I want to name a Space telescope Vogon Constructor Fleet. Because it is at points like this that i turn to, Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy “In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” I still want to see whats out there .
NASA designed it, Northrop Grumman built it, CSA and ESA put money in order to be granted partnership. ESA payed for the launch which is why it was launched with an Ariane rocket
lmao 🤦♂️ just shows how ignorant you are about Europe's contribution to JWST, their involvement almost wrecked the project and the only thing they really added was the launch vehicle - which frankly is meh as JWST could've launched on another vehicle if required. Europe piggy backs on our program because they're too incompetent to get anything done all on their own. 🫶 Even RUSSIA Russia!!!! And before the Soviets! Had a better space program. ESA is an embarrassment and a pathetic joke. There are many many stories about how ESA almost ruined the entire JWST project due to their incompetency. It was right to name JWST after an American. As a long time gay, I just don't care about his politics. James Webb is maybe the ONLY person a telescope is named after who WHOLE HARDEDLY 💯💯💯 deserves the accolade. Galileo is an old fart nobody cares about him anymore. And Hubble is a cool scope and all but literally nobody ever met the guy irl.
I'm glad most scientists usually just refer to it as JWST and I can just imagine it stands for Jace Welescope Space Telescope. If they had to name something after James Webb, they should've saved it for like the first administrative building on a moon base or something, that would actually be fitting since he administrated humans to the moon
This honestly feels like the typical CEO answer. The guy who made the call was an administrator. I think it clearly reveals his opinion on the importance of that role in ALL that NASA does. CEOs tend to have this kind of perspective. That they are the true driver of value in the company. I think the naming of the telescope boils down to ego.
No different than naming important warships after politicians. The people who control the money all hope that something will be named after them in the future and the best way to pave the way for that is to do it today.
@@haldorasgirson9463 while I can see your point, one of the things raised in the video is just how unusual this was for this type of object. I think most of us wouldn't blink at someone naming an aircraft carrier the Lincoln, etc. But when it comes to scientific instruments, there has been a strong tradition of careful examination of the device's mission in order to find one of the most relevant scientists that played a part in the field that that instrument will be enriching. As I mentioned in my own comment, this felt a lot more like an executive reflecting on the importance of their own position and deciding to "make the call," to laud someone in a similar position. This may be the first time a name was decided without any real effort to form consensus. Going around and saying, "What do you think of Webb Space Telescope," falls woefully short.
@@haldorasgirson9463The US President is by law the supreme commander of the combined armed forces of the US. Naming *any* military thing after a current/former President is seen as routine.
This would also be supported by the fact that he is a Republican appointed by Bush 43; in the modern era, conservative political ideology is predicated upon the practitioner's self-importance/narcissism.
We have an entire college that sucked away several departments from other colleges, named after someone who never taught a college course, never worked in academia, and most of us never heard of. It’s all because he wanted to purchase a college to be named after him, for 310 million $, requiring us to provide a match of (I believe) half. Most of the rest of the university is being decimated in favor of that college, and we aren’t sure we’ll meet the match requirement. Education is named after anti-intellectuals nowadays.
@@paulungaI'm willing to bet that Gallilleo at least saw a firework or a compressed air bottle rocket thing blast off a post. They probably went like 10 feet in his time but you know, rocket.
The funny thing I find is that it sounds like Webb wouldn't have cared less to have a telescope named after him. Imagine getting something named after you that you're completely indifferent towards. Like naming a shopping cart after you. But yeah it would have been much more inspirational if it were named after an actual scientist.
Yeah but it's funny b/c the people who decided what the name should be were Nasa administrators and they decided to name it after someone who had the same job as them. But the other thing to consider is that these scientists wouldn't get to do this science if it wasn't for people doing administrative work to make it all happen. On the other hand, it's kind of like naming the scope after the politicians who voted to fund it, or whatever lol.
"And then the nuclear boys.. they they open up the nucleus and all the science falls out" had me nearly laughing myself to death. LOL Jesus Christ that was such comedic reenactment of the tape. 😂 I love it by the way, when people try to explain the importance of a complex topic by going to an even more complex topic.
@@wr2382 okay, that's fair. I still laugh my ass off at the whole "and the nuclear boys they opened up the nucleus and all the science falls out" comment though.
That's my take on it. All my laymans study of quantum physics just teaches me that I don't understand oatmeal. Cause it's all oatmeal to me. I guess you have to be a scientist to get the science to fall out. Or am I not shaking it hard enough? @@retrohipster1060
@@kylelumpkin7517a world full of middle managers THATS WHAT I HAVE BEEN DREAMING OF!!!! Just a world of middle managers and worker peasants, it's glorious.
@@An_Iron_God69420 ok, so I thought I wouldn't respond to this, but now I'm thinking maybe I do need to explain my reasoning. 1. Naming it after a famous gay person is a rejection of lavender scare politics. 2. Naming it after a person who was instrumental in defeating the nazis is... again a rejection of bigotry, but also just cool and 'based' and all that, and will probably at the very least annoy the very worst people alive today. 3. AT-ST is the designation for the cool as heck bipedal imperial walkers from Star Wars, so... nerd cred, which I'm sure every cosmologist can appreciate.
i love the mental image of you sitting at a desk in grad school, bright eyed and bushy tailed, hoping today is the day you get to learn all about about the Webb Equation
Not impressed? James Webb administrated the organization that went from nothing to boots on the moon in ten years! They put his name on something that cost like ten times the original estimate and was a decade past the original 10 year schedule. He might be irate.
I went to university at a place where the library was named for a former director who actively despised the library. It was named, quite literally, as a matter of spite for the chap just after he died. "The library is still here... Robert isn't, and we're all very happy about that."
Two things: 1. I'm so glad that this video approaches the reason the current admin of NASA chose a former admin with as much skepticism as I do. I thought immediately that this was the first and only reason a non-scientist would be chosen. 2. As someone who sits in a quasi-technical space it's very funny to hear that acollierastro was looking beyond the recorded conversation and she could "hear" the scientists' words in his mouth. That's very much how it is for me. I explain to the executives why it isn't as simple as they think it is, then I go back to the technical team and discover through their explanation why it's even more complicated than I thought it was.
The interesting bit about the "JFK-Webb-conversation" is, that there are multiple levels of dumbing down information, from science to administration to politics. And that this is necessary to make a political decision to found an organization that employs the actual scientist and engineers and then produces those resources (science and technology) to make such things as "going to the moon" possible. Therefore you also *need* heads of administration like Webb, that can translates the language of the scientists into a language that can be understood by decision makers (politicians). Then when it comes to other political decisions like naming stuff, those politicians will remember those people who they were talking to, or to put it plainly, the middle manager will get the rewards.
I thought the rhetoric was a bit harsh on James Webb. He basically built NASA into what it is today. Its quite impressive he was able to keep the program funded well during his tenure. Also maintaining NASA's reputation after the Apollo 1 disaster. Especially for a science program that the public may have been skeptical about. For me, it's no different than how we recognize FDR as leading the US out of the Great Depression and WW2.
How I hope the JWST conversation didn't go... Politician: My kid's into Gundam and won't stop talkin about the principality of Zeon vs the federation. Administrator: We're going to park this space telescope at Earth-Sun Lagrange point L2. Politician: Isn't that where the space nazis in gundam are from? Admin: Close, but I believe that's Earth-moon L2. However, once there, it will unfurl like a gundam. Politician: So, we'll be able to keep an eye on the space nazis hiding behind the moon...
Now you know why so many Navy people like myself were so abjectly disappointed to see aircraft carrier CVN-74 named the USS John C. Stennis. It was a brown-noser move to name it after the sitting senator who is the appropriations committee chairman. He only had that job because he'd been in Congress since the beginning of time. He never did or even said anything of any military or Navy value. His "greatest" distinction is that he was a staunch defender of segregation, to the point that even politicians who agreed with him in the 1960s and 70s were like, "Dude, shut up already." Even more appalling is that the Chief of Naval Operations has the power to change ship names but decided to piss off his people and not even entertain the thought.
No, he told the customer who was also his boss and the most powerful man in the nation "no fucking way are we following those requirements, I'm protecting my engineers and scientists from that - I don't care how many times you tell me to do it, we're not doing it". This is a rare instance of management doing exactly what they're supposed to do.
@@danfelder8062 true, which is more an indictment of most project managers than being a particularly good reason to name a scientific instrument after someone.
From a different angle though... From what you're saying, it sounds like James Webb was a champion of making sure scientists were listened to. Which is actually a pretty good narrative to promote today.
Unfortunately, someone mentioned the 'B' word about something they're not sure whether he did or not *sixty years ago,* so now they want him gone, the name of the 'scope changed, and his reputation tarnishing. Id've expected a massive Twitter campaign, seeing as the 'B' word was being bandied about, but the truth is, 99.9999% of the world's population *absolutely do not give a shit- of any kind-* about what the telescope is called. 🍄
Unfortunately, someone mentioned the 'B' word about something they're not sure whether he did or not *sixty years ago,* so now they want him gone, the name of the 'scope changed, and his reputation tarnishing. Id've expected a massive Twitter campaign, seeing as the 'B' word was being bandied about, but the truth is, 99.9999% of the world's population *absolutely do not give a shit- of any kind-* about what the telescope is called. 🍄
That accusation was researched and there was zero evidence he was aware of or involved in the firing of Clifford Norton or involved going after homosexuals. Part of this can be blamed on the misattribution of a quote by another administrator to Webb. He did take NASA from the least racially integrated program to the most via progressive thinking and recruitment at HBCU. @@carloscostacox
As someone who has a degree in English I can confidently say you can massage a decent story or of this mess. Not a great story, not even a good one, but something approaching possible and plausible. It would have been better to name it after some really cool scientist who did really cool things and not, at the end of it all, a bean counter...
