We regret to inform you that they're trying to cancel the James Webb Space Telescope

Greg P. | 5:18 PM on July 17, 2022

LOLOLOLOLOLOL!

You know all those great photos we saw from NASA last week taken by the James Webb Space Telescope?

👀 Sneak a peek at the deepest & sharpest infrared image of the early universe ever taken — all in a day’s work for the Webb telescope. (Literally, capturing it took less than a day!) This is Webb’s first image released as we begin to #UnfoldTheUniverse: https://t.co/tlougFWg8B pic.twitter.com/Y7ebmQwT7j

— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) July 11, 2022

Yep! They’re now problematic. . .

It’s time to cancel the James Webb Space Telescope:

The excitement around new images of far-off galaxies has reignited calls from some within the scientific and queer communities to rename the James Webb Space Telescope because of Webb’s alleged involvement in past anti-LGTBQ government policies. https://t.co/1QShsMlryo

— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 17, 2022

From NBC News:

The excitement around unprecedented new images of far-off galaxies has reignited calls from some within the scientific and queer communities to rename the James Webb Space Telescope because of Webb’s alleged involvement in past anti-LGTBQ government policies in the mid-20th century.

Images from the telescope, a project three decades in the making, were released on Tuesday by NASA. The observatory, which launched into orbit in December 2021, is about the size of a tennis court and can take more detailed images from deeper in space than any equipment of its kind.

NASA has billed the mission as an “Apollo moment,” with the potential to answer probing questions at the frontier of space discovery, including about life on other planets. But the agency has also faced criticism for naming its signature project after former NASA Administrator James Webb, who previously had served as undersecretary of state during the Truman administration, when the federal government systematically purged its ranks of LGBTQ employees.