An open letter to NASA administrator Bill Nelson

re: “James Webb” Space Telescope

**

Dear Mr. Nelson,

It is with great interest that I learn of the controversy swirling around the name of the James Webb Space Telescope. I can shed no light on allegations that Webb, who as you well know led NASA in the 1960s during a long government career, was a party to institutional persecution of gay and lesbian people. But I trust that you will, pending an ongoing historical investigation, make a thoughtful decision to retain or change this great spacecraft’s name. Either way, we should all at this moment reflect on a shameful episode of American history, the so-called “lavender scare”.

Should a change of name be in order, one alternative that’s been suggested is the escaped slave and abolitionist Harriet Tubman – certainly worthy of the honour, though her use of the stars as navigational aids on the “underground railroad” is a weak connection to astronomy.

Another, perhaps more suitable as the namesake of a space telescope, is Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin. Payne-Gaposchkin was arguably the first to recognise that hydrogen is the principal component of stars, a radical idea in the mid-1920s. Her own intellect shone brightly enough to carry her from England (Cambridge) to the USA (Harvard), reminding us that great science is almost always an international effort. Moreover, though Harvard would award her a PhD and bask in her starlight, she suffered there for many years the indignity – and physical hardship – of doing a “man’s work” for a woman’s meagre pay.

To those two let me add Nancy Grace Roman. The agency has already announced that its flagship space telescope after the JWST will be named after NASA’s first chief astronomer. But, given that the current project is so many years and billions of dollars off schedule, those who want to see a telescope named after Roman would perhaps appreciate her name being brought forward to Grace the “JWST”.

Or, you might consider another, elegant, solution: Georges Lema?tre. A Belgian Catholic priest and physics professor – and, self-evidently, a white, European male – may not be the first-obvious candidate for this honour. Yet, we would all be well-served to recognise the faceted contributions of a man sometimes called “the most important scientist you’ve probably never heard of”.

Interrupting his studies to serve as an artillery officer in the First World War, Lema?tre returned to academic life and training for the priesthood. Postgraduate studies in the mid-1920s took him to Cambridge and then Harvard and MIT. Later, in 1933, Lema?tre did another stint in the USA, as a visiting professor at the Catholic University of America in Washington DC.

Back in Belgium he was the first to propose, in 1927, that the universe is expanding – a proposal derived from General Relativity and soon confirmed observationally by Edwin Hubble, who would appear not to have known of Lemaitre’s work, published as it was in French.

Lema?tre was also first to propose that expansion of the universe is accelerating, first to propose what became known as Hubble’s Law (known by the International Astronomical Union since 2018 as the Hubble-Lema?tre Law), first to estimate the Hubble Constant and first to propose that the universe originated from a single point – a theory later called the Big Bang.

There are two other reasons why the George Lema?tre Space Telescope would be a worthy successor to the Hubble.

One is the opportunity for explicit recognition – by a NASA which, understandably, is inclined to give headline status to Americans – of the international reality of any project so ambitious as the JWST and the science it supports. Americans should be proud of our capacity to lead such ventures, but likewise be reminded that strength of leadership comes equally from collaboration.

The JWST is of course a joint project between NASA and its European and Canadian counterparts. Several European Space Agency-provided instruments have been built into the space telescope, and ESA will provide the launch, later this year by an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana, that will take it to do its work in deep space. Barter being the basis for such arrangements, European and Canadian scientists have guaranteed observing time.

Georges Lema?tre (Archives de l'Université Catholique de Louvain/ESA)

Indeed, Lema?tre’s name has already flown in space. The fifth of ESA’s Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) resupply ships was named after “Monseigneur Big Bang”, but ATV’s legacy lives beyond the International Space Station; one of ESA’s contributions to NASA’s Artemis return-to-the-Moon programme is the service module that will provide life support, propulsion and navigation for “Orion” crew capsules flying from Cape Canaveral. There will be no Moon missions by American – and international – astronauts without this critical component designed and built by Airbus (in magnificent facilities in Bremen, Germany).

But the most compelling argument for “Georges Lema?tre” is his representation of a type of diversity that we ignore at our peril. That is, however much the “rational, modern” mindset may dismiss it, religious belief persists – and believers’ contribution to science remains important.

Reason and faith, science and religion? Independent ways of knowing truth, perhaps, with science addressing the “what” and religion the deep complexities of the human “why”. Lema?tre clearly understood this distinction between what have been called non-overlapping magisteria; he pushed back against Pope Pius XII’s contention that the Big Bang somehow validates creationism.

In our world of frustratingly intractable conflict between cultures, between religions and between technology and humanity, we should cherish his example.

Yours sincerely,

Dan Thisdell

London, 29 July 2021

Distincive solar array of ATV, left, lives on in Orion (ESA/NASA/D Ducros)