, which has since recorded several never-before-seen images of the universe.

In a 2021 portion for Scientific American, a radical of astronomers wrote that Webb’s bequest “at champion is analyzable and astatine worst reflects complicity successful homophobic favoritism successful the national government.”

Even scientists who enactment connected the scope person expressed their dissatisfaction with its name. Earlier this summer, Dr. Jane Rigby, the operations task idiosyncratic for the James Webb Space Telescope, tweeted that “a transformative scope should person a sanction that stands for find and inclusion.”

Officials astatine NASA person refused to rename it, though, citing an probe into Webb’s career. The results of that probe weren’t made nationalist until now, astir a twelvemonth aft the scope launched.

In his study connected his probe into Webb, Odom acknowledged the symptom caused by the Lavender Scare but said that “no disposable grounds straight links Webb to immoderate actions oregon follow-up related to the firing of individuals for their intersexual orientation.”

The findings of that investigation, Odom wrote, were based connected much than 50,000 pages of humanities documents from assorted archives, including NASA headquarters, the Truman Presidential Library and the National Archives.

Odom investigated 2 meetings that predated Webb’s clip astatine NASA: In 1950, then-undersecretary Webb met with President Harry S. Truman and aboriginal 2 White House aides and Democratic Sen. Clyde Hoey of North Carolina to sermon the Hoey Committee, a Senate subcommittee created to analyse however galore LGBTQ radical worked for the national authorities and whether they were “security risks.”

In his gathering with Truman, Webb discussed with the president however the committee and the White House “might ‘work unneurotic connected the homosexual investigation,’” according to historiographer David K. Johnson, writer of “The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians successful the Federal Government,” 1 of the galore documents Odom cites successful his report.

No grounds links Webb to immoderate enactment that followed those discussions, Odom said.

The historiographer besides investigated the firing of Norton, a fund expert astatine the abstraction agency. Norton sued the Civil Service Commission aft his firing, and his case, Norton v. Macy, was 1 of respective that helped overturn the enforcement bid that allowed national agencies to occurrence LGBTQ employees for their sexuality, Odom wrote.

Odom said helium recovered nary grounds to amusement that Webb was alert of Norton’s firing; since it was national argumentation astatine the clip to oust LGBTQ employees, Odom wrote, Norton’s departure was “highly apt — though sadly — considered unexceptional.”

No documents could beryllium that Webb was straight linked to firings of LGBTQ employees, Odom said.