Who is James Webb?

James E. Webb (October 7, 1906; died March 27, 1992) was an American bureaucrat who served as NASA administrator from February 14, 1961 to October 7, 1968.

Webb ran NASA from the beginning of the Kennedy government to the end of the Johnson government; thus overseeing critical manned space launches between the Mercury and Gemini programs just prior to the first manned Apollo flight. He was also involved in the Apollo 1 fire.

In 2002, the Hubble Space Telescope's replacement telescope, the "Next Generation Space Telescope" (NGST), was renamed the "James Webb Space Telescope" to pay homage to Webb.

The space-based observatory is named after NASA's second administrator, James E. Webb (1906-1992). James Edwin Webb was the second director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which was formally established on October 1, 1958 under the 1958 National Aeronautics and Space Act. Webb is credited with leading the Apollo, a series of lunar exploration programs that landed the first humans on the Moon. However, he launched a vigorous space science program during his tenure, responsible for more than 75 launches, including America's first interplanetary explorers.

Space telescope called

The James Webb Telescope is the most powerful of the telescopes launched into space. The images it captures, showing the 'cosmic abyss' and the formation of stars, help us see the universe more clearly than ever before. For North Carolina residents, the telescope's findings and achievements are perhaps more meaningful; because James Webb, after whom the telescope is named, grew up in the rural county of Granville.

James Webb was born in 1906 and lived in rural Granville County on North Carolina's northern border. His father was the Granville County Schools Superintendent. He dropped out for a year because he could not afford the costs during his education, but eventually returned and graduated in education in 1928. After graduating, Webb remained at the University of North Carolina, where he pursued a career as dean of the faculty of education.

MILITARY AND AVIATION YEARS

By 1930 Webb had joined the newly formed reserve aviation unit of the US Navy. While serving in the Marine Corps, he first worked for North Carolina Congressman Edward W. Pou and then went on to hold a number of government jobs as an assistant to former North Carolina Governor O. Max Gardner. While working for Gardner, a lawyer registered with the Washington Bar Association, he made efforts to become a lawyer himself. Working with Gardner, Webb specialized in the activities of government agencies and multiple aerospace industry firms, and joined one of these aerospace firms in the late 1930s. Over the next eight years, he was promoted to vice president of the firm. During World War II, Webb actively joined the army, commanding an air force stationed at Cherry Point, North Carolina.

After the war's end, Webb returned to government duties, first serving as Director of the Federal Budget Office in President Harry Truman's government, and then promoted to deputy State Department.

THE 'IRON FIST' YEARS AT NASA

When the Soviet Union launched the first man-made satellite, Sputnik, into space and the space race heated up, Webb was appointed director of space activities for the United States.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Webb as administrator of NASA. He managed the agency from February of the same year to October 1968. During his tenure at NASA, Webb invested in the development of the agency's robotic spacecraft, and wrote as early as 1965 that a large space telescope then known as the 'Large Space Telescope' should become NASA's greatest effort. Webb retired from NASA just months before the first moon landing in 1969.

After retiring from NASA, Webb continued to serve on various advisory boards, including serving as acting executive director at the Smithsonian Institution. In 1981 he was awarded the Sylvanus Thayer Award by the United States Military Academy 'for his devotion to his country'. He died of a heart attack in March 1992.

NASA announced in 2002 that it would name the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope as the James Webb Space Telescope, and objections began around the same time.

HOW WAS THE NEW TELESCOPE NAMED?

The James Webb telescope has been in the planning stages since the turn of the century and was named the 'James Webb Telescope' in 2002. Despite the efforts of some US scientists to boycott the Webb name due to its homophobic and discriminatory actions, it was decided to dedicate the telescope to Jamess Webb, on the grounds that the allegations could not be justified with conclusive evidence.

Sean O'Keefe, the NASA Administrator at the time, announced the name of the telescope to the world as follows: "We found it appropriate to name Hubble's successor in honor of James Webb. Thanks to his efforts, we got our first glimpses of the dramatic landscape of space. He took our nation on its first voyage of discovery, turning our imaginations into reality. Indeed, he laid the foundations for one of the most successful periods of astronomical exploration at NASA. As a result, we are rewriting textbooks today with the help of the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the James Webb Telescope.”

In 2002, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe announced that the agency's next telescope would be named after James Webb, who led NASA when it was preparing to land humans on the Moon in the 1960s. Some astronomers were disappointed that a telescope would not be named after an astronomer; Others, on more serious grounds, claimed that Webb was responsible for a campaign known as the 'Lavender Scare' during the Truman administration that resulted in the forcible removal of LGBTI+ individuals from all levels of government. During James Webb's tenure as Secretary of State, many LGBTI+ government officials were fired.

This issue has been raised recently by Lucianne Walkowicz, a member of the scientific group 'JustSpace Alliance' and of the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein of the University of New Hampshire, Brian Nord of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of Chicago. It was brought to the agenda again with Sarah Tuttle coming to the fore. Afterwards, he published an article titled "James Webb Space Telescope Needs to be Renamed" by the University of Washington in the scientific journal Scientific American.

NASA announced that it will investigate the allegations and publish a report after the article is published. Then, last September, Bill Nelson, the current director of NASA and a former Florida Senator, announced that he did not see the need to change the name. To the dismay of the opposition, no reports were published.

After the telescope's launch, in March, Nature magazine, based on the right to information, investigated whether NASA took the allegations seriously enough and whether Paul Hertz, then director of astrophysics at NASA, had discussed with outside astronomers about renaming the telescope. The answer was no, and he had not met with any LGBTI+ astronomer.

The magazine also shared the records of the Clifford Norton case. Norton was fired from NASA in 1963, during James Webb's tenure, for being gay. Norton won a historic case against such discrimination in 1969 on appeal. In November 2021, NASA's Astrophysics Advisory Committee requested a more comprehensive report from the agency.