I think you nailed it at 23:40 - vanity. When he was appointed, O'Keefe gave some presentations and he seemed a little defensive about heading NASA without having a science or engineering background, and then at some presentation after he named it he gave the distinct impression that he was doing it to set a precedent of naming things after administrators, with a hint of "maybe a later one after Shaun O'Keefe". He wasn't really around long enough to be able to claim credit that "without Shaun, there would be no [cool mission of some sort]" But if you're going to name it after any nonscience person of the period, Barbara Mikulski would be a much better choice (at risk of rankling people at centers besides GSFC), but in 2002/3 nobody was really anticipating how late and expensive it was going to turn out to be, or how important Mikulski would be in it surviving the budget cycles to get to launch. It could very easily have ended up like the Superconducting Super Collider, whose cancellation 10 years earlier was still fresh in a lot of minds (Herman Wouk's 2004 "A Hole in Texas" is some entertaining lablit about that). My own preference at the time was Pepsi Generation Space Telescope - there was a push toward commercialization of space for more than just telecom and weather satellites and given the cost of what was then called NGST, selling naming rights to Pepsi seemed natural.
Oh god, the Pepsi Co Mission to Mars, where Pepsi outbids Mars Bars for the naming rights And launches an ad campaign all about space, and how Pepsi is forging the future Forcing astronauts to sign contracts to slowly walk towards the camera, Pepsi in hand Taste the Satisfaction Ahh ❤
@@zaraizabella anything, for a price. If PepsiCo singlehandedly funded NASA for ten years or something, then fuck it, they earned that ad campaign. I don't think people appreciate how much of the feasibility of space travel just comes down to money, with enough money we could have sent the Pepsi Generation Space Telescope to space and been collecting data a decade earlier.
Honestly, I have the utmost respect for someone who want a scientist, want interested in science, wasn't interested in the position, but fought so hard and advocated so tirelessly for the needs and goals of the scientists who he represented.
That is a very charitable reading of his intentions! He would naturally be at least partially motivated to advocate for increased status, funding and prestige by the agency he was running, as that would beget him more political power. I do not doubt that he legitimately believed in the points he made to the political class, but it's not like he selflessly championed something that he was not personally invested in.
"When he arrived at NASA in 1961, his leadership role meant he was in part responsible for implementing what was by then federal policy: the purging of LGBT individuals from the workforce. When he was at State, this policy was enforced by those who worked under him. As early as 1950, he was aware of this policy, which was a forerunner to the antigay witch hunt known today as the lavender scare. Historian David K. Johnson's 2004 book on the subject, The Lavender Scare, discusses archival evidence indicating that Webb, along with others in State Department leadership, was involved in Senate discussions that ultimately kicked off a devastating series of federal policies. Webb was in leadership as the lavender scare unfolded. Additional archival evidence, easily found by Columbia University astronomer Adrian Lucy, underlines Webb's role as a facilitator of homophobic policy discussions with members of the Senate. In particular, in 1950 assistant secretary of state Carlisle Humelsine submitted a set of memos to Webb that included “objectives and methods of operation of the Senate Committee established to look into the problem,” which Webb then shared during a meeting with Senator Clyde Hoey of North Carolina. The records clearly show that Webb planned and participated in meetings during which he handed over homophobic material. There is no record of him choosing to stand up for the humanity of those being persecuted. In fact, discrimination against queer people, including scientists, still affects their lives and careers. In 2016 the American Physical Society released the LGBT Climate in Physics report. Its core conclusion was that many queer scientists fundamentally do not feel safe in their workplaces. The climate is exclusionary, and physicists who identify as more than one minority, including LGBT+ physicists of color, experience the most harassment and exclusion. Astrophysicists who are LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual and/or ally, plus nonstraight identities not explicitly listed) exist and are marginalized. A 2021 study published in Science Advances found similar outcomes. The same hypermasculinist fears that characterized the lavender scare and other ideological purges during the cold war continue to animate the incarnation of far-right movements across the globe. So what signal does it send to current and future generations of scientists when we prioritize the legacies of complicit government officials over the dreams of the next generation? James Webb's legacy is the antithesis of the dreaming and sense of freedom inspired by the exploration of deep time and distant space. The time for lionizing leaders who acquiesced in a history of harm is over. We should name telescopes out of love for those who came before us and led the way to freedom-and out of love for those who are coming up after."
I think all the physicists should start calling it the Jill/William Space Telescope, or JWST, after Jill Tarter and William Herschel. Jill is appropriate because her work is related to extraterrestrial life (and exoplanets are some of the things JWST is trying to find), and of course William Herschel did a lot with spectroscopy, also relevant.
Herschel already has a telescope named after him (and his sister). The previously largest infrared telescope launched, "Herschel Space Observatory". But since that is no longer active, and he is attributed with the discovery of the infrared spectrum, it still seems like a good choice.
It could have been the Carl Sagan Space Telescope. After I thought about it, that's kind of where I arrived at the question. And the process was obviously completely wrong. It shouldn't be decided on a whim by the NASA administrator all by himself. There should be nominees and it should be discussed without prejudice. But the fact that the NASA administrator unilaterally chose one of his own predecessors is very sus. It does seem like he was trying to set a precedent that might eventually lead to himself being given the same honor.
I took it for granted that James Webb was probably a super cool scientist. Learning that not only is he not super cool, but he is also not a scientist, is a big disappointment. The collection of Malazan books in the background brings me a little bit of comfort though. Great video!
@@AB-ee5tb I abandoned the first book twice before I finally decided to stick with it and it ended up being my favorite fantasy series. It's definitely a more difficult read than most series but in my opinion it's worth the effort
I've watched your channel for only about a week now, but I've come to love it. You are soooooo meticulous, and you seem to put all your effort...and I mean all, into research. If I were in a coversation with you and had a disagreement with you, it'd be such an honest disagreement, because I'd know that you did so much research; you'd be totally backed up in your opinion. You don't shy away from investigating anything. You were born to be a presenter and teacher. I've seen some videos on presenting scientific principles on your channel, and you strike me as so comfortable and passioante about what you're speaking on. It feels almost more like a conversation than a lesson, but the vidoes have all the best elements of being more formal too. Bravo!
Amazing! Because I never checked, I just thought James Webb was a famous cosmologist of whom I hadn't heard for some reason. Indeed a building, a foundation or a school should be named after him, but why this telescope? Probably you are right: breaking the tradition and naming this flagship ;-) after an administrator will increase the chance of some other instrument being named after another administrator later on. His role reminds me of the position Oppenheimer had at the Manhattan project by the way, although Oppenheimer was a scientist and did some serious science. Both had to do the impossible.
Saying "without James Webb NASA would not exist" is very reminiscent of people crediting the achievements of large organisations to their CEOs/owners (most notably, the achievements of SpaceX to Elon Musk). It's so incredibly insulting to the engineers, the programmers, the researchers, but not just that, it's insulting to the cleaners, the cooks, the low level administrators, all of whom were necessary to the achievements of these organisations. But then I'd love it if we stopped trying to find heroes to put on pedestals at all.
You don't understand what "without James Webb NASA would not exist" means. It means "without James Webb NASA would just build rockets and would not do science." Would we be fine with that?
@@SWard-oe8ojIt's kind of like saying without Martin Luther King we would still have civil rights. Technically it is true however we pay homage to what actually happened not hypotheticals that are technically possible/true.
@SWard-oe8oj Yes it 100% is technically. Did really think if MLK didn't exist no other person would've thought, "huh, we need civil rights"?? By the way there were other activists doing the same job like M. Evers. We can also see it in other countries that achieved civil rights without US influence. So yes, there would've been someone pick up the mental, later. HOWEVER, my actual argument is that we give praise to MLK because that is the reality of the timeline we actually live in, not any hypothetical, true or possible. To tie all that back to JW, yes someone else could've or would've secured funding for NASA but we live in the reality that it was him.
Congratulations on 100k subs! Well deserved. This is the video I was watching when I noticed, even though I was 18 months old at the time. This video made me do a lot of thinking. Right now (just finished), I agree with several of the points you make but come to a different conclusion. If anything, I think the name of JWST is an important reminder of just how bad the current administrators are - launching a telescope 14 years late and billions over budget. It's not the government's money, it's our money. We need to stop accepting billion dollar overruns for anything. Finally, your last point is an interesting one. However, I think a better reply is that the people who think JWST is a waste of money tend to be the same people who think the militia is a great use of money. When in fact the same logic tends to apply to both.
Ok. This wins my subscription. I would say that the naming of just has made people more aware of webbs contribution to nasa and apollo; and as such is (accidently) a worthy name. I get your point and I tend to agree but I think the discussion has become important. I thank you for spending the time and effort you have. Excellent content.
