• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

James Webb Telescope

Puppycow said:
Personally, this sort of thing rubs me the wrong way. I'm not like a huge fan of James Webb or anything. I'm not sure that I would even recognize his name if it hadn't been attached to this space telescope. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't. When I hear "James Webb" I think of a space telescope, not the person it is named after. But it's just part of a larger trend to cancel or rename things named after people who lived in a different era when most people didn't have the most modern progressive sensibilities that the wokest people in 2021 have.
Click to expand...

Milkshake duck is racist.
 
Puppycow said:
Will James Webb be the next victim of cancellation?

NASA Needs to Rename the James Webb Space Telescope (Op-Ed in Scientific American)



He worked for the federal government as a civil servant at a time when the federal government (and society at large) was very much anti-gay. The "clear evidence to suggest" seems to be a 1950 memo that says he briefed a senator on the matter at the request of the senator. Exactly what he said is unclear.

Personally, this sort of thing rubs me the wrong way. I'm not like a huge fan of James Webb or anything. I'm not sure that I would even recognize his name if it hadn't been attached to this space telescope. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't. When I hear "James Webb" I think of a space telescope, not the person it is named after. But it's just part of a larger trend to cancel or rename things named after people who lived in a different era when most people didn't have the most modern progressive sensibilities that the wokest people in 2021 have.
Click to expand...


Y'know, I think I side with the "cancelers" on this one.

If we found out that Hubble cheated on his wife or something, I'd say there's no reason to rename the Hubble Telescope, because the name honors his contributions to the relevant science which are unaffected by his failings elsewhere. The same would apply if someone were being honored for heroic actions or even for being rich AF and donating the funding to make the eponymous project happen. The latter might be a horrible person but their checks cleared.

But for the type of well-paid administrators who are constantly getting their names on bridges and civic buildings and highways because of their influence and vanity, the only thing we can even pretend they're being honored for is the supposedly superior quality of their administrating. We must presume that few if any of the vast pool of available bureaucrats would have done as well in their stead. So if it turns out they weren't as "dedicated" and "visionary" and "innovative" and "fair-minded" as the after-dinner speeches claimed, even if that just means they were making the same political compromises as everyone else at the time, **** 'em. What did they do to deserve it in the first place?
 
Myriad said:
Y'know, I think I side with the "cancelers" on this one.
Click to expand...

I'm not. The time to evaluate his merits was when the telescope was being named. Maybe they should have picked a different name. But they didn't.

Changing the name now gives in to and encourages a pathological obsession with past sins. It's not healthy. And there is no limiting principle to this drive to erase the past. No name is safe.
 
Ziggurat said:
Changing the name now gives in to and encourages a pathological obsession with past sins. It's not healthy. And there is no limiting principle to this drive to erase the past. No name is safe.
Click to expand...

The obsession isn't with the sins but with relegating them to the past.

I haven't looked in to each name in that article but I think I would agree that San Francisco has fallen off the slippery slope. But that doesn't mean that changing old names is not a good idea some times. My standard would be if that person stood out in their own time as being out of place on the issue.

I'm not persuaded to rename JWST based on the Sci Am op-ed. It makes it sound like Webb was just a cog in the wheel. Unless he was clearly outspoken about the policy, I can't see this.

I have to say I questioned the name when it was first applied, he appeared to be a person who was simply in the right place at the right time.
 
Well since the name is literally written on it and it's being packed for launch means that you can rename it, but when the future encounters it, they will revert to the original name (should roman characters mean anything by then.)
 
BenBurch said:
Well since the name is literally written on it and it's being packed for launch means that you can rename it, but when the future encounters it, they will revert to the original name (should roman characters mean anything by then.)
Click to expand...


What, NASA doesn't have the budget for a can of spray paint?
 
BenBurch said:
Well since the name is literally written on it and it's being packed for launch means that you can rename it, but when the future encounters it, they will revert to the original name (should roman characters mean anything by then.)
Click to expand...

It's good to see you again Ben
 
Myriad said:
What, NASA doesn't have the budget for a can of spray paint?
Click to expand...

Probably not the kind of paint you want to spray on a ten billion dollar, precision engineered, one of a kind complex device, that has to work right the first time, all the time, without any further maintenance or repairs

Just changing the thermal profile of the surface in question by a tiny amount probably risks the entire mission. What's your priority, at this point? Making the mission as successful as possible? Or making it as politically correct as possible?
 
theprestige said:
Probably not the kind of paint you want to spray on a ten billion dollar, precision engineered, one of a kind complex device, that has to work right the first time, all the time, without any further maintenance or repairs

Just changing the thermal profile of the surface in question by a tiny amount probably risks the entire mission. What's your priority, at this point? Making the mission as successful as possible? Or making it as politically correct as possible?
Click to expand...


Any unnecessary change at this point is a risk. Think of all the things with JWST on it after all these years. Hundreds of thousands of documents (millions?), including contracts and other MOA's. All sorts of signage and media. What an enormous distraction. (and expensive too!)

You could add a nickname bur the acronym JWST would need to stay.

Maybe the Jump Wayback Space Telescope?
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_E._Webb

James Edwin Webb (October 7, 1906 – March 27, 1992) was an American government official who served as the second appointed administrator of NASA from February 14, 1961, to October 7, 1968. Webb oversaw NASA from the beginning of the Kennedy administration through the end of the Johnson administration, thus overseeing all the critical first manned launches in the Mercury through Gemini programs, until just before the first crewed Apollo flight. He also dealt with the Apollo 1 fire.

In 2002, the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) was renamed the James Webb Space Telescope as a tribute to Webb.
Click to expand...

I suppose that if they had just stuck with the original name, which was a descriptive name, there wouldn't be any controversy.
 
steenkh said:
But that was an awful name. What would the next space telescope be called? The Next Next Generation Space Telescope? The Generation After the Next Generation Space Telescope?
Click to expand...

Deep Space (9) Telescope
 


Will it finally launch this year? And more importantly, will it work as hoped for?

If it does, we should get some amazing pictures.

Seems like the naming controversy has died down.

This thing is such an intricate apparatus and every single part has to work correctly. There won't be any possibility of sending a space shuttle out to repair it this time. That's what worries me.
 
Puppycow said:


Will it finally launch this year? And more importantly, will it work as hoped for?

If it does, we should get some amazing pictures.

Seems like the naming controversy has died down.

This thing is such an intricate apparatus and every single part has to work correctly. There won't be any possibility of sending a space shuttle out to repair it this time. That's what worries me.
Click to expand...
I wonder if building 2 of these things might have been a good idea.
 
Puppycow said:
This thing is such an intricate apparatus and every single part has to work correctly. There won't be any possibility of sending a space shuttle out to repair it this time. That's what worries me.
Click to expand...

I worry about the celebration of the testing. :eye-poppi

So, it's super cool the precision mirrors passed all the cryo days and unfurled for the last time, after years and years of careful testing.
But WHY does every eye-browed and eye-lash exposed engineer need to be in the room with it to take a photo?

37988427785_68f6f0dcc1_o-crop-1c526cb.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom