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

Wilshire@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 553 points –
James Webb Space Telescope chief scientist Jane Rigby receives highest US civilian award
space.com
24

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.

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.

Put down your weapons. I voted for Biden and will very likely do so again. Doesn't mean we can't make fun of his weirdness.

Sniffing thing is weird. But, a million times better than "grabbing them by the pussy".

The humorlessnes isn't helping our side. Nor is trying to sweep Biden's flaws under the rug. Of course Trump is 19,000x worse. Which is why the reflexive defensiveness is not needed.

Bro it's been like 6 years since thar was even a thing? Is there really nothing new?

Come back next week when I do my bit about Dukakis in the tank!

John Sununu got a haircut!

Howard Dean yelled "Yeah!" weird once!

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.

Oh god yeah I remember. Legit $10Bn "we only got one of these" moment. They made the right call using the most reliable rocket and an equatorial launch too.

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.

JWST!? Seems like - Jane Rigby Space Telescope would be a more suitable name :) :)