The James Webb Space Telescope will remain The James Webb Space Telescope, despite criticism from some astronomers who refuse to call it that.
Odom and his colleagues reviewed over 50,000 pages of documents covering the period from 1949-1969.
"We really still don't really know how he felt about any of these issues," says Odom, saying that Webb's main concern seemed to be understanding the administration's policies and putting them into effect while also fulfilling other priorities, like going to the moon. "Based upon the available evidence, Webb's main involvement was in attempting to limit Congressional access to the personnel records of the Department of State," the new NASA report states, adding that Webb did apparently pass along some materials on homosexuality provided by another federal employee.
Noting that"all evidence points to the suggestion that Webb continued to be in positions of power specifically because he was highly competent," these astronomers say it's likely that Webb knew much about the security practices at his agency during the Cold War, when being gay was perceived as being a national security risk.
Odom says he understands why people can have passionate feelings about the name of the telescope, calling the persecution of gay government workers a"painful chapter in American history."
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