Thank you for your take on the economics of Space Science. I find myself having to repeat over and over to folks that we are not blasting money into space. It's going to pay for people to do things here on earth. One take I hear a lot is that the money should be going to house and feed the homeless. I have to explain that it's going to house and feed scientists, tradespeople, graduate students, and hopefully interns as well. People who work hard for the money.
The people who are saying it should go to house and feed the homeless are the same people who fight tooth and nail to prevent any money going to house and feed the homeless.
@@MuffinsAPlentyyup. and they accuse NASA of "politicized" climate research as they themselves accept massive campaign money from the biggest emissions offenders... while supporting the military getting about 35x the budget...
NASA Boss saw himself as an admistrator, kinda named the telescope after his own hero .. kinda secretly hoping he will get one named after himself too on day.
The name I most remember from the 1960s man-in-space era of NASA is Chris Kraft. James Webb may have been the head honcho, but Chris Kraft was directing things in the trenches throughout, so to speak.
Agree. An instrument should be named after a person (or group) for their groundbreaking activity, usually working out/ publishing the scientific breakthrough. Organizing the funding is not that. One can name a room and put a plaque on its wall for that. And the reason to make the distinction is, I agree again, how you tell the story of science to audiences -- and JWST is only the right label if your focus is attracting administrators.
The funding NASA has secured from government/tax is nothing to scoff at. It's arguably its primary strength. Which is why Webb is a significant figure.
JWST should have been named BHCST (Big Hexagonal Cluster Space Telescope) or something of that sort, the way actual engineers would name it, like VLT (Very Large Telescope) and ELT (Extremely Large Telescope), both ESA's telescopes in Chile.
My first ever internet username was Eagle_M-16 and while it has led some people to falsely believe that I'm some hyper-nationalist gun nut, it's actually a reference to the Eagle Nebula, messier object 16. I snagged it because I was captivated by Hubble's Pillars of Creation image.
I think it’s funny how controversial this “pick” is. Like I’m pretty sure James Watney would be a debated but understandable pick. Also the ‘calculators’ where known as computers before they were disband after shortly thereafter. Of course those women would also become some of the first programmers before programming was seen and a man’s job. Dorthy Vaughan, Katherine Johnson, and Mary Jackson would have all made incredible names for the next generation satellite.
32:31 these kinds of arguments would make sense during like, the cold war lol (thinking of that song “whiteys on the moon”) but its weird when people say this stuff now as if the funding nasa gets is anything in the grand scheme of gov spending. these ppl should direct this energy at the military budget. anyway I think we should start using cool sounding names again like we did with apollo, or fun/cute sounding names like the Russians did with sputnik (the russian word meaning “fellow traveler” like what you’d call a buddy you’re going on an adventure with)
Thanks for the interesting video. I agree with your main point that it would be better for JWST to be named after a scientist, and I especially agree that the naming should have been done by some sort of committee. However, as a side note, I feel that good administration is under appreciated. During my time in academia I met many good scientists, but very few good (science) administrators. And a bad administrator definitely can make a job for scientists extremely painful and excruciating. That doesn't justify the name, but I think it's important to keep it in mind. TNG-ST sounds great to me.
I do think the proper way to write this story would be to combine the stories of hubble and webb and make it a tragicomedy about science and capitalism
It’s so weird that for a long time, I just assumed that there was a scientist named James Webb and never looked up who it was until close to its launch.
The final 20 seconds or so of your video seem muted (no subtitles too). But great arguments for renaming the JWST, and a great insight into how some folks seem to misunderstand where that money went. Cheers!
I'm pretty sure that muting was intentional, like a self-realisation of the pointlessness of trying to explain about economics of federal spending on science to people who think their tax dollars is being wasted. I laughed hardest at this bit, because Angela usually indulges in yelling at clouds, ad infinitum.
In the 23 years that the NGST (Next Generation Space Telescope - also known as JWST) was developed, with a final cost just shy of USD $10 billion, the USA spent roughly USD $11.5 trillion dollars on their military. The money part of NGST is not worth even mentioning. Pocket change.
I just discovered your channel and love it. I've also thought Webb was not a great choice, but I've also always struggled who it should have been named after. What scientist's name should be used to make Hubble's namesake obsolete? The optimistic part of me thinks there is some value to the name inspiring though. Like you said at the beginning, Webb's biggest achievement was keeping NASA science driven rather than politically driven. And I do think the idea of the public funding science not for some specific goal but because scientific advancement is important is a good thing. Lastly, love the Malazan books in the background.
@@wilhelmederveen9265 That's not a bad idea. The Penzias and Wilson Space Telescope. I don't think they knew what it was they discovered, but they did build the telescope that discovered it which may be more relevant to having a telescope named after you.
@@theconstitarian The Nancy Grace Roman telescope is scheduled for 2027 launch. I think it is for different wavelengths than JWST. If you are considering naming optical telescopes after radio telescope builders then how about the first: Karl Jansky (1932), or first dish Grote Reber (1937)? Maybe save them for one on the back of the moon. Sean Carroll's Mindscape podcast just had a guy talking about how it would soon be time for that since there are new launch vehicles and NASA is developing infrastructure for Artemis. And China is demonstrating interest.
I love the 20:40 "I want you to repeat it back to me". I have been in many meetings were that hasn't been done and the obvious predictable catastrophe happens because we didnt do that thing because they didnt really understand it.
On the noise around the name of JWST, I just heard of the Lavender Scare stuff, and man did that muddy the waters. There's people vehemently angry that since some of the controversy around Webb is blown out of proportion, everything must be made up and apologies need to be made. I was unaware of the actual story behind the name (some admin floated the name and no one said no). That cuts to the core of the issue in a more substantial way, and I wish I had known about it a year ago. I was certain it had been voted on or something.
Maybe James Webb wasn't instrumental in the Lavender Scare. I mean, "he was only an Administrator", and there were other people in charge of policy. He was focused on making sure the organization functioned. But if the administrator gets credit as the person for everything good that NASA accomplished, then he is also responsible for the campaign to find and persecute gay men. You can't have it both ways. If it happened under his watch and he went along with it, then he's just as responsible for the Lavender Scare as for the moon landing. In fact, only one of those two are things he could have directly intervened and stopped. If he got in the way of the goal to land on the moon, he would have been fired and replaced.
31:18 the fact that you spoke the sound effect out soud is so funny to me since it implies you prepared the joke from the get go instead of after the fact / in the editing process lol
I propose that the vital role of Sean O'Keefe, NASA Administrator, be acknowledged and immortalized in the christening of the Axiom Space Station's Sean O'Keefe Waste Collection System (SOKWCS).
"you don't get to take credit for the scientists' work because you [...] did the administrative work" that's news to me lol, boy have I been getting a raw deal
@@acollierastro Next Generation Space Telescope sounds a lot like it's named after the next generation of astronomers. I don't like this. It's a name that highlights everyone, and therefore no one. Say what you want about "James Webb", but at least that name is distinctive. Perhaps it should have been named after a scientist, but the time to change it would have been 10 years ago, not shortly after the launch. Anyone who they named it after at this point would have the dishonour of being the one who displaced Webb. And if Webb's name really is toxic enough that it needs to be pulled off an already-completed project, then he must have been a truly terrible person to have warranted this response. You say that _not naming a telescope after a person_ does not in itself mean cancelling them. But again, it's quite another matter if the thing is already in space. Renaming it now would make far more of a statement, whether you intend it to or not.
Edit: I wrote the comment below before I reached the 23 minute mark and you said the exact same thing later in the video almost down to the same words! I think we're on to something! The head of NASA simply named it after the previous head of NASA to set a precedent, so that some future major project is named after him.
Or he just wanted to name it after someone whose job he understood? It's annoying to hear this from people who are already making good arguments and don't need to throw in a conspiracy theory.
I've been binge watching your content, and I can't wait to hear what you have to say about which amazing influential and unproblematic astronomer the JST is named after!
Webb did much more than that, he actively protected science. Look into the story Brainerd Holmes. When Holmes tried to divert science funding to Apollo to support Kennedy’s plan, Webb actively blocked it and ultimately fired him. Webb wasn’t a scientist, but he actively crafted the NASA we’ve had for 60 years: one that does human spaceflight AND science.
Seems to mirror the university environment over the past few decades where more and more the admin is lauded and given funding while faculty face cuts and critique.
That meeting from 16:48 is hilarious. It's like the moon is this grand prize of ice cream, but you gotta finish your vegetables before you get it and Kennedy's a child who really doesn't care about vegetables and he's going "it's mint ice cream and mint is a leaf" And yes, Webb is not the parent who actually knows why the vegetables are important, he's a teenager tasked with babysitting Kennedy while the parents (the scientists) can't be there for... administrative reasons.
Keep doing exactly what you're doing and speaking exactly the way you speak. You're one of the clearest, well thought out, logical people I've ever heard speak. If we had even a half of one of you in a position of power I think we could change the world. Keep it up, speak truth to power, five stars two thumbs up you rock...
