NASA Admin James Webb hanging out with George Wallace and Wernher von Braun in 1965
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View Reddit by AsAChemicalEngineer – View Source
NASA Admin James Webb hanging out with George Wallace and Wernher von Braun in 1965
View Reddit by AsAChemicalEngineer – View Source
Found this picture in an NPR article detailing the controversy to change the JWST’s name. I just thought it was interesting to find a photo like this where he’s being chummy with an avowed white supremacist and a former Nazi.
https://www.npr.org/2022/11/18/1137762508/nasa-declines-rename-james-webb-space-telescope-report
Edit: It’s unsurprising to see such a picture considering Wallace was a prominent state Governor and von Braun was heavily involved in the Apollo program. So in context, not unusual whatsoever in 1965, but also, with a modern lens, Webb here finds himself among rather unsavory companions.
NASA says they found no wrongdoing on Webb’s part during his tenure, and it isn’t unlikely that this is true, but those who oppose naming the JWST after Webb are completely correct that the culture of power in NASA and the US Government at large here was despicable in certain important ways in this time period.
7 years after NASA desegregated
Trying to segregate space.