NASA has decided not to rename its soon-to-be-launched flagship observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), after investigating whether its namesake, former NASA administrator James Webb, was involved in persecuting gay and lesbian people in the 1950s and 1960s. The agency says it found no evidence to support the allegations.

The decision and the lack of transparency with which it was announced — NASA released no report about the scope of the investigation — has angered a number of astronomers.

“I’m disappointed,” says Johanna Teske, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC. “Without knowing what factors were considered, it’s hard for me to respect the decision to keep the current name.”

Since May, more than 1,200 people, including scientists who are slated to use the telescope after its planned December launch, have signed a petition calling for the JWST to be renamed. Webb held multiple leadership positions in the US government during a period in which gay and lesbian federal employees were systematically fired because of their sexual orientation. For instance, he was NASA administrator when an agency employee was fired in 1963 on suspicion of being gay.

In response to the concerns, NASA began an internal study of historical documents that might shed light on Webb’s behaviour towards gay and lesbian people. On 27 September, current agency administrator Bill Nelson released a one-sentence statement to some media outlets, including Nature, saying: “We have found no evidence at this time that warrants changing the name of the James Webb Space Telescope.” NASA’s acting chief historian, Brian Odom, who led the inquiry, told Nature on 30 September that he considers the investigation closed.

‘Gut punch’

A NASA official had said in June that the agency would be transparent with the scientific community in its decision, but there is no final written report that could be released. Odom says that “under the circumstances of COVID, the investigation was as thorough as possible and very objective”. He says it consisted of several archivists going through NASA’s internal records, interviewing other historians who had studied Webb, and hiring an external historian to explore aspects such as Webb’s career at other government agencies. Several relevant repositories, such as the National Archives in Washington DC and the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum in Independence, Missouri, have been closed for long periods because of the COVID-19 pandemic; Odom’s team was not able to study materials from them that were not already digitized.

Odom says he met Nelson several times to present the material that the investigators were able to gather. “The administrator’s participation in this was very thoughtful and very objective,” he says. Nelson made the decision to keep the name of the telescope.

But some think NASA’s decision is the wrong one. Webb, they say, was head of the agency during a period of discrimination and bears responsibility. “The gut punch is in the outright refusal to hear the voices of queer astronomers,” says Brian Nord, an astrophysicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois. “This is a refusal to confront history. If we can’t have that, how are we going to shed light on the oppression that people are facing?”

Nord is one of four astronomers who led the petition for the telescope to be renamed. The other three are Lucianne Walkowicz at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Illinois; Chanda Prescod-Weinstein at the University of New Hampshire in Durham; and Sarah Tuttle at the University of Washington in Seattle. In an e-mail to Nature about NASA's decision, they wrote: “For all the institution’s talk of equity and diversity, they don’t seem to be particularly concerned with public accountability about sensitive issues that have impacted a historically marginalized group.”

Naming a telescope

At the heart of the controversy is what responsibility government officials bear for discriminatory actions and policies at agencies they headed. Webb ran NASA between 1961 and 1968, during the height of the exploration programmes that eventually sent astronauts to walk on the Moon. Critics point out that Webb was therefore in charge in 1963, when Clifford Norton, a suspected gay employee, was fired.

Odom says he looked closely at the Norton case for evidence of whether Webb was involved in directing the firing. “It just didn’t turn up,” he says.

But the broader context is important for assessing Webb’s legacy, critics say. Webb worked in the US government system — including holding the influential position of undersecretary of state from 1949 to 1952, during Truman’s administration — when firing gay people was seen as acceptable and even encouraged. Rolf Danner, an astronomer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who is chair of the American Astronomical Society’s committee on sexual orientation and gender minorities in astronomy, says Webb was probably an effective manager in that framework. “I just don’t think that makes him the right choice for NASA’s premier science project more than 60 years later.”

As successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, the JWST will study cosmic phenomena including star formation, galaxy evolution and exoplanets. International partners in the mission include the European and Canadian space agencies. It was named in 2002 by former NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe, who wanted to highlight Webb’s accomplishments in government. Webb “had the ability to bring together those from multiple disciplines and collectively work together to achieve something larger than themselves”, says O’Keefe, who is now at Syracuse University in New York. He says that NASA would not be the same today had Webb not been administrator, and that the agency’s investigation reinforces the conclusion that he and others had reached: that “indeed, this is a person of character”.

Yet some say that Webb’s accomplishments don’t justify naming the telescope after him, given the context in which he worked. “Webb did his job, for better or worse, and will be remembered in history,” says Peter Gao, a planetary scientist at the Carnegie Institution. “It’s not necessary to further celebrate him given what happened under his tenure.”

Astronomers who disagree with NASA's decision are now considering the future. For many, boycotting the JWST is not an option, because of its transformational capabilities. Some are talking about ways to acknowledge the controversy while still working with JWST data, perhaps by putting information about Webb’s associations with anti-LGBT+ actions in the acknowledgments of papers. Others might call the telescope something else in their dealings with it. For instance, Prescod-Weinstein tweeted on 30 September: “I am personally thrilled about the Just Wonderful Space Telescope (JWST).”

