Published letters about the treatment of gays at NASA in the 1960s
Half a century ago, NASA really fired employees of non-traditional sexual orientation, it turned out from the published correspondence of current employees. This issue was raised by activists who opposed the name of the space telescope in honor of James Webb, the former director of the agency, who was suspected of homophobia.
The scandalous story of renaming the NASA James Webb Space Telescope, which was sent into orbit in December, received an unexpected continuation.
This telescope was created during the cooperation of 17 countries under the leadership of NASA and has the highest resolution of all telescopes ever created by humans. The capabilities of the tool are many times superior to Hubble, and James Webb is often called its successor. The telescope has become the most expensive and complex spacecraft and perhaps one of the most expensive devices in human history. In total, about $ 10 billion was spent on it, which is many times higher than the initial estimates. The launch date was also postponed many times: initially, in 1997, they wanted to launch the telescope around 2007, in the early 2010s, the launch was already scheduled for 2018, as a result, it was launched on December 25, 2021. Its launch has been recognized by many scientists as the most important space event of the past year.
However, a few months before the launch in the United States, a number of scientists demanded to rename the telescope, named after the famous NASA administrator James Webb. They claim that Webb, while working at NASA and previously in high positions in the US State Department, participated in the policy of harassment of sexual minorities.
It was decided to immortalize Webb in the name of the mission for the fact that, as NASA administrator in 1961-68, he insisted on maintaining the scientific focus of the agency, despite the fact that the Apollo program then attracted most of NASA's forces and funding.
In May 2021, four astronomers wrote a petition to rename the telescope, which gathered over a thousand signatures. According to the authors of the petition, Webb, working in the US State Department in a high position from 1949 to 1952, repeatedly sent notes to the senator who fought against gays "about problems with homosexuals and sexual perverts." Astronomers referred to documents found in the archives by astronomer Adrian Lucy. "The documents clearly show that Webb planned and participated in meetings during which he passed homophobic materials," the authors of the petition said earlier.
Webb allegedly showed intolerance towards LGBT people while also being the director of NASA. "We believe that well-known historical documents clearly speak in favor of renaming the telescope," the authors of the petition believe.
Anyway, at the end of September 2021, the NASA leadership refused to rename the James Webb telescope - an idea advocated by the American LGBT community. "We have found no reason to rename the James Webb Telescope," NASA chief Bill Nelson said at the time.
Now, letters from NASA employees who were engaged in checking complaints in 2021 have been made public. The letters under the Freedom of Information Act were received by the editorial board of the authoritative journal Nature.
So, the story about NASA employee Clifford Norton, who was fired from the agency in 1963, was confirmed because his superiors considered him a homosexual. The commission also confirmed that firing employees for "homosexual behavior" was a "tradition" for the agency in the 1960s, when it was headed by Webb.
Moreover, a part of the official conclusion of the commission has been published, which it was decided not to publicly distribute. "This shows that NASA decided that firing homosexual workers would be its policy. Under Webb's rule, they had a choice to establish or change this policy," the document says.
Finally, it turned out that during the investigation, Paul Hertz, director of the astrophysics department at NASA headquarters, contacted a dozen astronomers to get their opinion on the possible renaming of the telescope. "No one said they would be disappointed with its renaming," he reported to the management. However, it turned out that no one from the LGBT community of scientists was interviewed.
Pavel Kotlyar