The release of the first images from the James Webb space telescope, the most powerful ever launched into space, has renewed calls from astronomers for Nasa to rename the instrument amid allegations Webb was complicit in historical persecution of LGBTQ+ people.
The $10bn telescope is named in tribute to James Webb, an American official who was the second administrator of Nasa. Webb led the space agency during many of the Apollo missions in the 1960s and also served as the US undersecretary of state from 1949 to 1952.
The telescope’s name has been criticised by many scientists amid allegations that Webb was linked to persecution of LGBTQ+ people in the 1950s and 1960s. The Lavender Scare witch-hunt resulted in the mass dismissal of gay and lesbian people from the US government service in the mid-20th century.
Researchers have been calling on Nasa to rename the telescope (JWST) since early 2021. A petition has been signed by more than 1,700 people in the astronomy community.
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, an assistant professor of physics at the University of New Hampshire and one of four researchers leading the renaming petition, tweeted on Monday: “As one of the people who has been leading the push to change the name, today feels bittersweet, I’m so excited for the new images and so angry at Nasa HQ.
“Nasa leadership has stubbornly refused to acknowledge that what is now public info about JW’s legacy means he does not merit having a great observatory named after him,” she added.
During Webb’s time as administrator, Nasa employee Clifford Norton was fired in 1963 for “immoral, indecent, and disgraceful conduct” after being interrogated on suspicion of homosexuality. Norton later successfully sued for wrongful dismissal.
In September last year, Nasa announced it would not change the telescope’s name. “We have found no evidence at this time that warrants changing the name of the James Webb space telescope,” Nasa’s current administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement in September.
In March, the journal Nature published 400 pages of internal Nasa documents obtained through a freedom of information request, including a white paper that said “Nasa had decided that removal of homosexual employees would be its policy. They had a choice during Webb’s tenure as administrator to set or change that policy.”
“A lot of astronomers are very unhappy the observatory is named after him,” wrote the American astronomer Phil Plait in his Bad Astronomy newsletter. “It’s difficult to want to use an instrument when you know you’ll have to write about it using the name of someone who worked to negate your very existence.”
“The observatory will produce amazing science and gorgeous images, certainly the equal of anything Hubble has done,” Plait tweeted. “But it’s named after someone irrevocably tied to bigotry and homophobia, and moreover Nasa has botched the way they handled the situation.”