Quelle: nature

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Update: 10.10.2021

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NASA Invites Media to James Webb Space Telescope Launch

Members of the media may now register their interest in attending the launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the premier space science observatory for the next decade. Webb, an international partnership with the ESA (European Space Agency) and Canadian Space Agency, is targeted for launch Dec. 18.

ESA provides launch services for the mission. Webb will launch on an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on the northeastern coast of South America.

Live coverage will air on NASA TV, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. Photos and b-roll will be available to all media.

Media can register their interest to attend launch events at two locations: Webb’s launch site at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, as well as Webb’s mission operations site at Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore.

Interested media must apply by Wednesday, Oct. 20. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online.

U.S. media and all non-European media can register their interest online at:

https://socialforms.nasa.gov/webb-telescope-launch-media-coverage-interest-form

European media must register their interest online at:

https://blogs.esa.int/forms/esa-media-briefing-form

Due to COVID-19 restrictions and space limitations, NASA and its mission partners may be unable to accommodate all requests for attendance. Members of the media who want to learn more about logistics and travel requirements can listen to a recording of an informational briefing for media available online. Final accreditation will be handled by STScI, ESA, and Arianespace for access to their respective facilities.

The Webb Space Telescope will explore every phase of cosmic history – from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe and everything in between. Webb will reveal new and unexpected discoveries and help humanity understand the origins of the universe and our place in it.

Quelle: NASA

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Update: 14.10.2021

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James Webb super-telescope arrives at launch site

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a joint venture between the US, European and Canadian space agencies.

It is an extraordinary machine that will unfurl the biggest astronomical mirror ever sent into orbit - at 6.5m (21ft) in diameter.

All three agencies have contributed instrumentation, with Nasa and its industrial partner, Northrop Grumman, leading the observatory's assembly.

This was completed at a facility in Los Angeles, California, in August, enabling Webb then to be packed off by sea and the Panama Canal to French Guiana.

Wednesday saw the cargo ship MN Colibri enter the Kourou River at high tide to unload the telescope's sealed transport container. A truck took Webb the last few kilometres into the spaceport's cleanroom facilities.

It will be a few days yet, however, before the observatory can be extracted from its bagging and hoisted into position to allow engineers to get to work on it.

They'll want to know nothing has been damaged in transit.

 

"You've probably seen the animations of how this telescope will unfold once it's in space, but it is coming to Kourou in a folded configuration," explained European Space Agency (Esa) project manager Peter Rumler.

"We don't have the equipment to do any of the deployments here so we'll be restricted just to switch-on and electrical checks to see that everything is OK," he told BBC News.

There is a detailed list of preparation milestones leading up to the scheduled launch in mid-December. These include fuelling Webb so that it can fire thrusters to manoeuvre itself once it gets into space; and, of course, attachment to its rocket, an Ariane 5.

A key event occurs at the end of next week when another Ariane launch is due to take place. Once this gets off the ground, it will free up the big "table" on which rockets at Kourou, including Webb's vehicle, are integrated.

"Right now our biggest concern is the next launch on 22 October," said Peter Rumler. "If that has a problem or is delayed, it affects us. We certainly want to get Webb off before Christmas."

Whenever it occurs, Webb's launch will be one of the very last outings for the Ariane 5. It is being replaced as Europe's premier rocket from next year by an upgraded system, Ariane 6, which should be cheaper to manufacture and operate.

 

Since its introduction in 1996, Ariane 5 has lofted several high-profile astronomy missions, including the XMM-Newton X-ray telescope, the Herschel infrared observatory and the Planck surveyor. But none of these carried the price tag hanging from Webb.

Indeed, in terms of payload value, JWST will be the most significant launch in the veteran rocket's 25-year history.

Lift-off is likely to occur somewhere between 08:45 and 11:00 local time (07:45-10:00 EST; 12:45-15:00 GMT).

The flight time, up to the point where Webb is ejected from the top of the Ariane, will be just short of 30 minutes.

This will have put Webb on a path to its chosen observing position some 1.5 million km from Earth, a journey that will take roughly a further 30 days.

IMAGE SOURCE, ESA/STEPHANE CORVAJA

Controllers back on Earth will need time to set up the telescope for science operations, but the first sample high-resolution images should be released within two or three months.

Astronomers are expecting great things. Webb has been tuned to see precisely those parts of the cosmos that are beyond Hubble's capability.

"Webb will make amazing discoveries in all fields of astrophysics," predicted Esa project scientist Antonella Nota.

"Webb is building on what Hubble has been able to do in its 31 splendid years in orbit. Hubble, in spite of the fact that it is still a relatively small telescope with a 2.4m primary mirror, has been able to push the horizon of the observable Universe all the way back to a few hundred million years from the Big Bang.

"With a factor of 100 increase in sensitivity, Webb will push way through this and will be really able to see how the first galaxies assembled."

IMAGE SOURCE, NASA/CHRIS GUNN