Letter: In praise of Chanda's stance on JWST name

From Gabriel Carlyle, St Leonards, East Sussex, UK

Simon Robinson objects to Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s proposal that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) be renamed in honour of Harriet Tubman, writing: “Let us remember past scientists, technicians and engineers for their contributions to their fields, without seeking to judge them because they lived at a time when social attitudes were different(Letters, 12 November).”

But Webb wasn’t a scientist, technician or engineer: he was a career civil servant and head of NASA at the time of a federal policy of purging LGBT individuals from the agency’s workforce.

As Prescod-Weinstein has noted in her writing on this issue: “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.”