I'm not saying it was a good idea to name the telescope after him, but it does feel like a "really good" bureaucrat deserves to have something important named after them, just as a "really good" scientist does. Both are important and to be looked up to if they were good and moral at their job. It seems like the credit for the success of a grand endeavor is distributed among everyone who worked on it, even if their work was management, politics, or even manual labor. The specific amounts and importance of their of labor can be argued over, but in a world where we need people to play different roles, it seems good to have figures to look up to in these roles. You mention buildings being more topical for administrators. Maybe naming an atrium is better, but does that mean we should stop naming atriums and administrative buildings after scientists? NASA is a scientific organization; it seems like every single person who works at NASA is supporting science, even if they are not a scientist. *In any case, you make some other very good arguments like pointing out that a single (biased) person made the decision and that James Webb was possibly bigoted, so I don't disagree with the overall opinion.* But the point of him not being a scientist seems to fall a bit flat if he did indeed spend his life serving to make NASA work.
There are two kinds of engineers, and this is true throughout industry, not just government, There are people who are good at engineering and they engineer, and you have engineers that are not so good at engineering, and typically these are the people who end up being promoted to management position. This is not necessarily a bad thing, so long as the managers understand that the engineers they manage are likely better engineers than they are, it could work out. People who may not be so good at engineering can be quite good at managing. But all to often you get managers who thing that being promoted to a management position is a sign that they are better engineers than the engineers they manage. This can be extremely dangerous. You can end up with engineers telling managers that launching a Space Shuttle in cold weather is a bad idea, and they think that another delay on the launch would be bad for the space program. Or an engineer telling his boss that testing the nuclear reactor under these conditions is not a good idea, so much so that the engineer refuses to perform the test, so the boss fires him, giving the engineer time to get his family and run away.
@@rapchee I'm a nuclear engineer. I was working at Naval Reactors when Chernobyl happened. We were part of the US effort to provide any help to Russia that we could. Chernobyl was not a management mistake. It was an engineering and technician mistake. Some engineer wrote the procedures so some technician could make a mistake that would cause the reactor to burn up. The only management mistake was trusting the engineers too much instead of riding herd on them harder and making them do their jobs better.
Lol. Just asked the same question three weeks later. I'm taking a wild guess on Jerry Pournelle. He was a NASA engineer during Gemini. He went on to other positions explaining science to politicians. On the gripping hand, he was a co-author of 'The Mote In God's Eye' ... which changed my view of the universe many years ago.
From the books I've read, many at NASA before the telescope were quite firm that he saved Apollo. As for his name being on the best biggest anything flagship telescope, there will be others, possibly named after scientists. I don't think we're going to stop making space telescopes. Also, I wouldn't ask Dan Savage his opinions about equality. He has his own problems.
Regarding the money spent on these huge international science projects... roughly US$10b for JWST, less than $5b for the LHC, less than $4b for the SKA. Remember that $58 billion was given to Elon Musk last year for... well, for just being Elon Musk. Also, for every dollar spent on the Apollo program $5-$7 was returned.
I’m actually ok with naming the telescope after someone who didn’t do or didn’t care about science. He was a critical part of the story. Especially in a field that requires a long, cosmic view like astrophysics, crediting or venerating people ought to be a wide net.
hi, i was looking at 33:11 and im wondering why the equation is able to use g which on the wikipedia page is apparently the standard g 9.8 whatever m/s^2 when the rocket would be like in different places with different gravity? im only in my second semester of physics in hs so maybe i dont have the framework to understand the answer but yeah i dont udnerstand why it would still be like 9.8 in space
Dr. Collier, James Edwin Webb was a marine corps fighter pilot and a senior officer in an aviation training wing during WW2. I am almost certain he was very well appraised of the effects of g forces on the human body and the need for specialized equipment in low oxygen environments. Long before NASA even existed. Also, the quote of which you speak was not made by James Webb. It was by John Peurifoy and wrongly attributed to Webb. That's why it isn't on his Wikipedia page anymore. Didn't mention that before Webb became the administrator of NASA the agency was the least racially diverse in the US government, when he left in 1968 it was the most. He also grilled segregationist George Wallace in front of the press over his racist policies.
@@jamesquinn6662 That's precisely what the spiel boils down to. Plus, they even resorted to attempted character assassination in the process. The whole brouhaha is petty and sophomoric. I've worked in three different ecosystems from academia to a state agency to the private sector. In various roles and levels of seniority over the years. I used to encounter nigh identical sentiments on a near daily basis. It always comes from a place of pure myopic ignorance and/or jealousy.
@FraserFir-sb4lk In modern academia scientist's whole incentive structure boils down to publications and names on papers and can give quite an inflated sense of ego. The finesse of obtaining government funding for mass scale projects like apollo would require the right person in the right place with the ability to negotiate budget and argue their case whereas many scientists could likely have made the same observations and come to the same conclusions as hubble. There's much less of an element of "right person right place"
Administrator overestimates the importance of administrators... who would have thought?! social engineering project idea: community led effort to come up with a colloquial re-naming of JWST, start using that, until nobody remembers the original source of the name
Here I was, as a casual science fan, thinking I was gonna get the lesson I've been hoping for about the great scientific achievements of James Webb 😂
ahahah she got us good :)
I want to name a Space telescope Vogon Constructor Fleet.
Because it is at points like this that i turn to,
Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy
“In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”
I still want to see whats out there .
He wasn't a scientist but did a lot to advance science and secure the funding that made space exploration possible.
right???
Same twin
The fact that JWST is a joint project with the European and Canadian space agencies seems like another reason not to name it after a NASA guy
Okay now That sounds like an actual good reason.
It's up to them to request a change of name, then.
@@galev3955you didn't watch the video I take it?
NASA designed it, Northrop Grumman built it, CSA and ESA put money in order to be granted partnership. ESA payed for the launch which is why it was launched with an Ariane rocket
lmao 🤦♂️ just shows how ignorant you are about Europe's contribution to JWST, their involvement almost wrecked the project and the only thing they really added was the launch vehicle - which frankly is meh as JWST could've launched on another vehicle if required. Europe piggy backs on our program because they're too incompetent to get anything done all on their own. 🫶 Even RUSSIA Russia!!!! And before the Soviets! Had a better space program. ESA is an embarrassment and a pathetic joke. There are many many stories about how ESA almost ruined the entire JWST project due to their incompetency. It was right to name JWST after an American. As a long time gay, I just don't care about his politics. James Webb is maybe the ONLY person a telescope is named after who WHOLE HARDEDLY 💯💯💯 deserves the accolade. Galileo is an old fart nobody cares about him anymore. And Hubble is a cool scope and all but literally nobody ever met the guy irl.
I'm glad most scientists usually just refer to it as JWST and I can just imagine it stands for Jace Welescope Space Telescope. If they had to name something after James Webb, they should've saved it for like the first administrative building on a moon base or something, that would actually be fitting since he administrated humans to the moon
It doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter.
And most pronounce it Jay-Boo-Es-Tee, because spelling out W makes the acronym as long as the actual phrase.
@@Simon-fg8iz Also because JWST is Bae
I'm sure I don't know what you mean, it IS named the Jace Welescope Space Telescope. I refuse to hear anything else on the matter.
How bout the Just What the Shit they Tryin telescope?
This honestly feels like the typical CEO answer. The guy who made the call was an administrator. I think it clearly reveals his opinion on the importance of that role in ALL that NASA does. CEOs tend to have this kind of perspective. That they are the true driver of value in the company. I think the naming of the telescope boils down to ego.
No different than naming important warships after politicians. The people who control the money all hope that something will be named after them in the future and the best way to pave the way for that is to do it today.
@@haldorasgirson9463 while I can see your point, one of the things raised in the video is just how unusual this was for this type of object. I think most of us wouldn't blink at someone naming an aircraft carrier the Lincoln, etc. But when it comes to scientific instruments, there has been a strong tradition of careful examination of the device's mission in order to find one of the most relevant scientists that played a part in the field that that instrument will be enriching.
As I mentioned in my own comment, this felt a lot more like an executive reflecting on the importance of their own position and deciding to "make the call," to laud someone in a similar position. This may be the first time a name was decided without any real effort to form consensus. Going around and saying, "What do you think of Webb Space Telescope," falls woefully short.
@@haldorasgirson9463The US President is by law the supreme commander of the combined armed forces of the US. Naming *any* military thing after a current/former President is seen as routine.
This would also be supported by the fact that he is a Republican appointed by Bush 43; in the modern era, conservative political ideology is predicated upon the practitioner's self-importance/narcissism.
Shoulda named it Telescopey McTelescopeface, literally shaking my head family.
Colbert reference? :)
@@ewthmatth Boaty McBoatface reference.
“family”?
We have an entire college that sucked away several departments from other colleges, named after someone who never taught a college course, never worked in academia, and most of us never heard of. It’s all because he wanted to purchase a college to be named after him, for 310 million $, requiring us to provide a match of (I believe) half. Most of the rest of the university is being decimated in favor of that college, and we aren’t sure we’ll meet the match requirement.
Education is named after anti-intellectuals nowadays.
James Webbescope Space Telescope
I have been to the same number of rocket launches as James Webb. I demand my telescope
That bozo Galileo probably never even heard of a rocket, you've got a leg up on that one for sure.
i strongly feel that just because he only went to one launch doesn't mean he "wasn't interested in science"
@@paulungaI'm willing to bet that Gallilleo at least saw a firework or a compressed air bottle rocket thing blast off a post. They probably went like 10 feet in his time but you know, rocket.
