When the Culture Wars Came for NASA

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2023

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful ever made, has revolutionized the way we see the universe. The name was chosen for James E. Webb, a NASA administrator during the 1960s. But when doubts about his background emerged, the telescope’s name turned into a fight over homophobia. Michael Powell, a national reporter for The Times, tells the story of Dr. Hakeem Oluseyi, an astrophysicist whose quest to end the controversy with indisputable facts only made it worse. Guest: Michael Powell, a national reporter covering free speech and intellectual debate for The New York Times.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times, I'm Michael Babbaro.
0:05.0	This is a daily.
0:08.1	The James Webb Space Telescope has revolutionized the way that we see the universe, but naming
0:14.5	that telescope sparked an unexpected firestorm within NASA and the wider scientific community.
0:23.0	Today, my colleague, Michael Powell, tells the story of the astrophysicist whose quest to end
0:30.1	the controversy only made it worse.
0:38.8	It's Friday, May 19th.
0:45.6	Michael, welcome to the studio.
0:47.6	Thank you.
0:48.6	My pleasure.
0:49.6	I want to start by talking about your beat.
0:51.6	Because your beat did not exist even five years ago, right?
0:57.0	It's a new beat and I think it's worth explaining what exactly it is.
1:01.9	It's not easy to describe.
1:03.9	I colloquially think of it as the third rail beat, but do not touch this rail.
1:10.2	Yes, but essentially looking at free expression, free speech, and intellectual debates very often
1:16.8	around ethnicity, race, gender.
1:21.0	So yeah, all of the hot buttons in our current cultural climate.
1:25.1	Right.
1:26.1	A pretty thorny beat.
1:27.1	And just to listen to us understand what actual kinds of stories are we talking about
1:31.3	here?
	...

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