Change the Name of NASA's John C. Stennis Space CenterAll of NASA's main facilities are named after white men — and one of them is named by a key figure in the segregation and white supremacy movement. It's time to talk about that — and to act.
Space friends: maybe it's time we had a talk about the fact that one of NASA's main campuses is named after a person who has been called "the heart, soul, and brains of the white supremacist caucus in the 1948 Congress."
Let's back up a little bit. NASA has 9 centers, not including headquarters or JPL (which is awesome, and which is sometimes counted as a NASA center), as well as ~9 other major facilities. Of the 9 main centers... all 9 are named for white men. 2 Presidents (Kennedy, Johnson); 2 heads of agencies (Ames/NACA, Langley/Smithsonian); 2 astronauts (Glenn, Armstrong); 1 pioneer of rocketry (Goddard); 1 cabinet member (Marshall); and 1 segregationist US senator (Stennis).
If you look at the other major facilities, most of them are named after their function or their location (two of those locations in turn being named after white men — Wallops and Michoud). Then there's another one named after Goddard, who already has a center named after him.
The remaining one got a new name in 2019: Katherine Johnson Independent Verification & Validation Facility. If you don't already know her name, Katherine Johnson is one of the "Hidden Figures" who played a critical but overlooked role in the early days of human space exploration.
So, let's do the math. Among NASA's 20 major locations, you've got ~12 named after white men, ~7 named after their function, and 1 named after a (fantastic, legendary) human who wasn't a white man. This seems... not ideal for an agency that represents a nation / planet.
(And before anyone gets me wrong: I love NASA. The only one of these names that the current NASA leadership team is responsible for is the Katherine Johnson IV&V Facility. Though I hope NASA will take this moment in history to reexamine the names, this is not an attack on them.)
But looking at the names, one of these seems particularly problematic: the John C. Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Mississippi.
Stennis is not the biggest or the most famous NASA Center, but over the years, it's been the site of some incredible important and ground-breaking (sometimes literally) work. Its primary area of focus is propulsion, specifically rocket engine testing. The most important rocket engines of the Apollo, Space Shuttle, and now the SLS programs were/are all tested at Stennis. Those programs are, as they say, *kind of a big deal* in the history of NASA and of humanity's exploration of outer space.
Originally, the facility was called simply Mississippi Test Operations. It was renamed the Mississippi Test Facility in 1965; then it changed names again In 1974, becoming the National Space Technology Laboratories. It took on its current name in 1988.
Now, I'm a space nerd who has worked in the space industry his whole career, but I'd never heard of John C. Stennis, nor had I thought much about how or why this facility got its name until pretty recently. Talking to friends in the industry, not many of them had, either. So, let's look him up, shall we?
John C. Stennis (1901 - 1995) was a US Senator representing Mississippi. He served in public office from 1928 through 1989 — that's more than 60 years, people! During that time, he served as President pro tem of the Senate from 1987 - 1989. (Sandwiched right in between Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd in that role, if you want a bit more foreshadowing...)
If you don't know the term "President pro tempore," that's basically the most important, highest ranked job in the US Senate (excluding the Vice President of the US, who has some Senatorial functions). It's kinda (not exactly) like the Senate's version of a Speaker of the House.
Now, I'm not an expert on Mississippi politics, nor a historian of 20th century American Politics. I genuinely look forward to learning from others who know more than I do in those fields, if this thread gets any attention. But I've been reading up on Senator Stennis, and what I've found is pretty disturbing. It should have always been disturbing, honestly. I'm grateful that the current moment in history is helping us all open our eyes to things that we denied or were ignorant of for too long.
If you love space, and especially if you believe space has (and sometimes reaches!) the potential to represent the best of humanity's hopes, dreams, and capabilities, here are some things you should probably know about the person for which one of NASA's main centers is named.
John C. Stennis was the prosecutor for Brown v Mississippi in the 1930s. In this murder case, the accused were three Black farmers who were stripped naked and whipped until they 'confessed' to the killing. One was strung up on a noose and whipped more to induce the 'confession.'
With Stennis representing the state — in this case, that means representing those who tortured three people and sought to execute them — the three farmers were tried. After a less than 2 day trial during which no other evidence was presented, the three were convicted and sentenced to death. Ultimately, the case would be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in what became a landmark case protecting the rights of the accused.
If you love space and NASA, you should know that John C. Stennis, the person for whom one of NASA's main centers is named, voted against Anti Poll Tax legislation and against an anti-literacy bill and sponsored legislation to enforce certain school desegregation laws.
John C. Stennis voted against the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968. He voted against establishing Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as a federal holiday. He signed the Southern Manifesto, which called for 'massive resistance' to school integration.
John C. Stennis - for whom a NASA Center, an Aircraft Carrier, a Carrier Strike Group, and more are named — said that he believed "Blacks [sic] had come down from the trees a lot later than we [White people] did."
Now, there are a lot of other things John C. Stennis did. He was more than just a racist advocate of segregation. He served in the Senate for a really, really long time. He survived being shot during a home burglary while in office. He lost a leg to cancer, and when he was President pro tem, he presided over the senate from a wheelchair.
He's been called by some the father of the modern US Navy. He was super active in many facets of the Vietnam war and many of its related debates (with a legacy more complicated on that issue than I personally can fully understand yet).
In 1973, President Nixon proposed the "Stennis Compromise" regarding the infamous Watergate-related tapes Nixon wanted to protect via executive privilege: he suggested allowing only the honorable — and hard-of-hearing — Stennis to listen to them.
Late in life, he seems to have changed his mind at least partially on the issue of race. He voted for the 1982 extension of the Voting Rights Act and he campaigned for at least one Black Mississippian's campaign for congress.