Tonight in a Walgreens I placed a “Staniforth Telescope” cardboard sign on one of their plastic telescopes on the toy shelf. Justice done.
@@BikingWIthPanda IIRC he stated as much in at least one interview.
The funny thing I find is that it sounds like Webb wouldn't have cared less to have a telescope named after him. Imagine getting something named after you that you're completely indifferent towards. Like naming a shopping cart after you.
But yeah it would have been much more inspirational if it were named after an actual scientist.
Yeah but it's funny b/c the people who decided what the name should be were Nasa administrators and they decided to name it after someone who had the same job as them. But the other thing to consider is that these scientists wouldn't get to do this science if it wasn't for people doing administrative work to make it all happen. On the other hand, it's kind of like naming the scope after the politicians who voted to fund it, or whatever lol.
named by a NASA administrator who is hoping one day some wise and ambitious future NASA administrator names something cool after him.
@@CapnSnackbeardgood point damn lmao
tbf, if it was humanity's greatest shopping cart, I'd be pretty proud.
@@takanara7 I mean, we do name post offices and train stations after the politicians who vote to fund them.
"And then the nuclear boys.. they they open up the nucleus and all the science falls out" had me nearly laughing myself to death. LOL Jesus Christ that was such comedic reenactment of the tape. 😂 I love it by the way, when people try to explain the importance of a complex topic by going to an even more complex topic.
He wasn't trying to explain a complex topic by referring to nuclear physics. He was referring to nuclear weapons and their importance to the US.
@@wr2382 okay, that's fair. I still laugh my ass off at the whole "and the nuclear boys they opened up the nucleus and all the science falls out" comment though.
That's my take on it. All my laymans study of quantum physics just teaches me that I don't understand oatmeal. Cause it's all oatmeal to me. I guess you have to be a scientist to get the science to fall out. Or am I not shaking it hard enough? @@retrohipster1060
You are so wrong! This telescope will inspire generations of schoolkids to become NASA administrators!
Lol
Well, I’d assume it’d inspire them to become disinterested administrators of anything that could get their name on something.
Yes. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It takes a village to raise a telescope.
@@kylelumpkin7517a world full of middle managers THATS WHAT I HAVE BEEN DREAMING OF!!!! Just a world of middle managers and worker peasants, it's glorious.
In my heart it is forever the Alan Turing Space Telescope.
The AT-ST, if you will.
but why?
Why? Because what you typed that question on exists because of Turing. More importantly, holocaust survivors probably survived because of him.
@@An_Iron_God69420 ok, so I thought I wouldn't respond to this, but now I'm thinking maybe I do need to explain my reasoning.
1. Naming it after a famous gay person is a rejection of lavender scare politics.
2. Naming it after a person who was instrumental in defeating the nazis is... again a rejection of bigotry, but also just cool and 'based' and all that, and will probably at the very least annoy the very worst people alive today.
3. AT-ST is the designation for the cool as heck bipedal imperial walkers from Star Wars, so... nerd cred, which I'm sure every cosmologist can appreciate.
The funny part is that I've always wondered who they named the telescope after and now I'm completely disappointed.
i love the mental image of you sitting at a desk in grad school, bright eyed and bushy tailed, hoping today is the day you get to learn all about about the Webb Equation
Frankly, I doubt James Webb would have been impressed with having a telescope named after him.
I think anyone would know it's a big deal.
But Sean O'Keefe can't wait to have one named after him!!
Not impressed? James Webb administrated the organization that went from nothing to boots on the moon in ten years! They put his name on something that cost like ten times the original estimate and was a decade past the original 10 year schedule. He might be irate.
I went to university at a place where the library was named for a former director who actively despised the library. It was named, quite literally, as a matter of spite for the chap just after he died.
"The library is still here... Robert isn't, and we're all very happy about that."
I love the JWST, currently the greatest achievement in human engineering
Jean-Luc and his friend
Worf
Space
Telescope
You've convinced me that , at least, JW kept JFK from
strapping people to the outside of some rocket.
Ask not… 😂
“Well, that didn’t work!… Who’s next?”
😂
Two things:
1. I'm so glad that this video approaches the reason the current admin of NASA chose a former admin with as much skepticism as I do. I thought immediately that this was the first and only reason a non-scientist would be chosen.
2. As someone who sits in a quasi-technical space it's very funny to hear that acollierastro was looking beyond the recorded conversation and she could "hear" the scientists' words in his mouth. That's very much how it is for me. I explain to the executives why it isn't as simple as they think it is, then I go back to the technical team and discover through their explanation why it's even more complicated than I thought it was.
The interesting bit about the "JFK-Webb-conversation" is, that there are multiple levels of dumbing down information, from science to administration to politics. And that this is necessary to make a political decision to found an organization that employs the actual scientist and engineers and then produces those resources (science and technology) to make such things as "going to the moon" possible. Therefore you also *need* heads of administration like Webb, that can translates the language of the scientists into a language that can be understood by decision makers (politicians). Then when it comes to other political decisions like naming stuff, those politicians will remember those people who they were talking to, or to put it plainly, the middle manager will get the rewards.
This is how things work, and somehow despite that, we got to the moon.
I thought the rhetoric was a bit harsh on James Webb. He basically built NASA into what it is today. Its quite impressive he was able to keep the program funded well during his tenure. Also maintaining NASA's reputation after the Apollo 1 disaster. Especially for a science program that the public may have been skeptical about. For me, it's no different than how we recognize FDR as leading the US out of the Great Depression and WW2.
How I hope the JWST conversation didn't go...
Politician: My kid's into Gundam and won't stop talkin about the principality of Zeon vs the federation.
Administrator: We're going to park this space telescope at Earth-Sun Lagrange point L2.
Politician: Isn't that where the space nazis in gundam are from?
Admin: Close, but I believe that's Earth-moon L2. However, once there, it will unfurl like a gundam.
Politician: So, we'll be able to keep an eye on the space nazis hiding behind the moon...
I was totally unaware of this. I share your discontentment wholeheartedly. Thanks for sharing this incomprehensible thing.
Now you know why so many Navy people like myself were so abjectly disappointed to see aircraft carrier CVN-74 named the USS John C. Stennis. It was a brown-noser move to name it after the sitting senator who is the appropriations committee chairman. He only had that job because he'd been in Congress since the beginning of time. He never did or even said anything of any military or Navy value. His "greatest" distinction is that he was a staunch defender of segregation, to the point that even politicians who agreed with him in the 1960s and 70s were like, "Dude, shut up already." Even more appalling is that the Chief of Naval Operations has the power to change ship names but decided to piss off his people and not even entertain the thought.
James Webb got the requirements from the customers and gave them to the engineers! He was a people person!
What the hell is wrong with people these days? Jumping to conclusions....
They have a mat, you see, which has various 'conclusions' printed on it...
No, he told the customer who was also his boss and the most powerful man in the nation "no fucking way are we following those requirements, I'm protecting my engineers and scientists from that - I don't care how many times you tell me to do it, we're not doing it".
This is a rare instance of management doing exactly what they're supposed to do.
@@danfelder8062 true, which is more an indictment of most project managers than being a particularly good reason to name a scientific instrument after someone.
Are you suggesting ... this whole thing is a sort of glitch, and ideally they could just ... fix the glitch?
Pouring one out for all of the administrators so they stop asking for their own telescope, I guess
May they enjoy their atriums and hallways!
@@acollierastro Why do we name shit after these people? Couldn't get a browner nose.
From a different angle though... From what you're saying, it sounds like James Webb was a champion of making sure scientists were listened to. Which is actually a pretty good narrative to promote today.
Unfortunately, someone mentioned the 'B' word about something they're not sure whether he did or not *sixty years ago,* so now they want him gone, the name of the 'scope changed, and his reputation tarnishing.
Id've expected a massive Twitter campaign, seeing as the 'B' word was being bandied about, but the truth is, 99.9999% of the world's population *absolutely do not give a shit- of any kind-* about what the telescope is called.
🍄
Unfortunately, someone mentioned the 'B' word about something they're not sure whether he did or not *sixty years ago,* so now they want him gone, the name of the 'scope changed, and his reputation tarnishing.
Id've expected a massive Twitter campaign, seeing as the 'B' word was being bandied about, but the truth is, 99.9999% of the world's population *absolutely do not give a shit- of any kind-* about what the telescope is called.
🍄
Unless they weren't straight
That accusation was researched and there was zero evidence he was aware of or involved in the firing of Clifford Norton or involved going after homosexuals. Part of this can be blamed on the misattribution of a quote by another administrator to Webb. He did take NASA from the least racially integrated program to the most via progressive thinking and recruitment at HBCU. @@carloscostacox
As someone who has a degree in English I can confidently say you can massage a decent story or of this mess. Not a great story, not even a good one, but something approaching possible and plausible. It would have been better to name it after some really cool scientist who did really cool things and not, at the end of it all, a bean counter...
