1y ago

James Webb Space Telescope chief scientist Jane Rigby receives highest US civilian award

www.space.com

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Brace yourself for conservative media outrage over the length of her hair
- Oh they have far more to lose their shit over when it comes to Dr. Rigby:
  Rigby was a founding member of the American Astronomical Society Committee for Sexual-Orientation and Gender Minorities in Astronomy.[12] In 2015 she co-organised Inclusive Astronomy, a worldwide initiative to celebrate inclusivity and equity in astronomy.[13][14]
  And:
  Rigby came out as lesbian in 2000.[2] When she joined the University of Arizona as a graduate student, it was still against state law to be gay.[2]
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Rigby_(astrophysicist)
  Not sure if she's the first out lesbian to get the Presidential Medal of Freedom, but it wouldn't shock me.
  Edit: Never mind. Billie Jean King got one from Obama and there might be women other than her, I just saw her name when I was scanning.
  
  Incredibly based scientist
- Ignore my previous post. They won't even notice because he also gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Nancy Pelosi in the same ceremony.
- ... and over the fact that article mentions the universe being billions of years old, which we know to be false because some old book says so, supposedly, not that any of them have read that book. Ban all Webb data, keep that stuff out of our libraries and schools!
- Hoping like hell Biden didn't try to sniff it.
  
  Oh right. Forgot about that conservative trope. Don’t mind your leader is literally convicted for rape and is on trial for influencing election outcome by paying hush money for cheating on his 3rd wife with multiple women.
  Let’s focus on imaginary Biden hair sniffing. P in GOP stands for projection after all.
  
  Bro it's been like 6 years since thar was even a thing? Is there really nothing new?
  
  lol
The amount of data that has come out in the year since it's launch has jumped mankinds knowledge of the cosmos forward by leaps and bounds.
it's also further shown us just how little we know.
- Yeah the JWST will go down as one of the most important pieces of scientific hardware ever created. She and all the NASA/ESA/CSA scientists who created it deserve all the medals. IIRC it was ESA's most viewed launch to date, I sure remember stressing tf out haha.
  
  Given that they had a test failure that would have led to mission failure like 2 weeks before launch and said "yeah we figured it out, we're good" and launched the fucker, a little nail biting was justified.
  They nailed it though.
It's nice to see someone honored for something they've done that's a benefit to the world as opposed to golfers, mostly sport athletes and crooked politicians.
Lovely, well-deserved!
JWST!? Seems like - Jane Rigby Space Telescope would be a more suitable name :) :)
- I imagine there might be one at some point, just not this one.
- It certainly would be more suitable to name it after a gay woman than Webb, who may or may not have been a homophobe.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_E._Webb#Controversy_about_telescope_name
So young!

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