Now, I personally believe the old line that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. And I also am a fervent believer in the universal humanity of people of all races — one aspect of which, I believe, is recognizing that all individuals have both strengths and flaws. But I think there is a reason why there is now an active moment in the U.S. Navy to rename the things named after John C. Stennis. And I think it's time that NASA and the space community have a similar discussion of our own.
There's a reason why John C. Stennis's own descendants are suggesting that their family name be removed from a design that has been championed as a replacement for the state's current flag (which includes the racist Confederate Battle Flag as an element).
I think it's our turn as an aerospace community. We should ask ourselves why NASA has a facility named after this man, and if he's really one of the 9 humans most deserving of that honor. We should ask how we can help NASA's incredible people, both at Stennis and at HQ, reevaluate.
The reasoning for the name seems flimsy for our vantage point in 2020. The NASA Stennis webpage, from what I've found, offers us this: "it was renamed ... in honor of U.S. Sen. John C. Stennis for his steadfast leadership and staunch support of the nation's space program." I'd bet that if you queried any group of NASA professionals, NASA retirees, NASA historians, or whatever else, and asked them to name NASA's steadiest leaders and staunchest supporters, it'd take a while before you heard the answer "John C. Stennis."
For that reason, particularly in the context of what is happening in the world right now, it is my belief that we should change the name of NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center — and that as we do so, we should memorialize both why that name was chosen and why it was replaced.
If the name were to change, the question of what the new name should be is best left to people far wiser than I am. I'm personally confident in NASA's their ability to come up with something thoughtful. But I'll throw out a range of suggestions to help start the conversation.
I can see the appeal of naming NASA facilities after people with a connection to that particular state. If you want to go that route -- which I personally wouldn't, but who am I? -- Mississippians Richard Truly and Fred Haise might be good choices?
Some people might suggest someone who was important to the facility itself: know almost nothing about Jackson M. Balch, but he was formally the facility's first Center Director, and ran the center throughout the Apollo era. Seems like he might be a candidate by that criteria.
But any of those would keep NASA at 60% of their major facilities named for white men of history. Even if you think that's not a disqualifying factor, I'd like to think everyone can agree that that percentage seems (ahem) wwaaaaaaaaaayyyyy out of proportion.
So perhaps it's time for NASA to do something it has never done: name one of its 10 centers for someone who is/was neither white nor male. (Don't get me wrong, the Katherine Johnson IV&V Facility is great, but there's still a glass ceiling here with only a tiny crack.)
My friend Therese Jones threw out an excellent suggestion: Clyde Foster. I didn't know much if anything about Foster, but this article is wonderful.
Ars Technica reporter and space expert Eric Berger suggested Annie Easley. Another hidden figure who seems very deserving of more recognition.
And personally, I can't help but think that the Mae C. Jemison Space Research Center sounds like an excellent name. (I threw "Research" in there so that the initialism doesn't get mixed up with that of the Johnson Space Center).
It would certainly be unusual for NASA to name a center after someone who is still alive, but I don't think it would be impossible.
If you don't know Mae Jemison, I'll resist my temptation to say "WTF?!?!?" and share just a bit of her history. Born in Decatur, AL (~6 hour drive from Stennis Space Center), Mae Jemison was raised in Chicago. She went to college at Stanford, starting at the age of 16, earning degrees in Chemical Engineering and African and African-American studies, and running the Black Students Union.
She then went to Cornell University for medical school. Then, she joined the Peace Corps. She worked as a doctor in Sierra Leone and in Liberia for two years. From what I've read, she worked with the CDC at this time as well, helping do research and development on vaccines.
In 1987, Dr. Jemison was selected as a NASA astronaut. In 1992, she travelled to space on board the Space Shuttle Endeavour as part of the crew of STS-47. This made her the first Black woman in space (thus far, there have been only two others).
In 1993, she made a guest appearance on Star Trek: The Next Generation. She was the first ever actual astronaut to appear on the show. This may not mean much to you, but my goodness did it ever mean a lot to little nerds like me everywhere — especially to women and people of color.
Since retiring from NASA, she's been a professor of environmental studies and run the Jemison Institute for Advancing Technology in Developing Countries. She's written children's books and been a tireless for advocate science education.
Now she runs the 100 Year Starship project, which is as cool as it sounds.
Here's one other thing I didn't know about Dr. Jemison until recently, when I learned about it from The Planetary Society.
In 1996, Dr. Jemison was pulled over while driving by a Nassau Bay, TX police officer for allegedly making an illegal turn. The officer discovered she had an unpaid speeding ticket, which technically resulted in an outstanding warrant. The officer twisted Dr. Jemison's arm, threw her to the ground, and placed her — the first black women to go to space — under arrest for failure to pay a speeding ticket. The police officer was cleared of wrong-doing and returned to active duty without any loss of pay or benefits.
In my career in aerospace, I've not had the pleasure of working with Dr. Jemison, though I've met her briefly. But everything I know about her, and everything I have heard from colleagues who know her closely, suggest that she is exactly the kind of person worthy of this honor.
I'm sure there are other great suggestions — and you should learn more about these people and about others who might be worthy of this honor. I'll try to keep an eye on my mentions and amplify great suggestions as best I can (while working and watching kiddos!). But above all, I encourage you to learn more about John C. Stennis, and about why people originally thought it was acceptable to apply his name to an important center of one our nation's most beautiful and forward-looking agencies, NASA.
From what I've heard, there are at least some people in NASA who are aware of the need for change, and who have been working towards. I support that effort and those people whole-heartedly, and I hope that you will do so, too!
Pomerantz wrote the above before NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced that NASA Headquarters was 
posted 06-24-2020 08:35 PM
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