I think you nailed it at 23:40 - vanity. When he was appointed, O'Keefe gave some presentations and he seemed a little defensive about heading NASA without having a science or engineering background, and then at some presentation after he named it he gave the distinct impression that he was doing it to set a precedent of naming things after administrators, with a hint of "maybe a later one after Shaun O'Keefe". He wasn't really around long enough to be able to claim credit that "without Shaun, there would be no [cool mission of some sort]"
But if you're going to name it after any nonscience person of the period, Barbara Mikulski would be a much better choice (at risk of rankling people at centers besides GSFC), but in 2002/3 nobody was really anticipating how late and expensive it was going to turn out to be, or how important Mikulski would be in it surviving the budget cycles to get to launch. It could very easily have ended up like the Superconducting Super Collider, whose cancellation 10 years earlier was still fresh in a lot of minds (Herman Wouk's 2004 "A Hole in Texas" is some entertaining lablit about that).
My own preference at the time was Pepsi Generation Space Telescope - there was a push toward commercialization of space for more than just telecom and weather satellites and given the cost of what was then called NGST, selling naming rights to Pepsi seemed natural.
Oh god that name is so cursed
Another rabbit hole about the supercollider: ruclips.net/video/ivVzGpznw1U/видео.html
Thankfully there was never any other commercialisation of space after that.... Ohhh noooooo
Oh god, the Pepsi Co Mission to Mars, where Pepsi outbids Mars Bars for the naming rights
And launches an ad campaign all about space, and how Pepsi is forging the future
Forcing astronauts to sign contracts to slowly walk towards the camera, Pepsi in hand
Taste the Satisfaction
Ahh ❤
@@zaraizabella anything, for a price. If PepsiCo singlehandedly funded NASA for ten years or something, then fuck it, they earned that ad campaign. I don't think people appreciate how much of the feasibility of space travel just comes down to money, with enough money we could have sent the Pepsi Generation Space Telescope to space and been collecting data a decade earlier.
Honestly, I have the utmost respect for someone who want a scientist, want interested in science, wasn't interested in the position, but fought so hard and advocated so tirelessly for the needs and goals of the scientists who he represented.
*wasn't
That is a very charitable reading of his intentions! He would naturally be at least partially motivated to advocate for increased status, funding and prestige by the agency he was running, as that would beget him more political power. I do not doubt that he legitimately believed in the points he made to the political class, but it's not like he selflessly championed something that he was not personally invested in.
"When he arrived at NASA in 1961, his leadership role meant he was in part responsible for implementing what was by then federal policy: the purging of LGBT individuals from the workforce. When he was at State, this policy was enforced by those who worked under him. As early as 1950, he was aware of this policy, which was a forerunner to the antigay witch hunt known today as the lavender scare. Historian David K. Johnson's 2004 book on the subject, The Lavender Scare, discusses archival evidence indicating that Webb, along with others in State Department leadership, was involved in Senate discussions that ultimately kicked off a devastating series of federal policies.
Webb was in leadership as the lavender scare unfolded. Additional archival evidence, easily found by Columbia University astronomer Adrian Lucy, underlines Webb's role as a facilitator of homophobic policy discussions with members of the Senate. In particular, in 1950 assistant secretary of state Carlisle Humelsine submitted a set of memos to Webb that included “objectives and methods of operation of the Senate Committee established to look into the problem,” which Webb then shared during a meeting with Senator Clyde Hoey of North Carolina. The records clearly show that Webb planned and participated in meetings during which he handed over homophobic material. There is no record of him choosing to stand up for the humanity of those being persecuted.
In fact, discrimination against queer people, including scientists, still affects their lives and careers. In 2016 the American Physical Society released the LGBT Climate in Physics report. Its core conclusion was that many queer scientists fundamentally do not feel safe in their workplaces. The climate is exclusionary, and physicists who identify as more than one minority, including LGBT+ physicists of color, experience the most harassment and exclusion. Astrophysicists who are LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual and/or ally, plus nonstraight identities not explicitly listed) exist and are marginalized. A 2021 study published in Science Advances found similar outcomes.
The same hypermasculinist fears that characterized the lavender scare and other ideological purges during the cold war continue to animate the incarnation of far-right movements across the globe. So what signal does it send to current and future generations of scientists when we prioritize the legacies of complicit government officials over the dreams of the next generation?
James Webb's legacy is the antithesis of the dreaming and sense of freedom inspired by the exploration of deep time and distant space. The time for lionizing leaders who acquiesced in a history of harm is over. We should name telescopes out of love for those who came before us and led the way to freedom-and out of love for those who are coming up after."
I don't, I base whether or not i respect somebody on how they treat other people.
I think all the physicists should start calling it the Jill/William Space Telescope, or JWST, after Jill Tarter and William Herschel. Jill is appropriate because her work is related to extraterrestrial life (and exoplanets are some of the things JWST is trying to find), and of course William Herschel did a lot with spectroscopy, also relevant.
Herschel already has a telescope named after him (and his sister). The previously largest infrared telescope launched, "Herschel Space Observatory". But since that is no longer active, and he is attributed with the discovery of the infrared spectrum, it still seems like a good choice.
@@max.lindgren I mean, there's nothing in the rule book that says you can't have more than one telescope named after you...
It could have been the Carl Sagan Space Telescope. After I thought about it, that's kind of where I arrived at the question. And the process was obviously completely wrong. It shouldn't be decided on a whim by the NASA administrator all by himself. There should be nominees and it should be discussed without prejudice. But the fact that the NASA administrator unilaterally chose one of his own predecessors is very sus. It does seem like he was trying to set a precedent that might eventually lead to himself being given the same honor.
This is what I thought too
Aw man Carl Sagan or ann druyan would have been really cool
CSADST
Maybe but Carl was kind of, I repeat, kind of a latter day Neil Tyson.
I took it for granted that James Webb was probably a super cool scientist. Learning that not only is he not super cool, but he is also not a scientist, is a big disappointment. The collection of Malazan books in the background brings me a little bit of comfort though. Great video!
I want to read malazan but I’ve heard it’s HARD
@@AB-ee5tb I abandoned the first book twice before I finally decided to stick with it and it ended up being my favorite fantasy series. It's definitely a more difficult read than most series but in my opinion it's worth the effort
I've watched your channel for only about a week now, but I've come to love it. You are soooooo meticulous, and you seem to put all your effort...and I mean all, into research. If I were in a coversation with you and had a disagreement with you, it'd be such an honest disagreement, because I'd know that you did so much research; you'd be totally backed up in your opinion. You don't shy away from investigating anything. You were born to be a presenter and teacher. I've seen some videos on presenting scientific principles on your channel, and you strike me as so comfortable and passioante about what you're speaking on. It feels almost more like a conversation than a lesson, but the vidoes have all the best elements of being more formal too. Bravo!
Amazing! Because I never checked, I just thought James Webb was a famous cosmologist of whom I hadn't heard for some reason. Indeed a building, a foundation or a school should be named after him, but why this telescope? Probably you are right: breaking the tradition and naming this flagship ;-) after an administrator will increase the chance of some other instrument being named after another administrator later on. His role reminds me of the position Oppenheimer had at the Manhattan project by the way, although Oppenheimer was a scientist and did some serious science. Both had to do the impossible.
If anything it's more like the position Brigadier General Leslie Groves had at the Manhattan project.
Saying "without James Webb NASA would not exist" is very reminiscent of people crediting the achievements of large organisations to their CEOs/owners (most notably, the achievements of SpaceX to Elon Musk). It's so incredibly insulting to the engineers, the programmers, the researchers, but not just that, it's insulting to the cleaners, the cooks, the low level administrators, all of whom were necessary to the achievements of these organisations.
But then I'd love it if we stopped trying to find heroes to put on pedestals at all.
You don't understand what "without James Webb NASA would not exist" means. It means "without James Webb NASA would just build rockets and would not do science." Would we be fine with that?
@@psychohist James Webb was replaceable. He was not doing things no other person had the qualifications for
@@SWard-oe8ojIt's kind of like saying without Martin Luther King we would still have civil rights. Technically it is true however we pay homage to what actually happened not hypotheticals that are technically possible/true.
@@djgroopz4952 "MLK was replaceable" as a serious retort lmfao
@SWard-oe8oj Yes it 100% is technically. Did really think if MLK didn't exist no other person would've thought, "huh, we need civil rights"?? By the way there were other activists doing the same job like M. Evers. We can also see it in other countries that achieved civil rights without US influence. So yes, there would've been someone pick up the mental, later.
HOWEVER, my actual argument is that we give praise to MLK because that is the reality of the timeline we actually live in, not any hypothetical, true or possible.
To tie all that back to JW, yes someone else could've or would've secured funding for NASA but we live in the reality that it was him.
Congratulations on 100k subs! Well deserved. This is the video I was watching when I noticed, even though I was 18 months old at the time.
This video made me do a lot of thinking. Right now (just finished), I agree with several of the points you make but come to a different conclusion. If anything, I think the name of JWST is an important reminder of just how bad the current administrators are - launching a telescope 14 years late and billions over budget. It's not the government's money, it's our money. We need to stop accepting billion dollar overruns for anything.
Finally, your last point is an interesting one. However, I think a better reply is that the people who think JWST is a waste of money tend to be the same people who think the militia is a great use of money. When in fact the same logic tends to apply to both.
