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NASA names headquarters after first Black female engineer Mary W. Jackson

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Re: NASA names headquarters after first Black female engineer Mary W. Jackson

#81

Post by cheschire »

justin66 wrote: post #79
nickff wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dryden was much more important to NASA than Armstrong was. Armstrong was lucky to be assigned Apollo 11; he was not the best test pilot (having crashed an X-15 due to his own recklessness). If they were going to pick people who greatly contributed to the success of the Apollo program, they should have picked Houbolt.

If only Armstrong had accomplished something that made up for overshooting the runway and scraping the paint on the bottom of an experimental aircraft, perhaps then he'd be worthy of having a building at Edwards named after him. I cannot imagine what sort of act might erase the stain of that kind of universal infamy.

I mean, a dog AND a couple monkeys made it up to space right? How hard can it be? And the landing part is just falling with style.

Re: NASA names headquarters after first Black female engineer Mary W. Jackson

#83

Post by Ar-Curunir »

Thorentis wrote: post #76
Ar-Curunir wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an actual scientist, no, science is not particularly meritocratic or objective. The current scientific world is highly catered towards people that can afford to devote their 20s and 30s to a low-paying job. Because of in-group dynamics, it also maintains the existing population make-up, which is predominantly white or Asian.

Just because you need to sacrifice your prime years in order to succeed, doesn't mean the system isn't meritorious. What isn't meritorious about needing to work hard even if you're talented? Nobody gets a free ride. If you mean that gifted people should have their livelihood subsidised by the state, then sure, I'm open to exploring merit based scholarships, and society investing more in the sciences and so on. But no…

The problem is that, in a world where white folks have access to a better social safety net, on average they can afford to sacrifice their 20s and 30s in this pursuit, where others might not have that luxury.

Anyway, I won't waste my time further debating what's obvious gaslighting.

Re: NASA names headquarters after first Black female engineer Mary W. Jackson

#84

Post by Ar-Curunir »

Fasdfggw wrote: post #80
astronautjones wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the reason "politics" are so derided on this website is because these guys can't stop themselves from impulsively showing their true colors (and exposing the very endemic racism at hand in the process!) at the drop of a hat

Maybe, but I think an equally large problem is the habit people have of (i) dichotomizing every issue and (ii) simply painting another person as racist/horrible or otherwise socially unfit. No one can have a real conversation where this is the norm. Yes, this is a throwaway. Yes, I shouldn't do it. But frankly, it's the only way I would ever comment on something like this. Everyone involved in American culture war su…

Really? The problem is people pointing out racism, and not the fact that the fabric of the country is woven from racism?

Re: NASA names headquarters after first Black female engineer Mary W. Jackson

#85

Post by electronWizard »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #11

Becoming a NASA engineer in those days must have been extraordinarily challenging. That Mary Jackson, a black woman, succeeded in doing so in a society, and a professional culture (engineering) dominated by white men (nothing against white men, am a white man myself, just pointing out an objective fact, please put your pitchforks away) speaks to her talent and the grit it took to achieve what she achieved. A well des…

Probably not to be honest, she deserves the merit she is getting for the work she did. However, the Apollo program in the 60s at it's peak was 4% of the US government budget compared to 0.5% today. The federal government was had a fire hose full of greenbacks aimed at NASA so I'd assume they were hiring huge numbers of engineers directly, and also indirectly through all the aerospace/defense manufacturers who were working on the space program while also simultaneously getting huge contracts for designing ballistic missiles.

NASA has a much smaller budget today so I wouldn't be surprised if you've got to display much more merit in college or your career to get selected as an engineer.

Re: NASA names headquarters after first Black female engineer Mary W. Jackson

#86

Post by systemvoltage »

glosses wrote: post #44
grugagag wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont know if feeling threatened but aware this person’s contribution was not the reason for the naming but the fact that black people were supressed. It’s a generous move but not highly meritocratic. People might have a problem or two with that. I want to remind them we dont live in a meritocratic society anyway and the powerful snatch the merit away like a giant magnet. It will naturally bruise some egos and pump…

Doesn't this go both ways? Is it really more meritocratic to choose someone who made a greater contribution if they were given significantly better opportunities throughout their life to achieve it? Can you even judge merit if not everyone is given an equal start?

The problem your opposition sees is that:

It is a gross generalization and on an individual basis there is no way to check or know if that ______ person had equal opportunities or they didn’t. The problem with generalized appropriations but localized relief is that unfairness is vividly unbearable to those who are impacted. Imagine if race ______ gets 20 more points in an exam than the rest because they just happen to be a part of a minority. That would be infuriating to a lot of people who took that exam. It’s no fault of ours - this is a natural reaction of all humans. Now, if you’re not taking that exam, that might sound very benevolent. Life is like an exam in some ways. If everyone can take the exam, that would be great. Some can’t even take it, and that where the focus should be - eliminate poverty, inspire people to work hard, and enable people to go to college.

