First James Webb images arrive amid calls for telescope name change, links to LGBTQ abuse

NASA released the first, highly-anticipated deep space images from its James Webb Space Telescope this week. But the arrival also spotlights continued calls to rename the groundbreaking machine – in light of allegations that Webb was complicit in the abuse and discrimination of LGBTQ people during his tenure at the federal space agency.

The $10 billion, "next Hubble" telescope that was decades in the making is now sending back its first images, nearly seven months after leaving Earth and traveling about a million miles from our planet.

President Joe Biden unveiled the first James Webb image Monday night, and NASA released additional, stunning images filled with thousands of galaxies on Tuesday – marking the deepest view of the cosmos ever captured.

While the astronomy community around the world is celebrating this momentous event, many have also strongly criticized the telescope's name – which honors James Webb, NASA's second administrator who served from 1961 to 1968, when NASA was taking its key steps to put astronauts on the moon.

Photos: NASA releases 'sharpest' images of the universe from James Webb Space Telescope 

Webb has been linked to government discrimination against LGBTQ employees – notably because he was in NASA leadership and previously served as the U.S. Undersecretary of State during the Lavender Scare, which lead to the mass dismal of gay and lesbian people across government service in the mid-1900s.

Outraged astronomers, researchers and more have called on NASA to rename the James Webb Telescope – with over 1,700 signing a petition created in 2021 demanding for the removal of Webb's name from the "next-generation space telescope."

"As one of the people who has been leading the push to change the name, today feels bittersweet. I’m so excited for the new images and so angry at NASA HQ," assistant professor of physics at the University of New Hampshire Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, who was one of the leading researchers for the petition, tweeted on Monday.

Prescod-Weinstein added that the Biden administration and NASA leadership have "stubbornly refused to acknowledge" Webb's complete legacy.

Thousands of galaxies: Biden unveils first image from the James Webb Space Telescope

Prescod-Weinstein and the three other leading researchers for the 2021 petition –astronomer at Chicago's Adler Planetarium Lucianne Walkowicz, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory researcher Brian Nord and assistant professor of astrophysics at the University of Washington Sarah Tuttle – wrote that "homophobia and the harassment of queer people did not end with the Lavender Scare."

The researchers pointed to former NASA employee Clifford L. Norton, who was fired in 1963 under Webb's administration. Norton later sued, seeking review of his firing for "immoral conduct." The court concluded that Norton was unlawfully discharged in 1969.

In the court's decision, the chief judge wrote that the individual who dismissed Norton said he was a good employee and asked if it was possible to keep him employed with NASA, according to a March Nature investigation that obtained internal agency documents.

"Whomever he consulted in the personnel office told him that it was a 'custom within the agency' to fire people for 'homosexual conduct,'" Nature reported.

In an email statement sent to USA TODAY late Tuesday, NASA maintained that the agency had researched the allegations and chose to keep the telescope's name.

"NASA’s History Office conducted an exhaustive search through currently accessible archives on James Webb and his career. Our historians also talked to experts who previously researched this topic extensively," NASA stated. "NASA found no evidence at this point that warrants changing the name of the telescope."

The space agency added: "The NASA historian and a contract historian have successfully completed their research from additional historical archives that were closed due to COVID-19. They are compiling their information now into an update the agency will share."

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Among proposals of a new name for the James Webb Telescope: the "Harriet Tubman Space Telescope."

"Before she became a conductor on the Underground Railroad, a disabled and enslaved Harriet Tubman almost certainly used the North Star, just as it is documented that others did, to navigate her way to freedom," Prescod-Weinstein, Walkowicz, Nord and Tuttle wrote in a March 2021 column for the Scientific American. They added that the Tubman name "would ensure that her memory lives always in the heavens that gave her and so many others hope. It could also serve as a reminder that the night sky is a shared heritage that belongs to all of us, including LGBTQIA+ people."

Contributing: Doyle Rice, USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: James Webb Telescope images amid renaming calls, links to LGBTQ abuse