Thanks for showing love to this old video!
@@acollierastro Thanks for having a great channel, I've been binging it all week! Congratulations on 100k and see you at 1 million!
@@acollierastro I'm a 36 year old conservative Industrial Engineer, and your videos have been extremely thought provoking. Really good stuff.
Hopefully the Carl Sagan Space Telescope proposal does get funded. It would be nice to return to sensible naming, among all the other good reasons.
Ok. This wins my subscription.
I would say that the naming of just has made people more aware of webbs contribution to nasa and apollo; and as such is (accidently) a worthy name.
I get your point and I tend to agree but I think the discussion has become important.
I thank you for spending the time and effort you have. Excellent content.
Imagine if in a another universe it was named the stephen hawking telescope or something like that.
Lmao this would not have aged well
Thank you for your take on the economics of Space Science. I find myself having to repeat over and over to folks that we are not blasting money into space. It's going to pay for people to do things here on earth. One take I hear a lot is that the money should be going to house and feed the homeless. I have to explain that it's going to house and feed scientists, tradespeople, graduate students, and hopefully interns as well. People who work hard for the money.
The people who are saying it should go to house and feed the homeless are the same people who fight tooth and nail to prevent any money going to house and feed the homeless.
@@MuffinsAPlentyyup. and they accuse NASA of "politicized" climate research as they themselves accept massive campaign money from the biggest emissions offenders... while supporting the military getting about 35x the budget...
NASA Boss saw himself as an admistrator, kinda named the telescope after his own hero .. kinda secretly hoping he will get one named after himself too on day.
The name I most remember from the 1960s man-in-space era of NASA is Chris Kraft. James Webb may have been the head honcho, but Chris Kraft was directing things in the trenches throughout, so to speak.
James Webb was busy defending the unmanned parts of NASA research so Kennedy and Johnson didn't axe them.
Delivery of Jenny Nichols, Sparse background of Big Joel, Humor of Rebeca Watson. I think this channel is going to be big.
Humor and Rebecca Watson? Did you get that idea in an elevator? ;)
You were correct
Agree. An instrument should be named after a person (or group) for their groundbreaking activity, usually working out/ publishing the scientific breakthrough. Organizing the funding is not that. One can name a room and put a plaque on its wall for that. And the reason to make the distinction is, I agree again, how you tell the story of science to audiences -- and JWST is only the right label if your focus is attracting administrators.
The funding NASA has secured from government/tax is nothing to scoff at. It's arguably its primary strength. Which is why Webb is a significant figure.
A telescope was named after a bureaucrat for a mundane bureaucratic reason. oof
Webb should be the name of a filing cabinet.
JWST should have been named BHCST (Big Hexagonal Cluster Space Telescope) or something of that sort, the way actual engineers would name it, like VLT (Very Large Telescope) and ELT (Extremely Large Telescope), both ESA's telescopes in Chile.
I still find it hard to believe the Universe (outside our galaxy) was only discovered 100 years ago
The sandbox got an update
"There's just not enough Hubbletime" is my new slogan
STOP
Hubbletime
1. i love how you write/structure your videos but i love the cohesion of this one in particular
2. the picard shade (chef's kiss)
My first ever internet username was Eagle_M-16 and while it has led some people to falsely believe that I'm some hyper-nationalist gun nut, it's actually a reference to the Eagle Nebula, messier object 16. I snagged it because I was captivated by Hubble's Pillars of Creation image.
10:11 in all fairness, the telescope only ever saw one launch too.
If James Webb was so revolutionary in administration it advanced science 🧪 more than many scientists 🧑🔬, this would make more sense.
Naming the telescope after James Webb is kinda like if Christopher Nolan named his atomic-bomb movie "Groves."
I think it’s funny how controversial this “pick” is. Like I’m pretty sure James Watney would be a debated but understandable pick.
Also the ‘calculators’ where known as computers before they were disband after shortly thereafter. Of course those women would also become some of the first programmers before programming was seen and a man’s job. Dorthy Vaughan, Katherine Johnson, and Mary Jackson would have all made incredible names for the next generation satellite.
Quick note on the Lavender Scare, it did not only affect gay men. Lesbians were also wrapped up in the scare
32:31 these kinds of arguments would make sense during like, the cold war lol (thinking of that song “whiteys on the moon”) but its weird when people say this stuff now as if the funding nasa gets is anything in the grand scheme of gov spending. these ppl should direct this energy at the military budget.
anyway I think we should start using cool sounding names again like we did with apollo, or fun/cute sounding names like the Russians did with sputnik (the russian word meaning “fellow traveler” like what you’d call a buddy you’re going on an adventure with)
I really like listening to you talk. Thanks for taking the time to talk at us.
Thanks for the interesting video. I agree with your main point that it would be better for JWST to be named after a scientist, and I especially agree that the naming should have been done by some sort of committee.
However, as a side note, I feel that good administration is under appreciated. During my time in academia I met many good scientists, but very few good (science) administrators. And a bad administrator definitely can make a job for scientists extremely painful and excruciating.
That doesn't justify the name, but I think it's important to keep it in mind.
TNG-ST sounds great to me.
herbert hoover hated hydro power but some rascal named the dam after him hopefully the telescope will have the same vibes
I do think the proper way to write this story would be to combine the stories of hubble and webb and make it a tragicomedy about science and capitalism
It’s so weird that for a long time, I just assumed that there was a scientist named James Webb and never looked up who it was until close to its launch.
The final 20 seconds or so of your video seem muted (no subtitles too).
But great arguments for renaming the JWST, and a great insight into how some folks seem to misunderstand where that money went.
Cheers!
I'm pretty sure that muting was intentional, like a self-realisation of the pointlessness of trying to explain about economics of federal spending on science to people who think their tax dollars is being wasted. I laughed hardest at this bit, because Angela usually indulges in yelling at clouds, ad infinitum.
I would love to see an inspirational movie that just ends with a picture and someone just saying "wow".
no one loves admin the way admin does
In the 23 years that the NGST (Next Generation Space Telescope - also known as JWST) was developed, with a final cost just shy of USD $10 billion, the USA spent roughly USD $11.5 trillion dollars on their military. The money part of NGST is not worth even mentioning. Pocket change.
I just discovered your channel and love it. I've also thought Webb was not a great choice, but I've also always struggled who it should have been named after. What scientist's name should be used to make Hubble's namesake obsolete?
The optimistic part of me thinks there is some value to the name inspiring though. Like you said at the beginning, Webb's biggest achievement was keeping NASA science driven rather than politically driven. And I do think the idea of the public funding science not for some specific goal but because scientific advancement is important is a good thing.
Lastly, love the Malazan books in the background.
The guys who discovered the CMB would be fitting maybe
@@wilhelmederveen9265 That's not a bad idea. The Penzias and Wilson Space Telescope. I don't think they knew what it was they discovered, but they did build the telescope that discovered it which may be more relevant to having a telescope named after you.
@@theconstitarian The Nancy Grace Roman telescope is scheduled for 2027 launch. I think it is for different wavelengths than JWST. If you are considering naming optical telescopes after radio telescope builders then how about the first: Karl Jansky (1932), or first dish Grote Reber (1937)? Maybe save them for one on the back of the moon. Sean Carroll's Mindscape podcast just had a guy talking about how it would soon be time for that since there are new launch vehicles and NASA is developing infrastructure for Artemis. And China is demonstrating interest.
I love the 20:40 "I want you to repeat it back to me". I have been in many meetings were that hasn't been done and the obvious predictable catastrophe happens because we didnt do that thing because they didnt really understand it.
Finally we have a Vera Rubin telescope
wait you have so many videos!! this is like my new favorite content for breaks and meals!
OK then it's the Richard Nixon space telescope
What
you guys should name the next deep space telescope after me
On the noise around the name of JWST, I just heard of the Lavender Scare stuff, and man did that muddy the waters. There's people vehemently angry that since some of the controversy around Webb is blown out of proportion, everything must be made up and apologies need to be made.
I was unaware of the actual story behind the name (some admin floated the name and no one said no). That cuts to the core of the issue in a more substantial way, and I wish I had known about it a year ago. I was certain it had been voted on or something.
Maybe James Webb wasn't instrumental in the Lavender Scare. I mean, "he was only an Administrator", and there were other people in charge of policy. He was focused on making sure the organization functioned. But if the administrator gets credit as the person for everything good that NASA accomplished, then he is also responsible for the campaign to find and persecute gay men. You can't have it both ways. If it happened under his watch and he went along with it, then he's just as responsible for the Lavender Scare as for the moon landing.
In fact, only one of those two are things he could have directly intervened and stopped. If he got in the way of the goal to land on the moon, he would have been fired and replaced.
@@iankrasnow5383 I edited my comment for clarity (what did I mean by "actual story"?) I agree with you.
31:18 the fact that you spoke the sound effect out soud is so funny to me since it implies you prepared the joke from the get go instead of after the fact / in the editing process lol
You're such a good science communicator 😮
I propose that the vital role of Sean O'Keefe, NASA Administrator, be acknowledged and immortalized in the christening of the Axiom Space Station's Sean O'Keefe Waste Collection System (SOKWCS).
At least it beats the Wernher von Braun space telescope.