Imagine for a moment - you’re laid off, your family depends solely on you to survive. You’ve interviewed and you think you got the job only to realize that a minority person took it instead only because of the color of their skin. Would you be ok with that(assuming it’s true that there was no meritocracy involved)? This whole thing about improving the world goes into the toilet when your child is crying and you’re looking at your house being foreclosed.

If you’re well off, everything is rosy. You need to also consider other viewpoints.

Re: NASA names headquarters after first Black female engineer Mary W. Jackson

#87

Post by LudwigNagasena »

newacct583 wrote: post #64
grugagag wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont know if feeling threatened but aware this person’s contribution was not the reason for the naming but the fact that black people were supressed. It’s a generous move but not highly meritocratic. People might have a problem or two with that. I want to remind them we dont live in a meritocratic society anyway and the powerful snatch the merit away like a giant magnet. It will naturally bruise some egos and pump…

> this person’s contribution was not the reason for the naming but the fact that black people were supressed As opposed to all those other buildings, all of which were uniformly and fairly named after people with unimpeachible accomplishments in a purely meritocratic system, you mean? I mean, come on. People name junk after stupid things All. The. Time. And no one cares. Seriously, go to your local campus or governme…

> As opposed to all those other buildings, all of which were uniformly and fairly named after people with unimpeachible accomplishments in a purely meritocratic system, you mean?

As opposed to an ideal people strive for. Of course no one will ever be happy with every name. Every person has their own opinion. It doesn’t mean there is no place for public discourse around it.

> I mean, come on. People name junk after stupid things All. The. Time. And no one cares.

Evidently people care a lot about such stuff. Maybe you don’t like it, but many people like when the streets and buildings honor respectable people.

> Seriously, go to your local campus or government center or NASA facility or whatever and look up the names on the buildings and lecture halls and bathroom stalls. Tell me those people "really deserved" that recognition.

Do you have an example?

> Until you name something after a black woman. Then all of a sudden the white men get all meritocratic on your ass.

This looks like projection and envy.

Re: NASA names headquarters after first Black female engineer Mary W. Jackson

#88

Post by austincheney »

a-wu wrote: post #10
warent wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not much of a movie watcher but this one is an outstanding one! Highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't already seen it.

A great movie indeed however it uses the white savior trope gratuitously. The scene where Kevin Costner’s character lets Octavia Spencer’s character into the mission control room never happened in real life.

Octavia Spenser plays Dorothy Vaughan, the programmer. Katherine Johnson was played by Taraji Henson.

The movie deliberately side steps history in order to tell a story. For example the accomplishments of the three primary characters occurred during unrelated timelines. The three primary characters likely knew each other in passing but in addition to the different timelines they worked in unrelated departments on unrelated projects. Also Katherine Johnson took 3 days to confirm John Glenn’s landing coordinates within the week of launch. The movie reduced that to an hour effort holding up launch for dramatic effect. John Glenn really did ask for Johnson to personally verify the numbers though.

There are three supporting characters that are real life figures: Al Harrison played by Kevin Costner, Jim Johnson played by Mahershala Ali, and Olke Krupa who played a fictionalized version of a real engineer mostly accurately depicted as Mary Jackson’s real life supervisor. The rest of the supporting cast were largely stereotype figures.

Considering the historical reality I did not take the white characters as white saviors at all.

Re: NASA names headquarters after first Black female engineer Mary W. Jackson

#89

Post by LudwigNagasena »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #84
Fasdfggw wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but I think an equally large problem is the habit people have of (i) dichotomizing every issue and (ii) simply painting another person as racist/horrible or otherwise socially unfit. No one can have a real conversation where this is the norm. Yes, this is a throwaway. Yes, I shouldn't do it. But frankly, it's the only way I would ever comment on something like this. Everyone involved in American culture war su…

Really? The problem is people pointing out racism, and not the fact that the fabric of the country is woven from racism?

The fabric of the country is indeed woven with racism. That’s why even people who think they “point out” racism are often very racist.

Re: NASA names headquarters after first Black female engineer Mary W. Jackson

#90

Post by LudwigNagasena »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #41
Thorentis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The majority of things are named after white men to the exclusion of everyone else. That's because the majority of scientific achievements to date, have been by white men. I'm not celebrating that fact, I'm just pointing out the source of the statistic you've pointed out. The things weren't named because the person was a white male, they were named because of a tremendous achievement that happened to be made by a w…

Mate, shut up with the nonsense. There are many scientific concepts that originated in Asian/MiddleEastern civilizations that simply happen to have a European name because the latter person popularized it in the West.

What concepts are you talking about? Do you have examples? For example, as far as I know no one tried to make alcohol, algebra, algorithm distinctly European. In fact you can realize these words came from Middle East because all of them are prefixed with “al-“, Arabic for “the”.
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