"you don't get to take credit for the scientists' work because you [...] did the administrative work"
that's news to me lol, boy have I been getting a raw deal
Which names would you consider? Thank you for the video!
~Next Generation Telescope~
I'm basic!
@@acollierastro Telescope: The Next Generation.
@@acollierastro Next Generation Space Telescope sounds a lot like it's named after the next generation of astronomers. I don't like this. It's a name that highlights everyone, and therefore no one. Say what you want about "James Webb", but at least that name is distinctive. Perhaps it should have been named after a scientist, but the time to change it would have been 10 years ago, not shortly after the launch. Anyone who they named it after at this point would have the dishonour of being the one who displaced Webb. And if Webb's name really is toxic enough that it needs to be pulled off an already-completed project, then he must have been a truly terrible person to have warranted this response. You say that _not naming a telescope after a person_ does not in itself mean cancelling them. But again, it's quite another matter if the thing is already in space. Renaming it now would make far more of a statement, whether you intend it to or not.
The engineers that actually built the telescope refer to it as The J-West telescope.
the nuclear boys opened the nucleus and all the science came out
Let's rename it "Politician Space Telescope"
Edit: I wrote the comment below before I reached the 23 minute mark and you said the exact same thing later in the video almost down to the same words! I think we're on to something!
The head of NASA simply named it after the previous head of NASA to set a precedent, so that some future major project is named after him.
Or he just wanted to name it after someone whose job he understood? It's annoying to hear this from people who are already making good arguments and don't need to throw in a conspiracy theory.
Every time you're saying "It's fine! It's fine!" it's painful. Also GREAT explainer.
I've been binge watching your content, and I can't wait to hear what you have to say about which amazing influential and unproblematic astronomer the JST is named after!
'Malazan Book of the Fallen' is one of the greatest series ever written imo. Much respect 😊
Webb did much more than that, he actively protected science. Look into the story Brainerd Holmes. When Holmes tried to divert science funding to Apollo to support Kennedy’s plan, Webb actively blocked it and ultimately fired him. Webb wasn’t a scientist, but he actively crafted the NASA we’ve had for 60 years: one that does human spaceflight AND science.
How about the MI-ST. Massively Important Space Telescope.
I dunno. Good video as always but now I'm left wondering why you muted yourself at the end.
James Webb understood the fundamental limits to space exploration: money. "No bucks, no Buck Rogers."
Seems to mirror the university environment over the past few decades where more and more the admin is lauded and given funding while faculty face cuts and critique.
Sean O'Keefe is hopeing to get something named after himself obviously 😂😂😂 The scoundrel!!
That meeting from 16:48 is hilarious. It's like the moon is this grand prize of ice cream, but you gotta finish your vegetables before you get it and Kennedy's a child who really doesn't care about vegetables and he's going "it's mint ice cream and mint is a leaf"
And yes, Webb is not the parent who actually knows why the vegetables are important, he's a teenager tasked with babysitting Kennedy while the parents (the scientists) can't be there for... administrative reasons.
Also, alternative name idea: BFST, because it's the largest space telescope we've built
Your, ah, idiosyncratic impression of JFK is awesome. And I'd be ok with renaming the telescope.
Keep doing exactly what you're doing and speaking exactly the way you speak. You're one of the clearest, well thought out, logical people I've ever heard speak. If we had even a half of one of you in a position of power I think we could change the world. Keep it up, speak truth to power, five stars two thumbs up you rock...
I'm not saying it was a good idea to name the telescope after him, but it does feel like a "really good" bureaucrat deserves to have something important named after them, just as a "really good" scientist does. Both are important and to be looked up to if they were good and moral at their job. It seems like the credit for the success of a grand endeavor is distributed among everyone who worked on it, even if their work was management, politics, or even manual labor. The specific amounts and importance of their of labor can be argued over, but in a world where we need people to play different roles, it seems good to have figures to look up to in these roles.
You mention buildings being more topical for administrators. Maybe naming an atrium is better, but does that mean we should stop naming atriums and administrative buildings after scientists? NASA is a scientific organization; it seems like every single person who works at NASA is supporting science, even if they are not a scientist.
*In any case, you make some other very good arguments like pointing out that a single (biased) person made the decision and that James Webb was possibly bigoted, so I don't disagree with the overall opinion.* But the point of him not being a scientist seems to fall a bit flat if he did indeed spend his life serving to make NASA work.
But scientists are super people and administrators are untermensch, how can you think anything nonscientists do can be important?
"It's fine not to be interested in space"
Hmm that's not how I would word it.
I bet in 50 years, just before the USS Shawn O'Keefe lands on Mars, the passengernauts will have a good laugh while watching this video.
what if we all just started calling it something different?
There are two kinds of engineers, and this is true throughout industry, not just government, There are people who are good at engineering and they engineer, and you have engineers that are not so good at engineering, and typically these are the people who end up being promoted to management position.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, so long as the managers understand that the engineers they manage are likely better engineers than they are, it could work out. People who may not be so good at engineering can be quite good at managing.
But all to often you get managers who thing that being promoted to a management position is a sign that they are better engineers than the engineers they manage.
This can be extremely dangerous. You can end up with engineers telling managers that launching a Space Shuttle in cold weather is a bad idea, and they think that another delay on the launch would be bad for the space program. Or an engineer telling his boss that testing the nuclear reactor under these conditions is not a good idea, so much so that the engineer refuses to perform the test, so the boss fires him, giving the engineer time to get his family and run away.
@@rapchee Yes, though I don't know if the engineer got his family and ran away, but I would have if it was me.
@@rapchee I'm a nuclear engineer. I was working at Naval Reactors when Chernobyl happened. We were part of the US effort to provide any help to Russia that we could.
Chernobyl was not a management mistake. It was an engineering and technician mistake. Some engineer wrote the procedures so some technician could make a mistake that would cause the reactor to burn up. The only management mistake was trusting the engineers too much instead of riding herd on them harder and making them do their jobs better.
@18:33 who is the "Jerry" Webb is referring to; I agree it very much sounds like Webb is repeating the points expressed to him by scientists.
Lol. Just asked the same question three weeks later.
I'm taking a wild guess on Jerry Pournelle. He was a NASA engineer during Gemini. He went on to other positions explaining science to politicians. On the gripping hand, he was a co-author of 'The Mote In God's Eye' ... which changed my view of the universe many years ago.
From the books I've read, many at NASA before the telescope were quite firm that he saved Apollo. As for his name being on the best biggest anything flagship telescope, there will be others, possibly named after scientists. I don't think we're going to stop making space telescopes.
Also, I wouldn't ask Dan Savage his opinions about equality. He has his own problems.
Regarding the money spent on these huge international science projects... roughly US$10b for JWST, less than $5b for the LHC, less than $4b for the SKA. Remember that $58 billion was given to Elon Musk last year for... well, for just being Elon Musk.
Also, for every dollar spent on the Apollo program $5-$7 was returned.
I’m actually ok with naming the telescope after someone who didn’t do or didn’t care about science. He was a critical part of the story. Especially in a field that requires a long, cosmic view like astrophysics, crediting or venerating people ought to be a wide net.
hi, i was looking at 33:11 and im wondering why the equation is able to use g which on the wikipedia page is apparently the standard g 9.8 whatever m/s^2 when the rocket would be like in different places with different gravity? im only in my second semester of physics in hs so maybe i dont have the framework to understand the answer but yeah i dont udnerstand why it would still be like 9.8 in space
The g0 is only there as a conversation factor between units of mass and units of weight. It's only a matter of which unit system one uses.
Dr. Collier, James Edwin Webb was a marine corps fighter pilot and a senior officer in an aviation training wing during WW2. I am almost certain he was very well appraised of the effects of g forces on the human body and the need for specialized equipment in low oxygen environments. Long before NASA even existed.
Also, the quote of which you speak was not made by James Webb. It was by John Peurifoy and wrongly attributed to Webb. That's why it isn't on his Wikipedia page anymore. Didn't mention that before Webb became the administrator of NASA the agency was the least racially diverse in the US government, when he left in 1968 it was the most. He also grilled segregationist George Wallace in front of the press over his racist policies.
Yeah this whole video reeks of big seethe by academics who've never had to work in large scale organisations
@@jamesquinn6662 That's precisely what the spiel boils down to. Plus, they even resorted to attempted character assassination in the process. The whole brouhaha is petty and sophomoric. I've worked in three different ecosystems from academia to a state agency to the private sector. In various roles and levels of seniority over the years. I used to encounter nigh identical sentiments on a near daily basis. It always comes from a place of pure myopic ignorance and/or jealousy.
@FraserFir-sb4lk In modern academia scientist's whole incentive structure boils down to publications and names on papers and can give quite an inflated sense of ego. The finesse of obtaining government funding for mass scale projects like apollo would require the right person in the right place with the ability to negotiate budget and argue their case whereas many scientists could likely have made the same observations and come to the same conclusions as hubble. There's much less of an element of "right person right place"
Administrator overestimates the importance of administrators... who would have thought?!
social engineering project idea: community led effort to come up with a colloquial re-naming of JWST, start using that, until nobody remembers the original source of the name
good luck social engineering the general populace into caring about whoever's name is attached to a telescope.