Over on SSH it has just been posted that Hawkings most recent book uses the term "zero gravity" to describe his parabolic jet airplane flight. Along with two other (mis)uses of this term very closely associated with him (from his own daughter/coauthor as well as his own official website) ...given the totality of these three cases (let alone the expectation of finding others) the obvious conclusion presented there is that this proposal to rename the new Space Telescope in his honor needs to be reconsidered.

Here is a link to that post from a couple of minutes ago:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!or...o/KRUklBF9BgAJ

The full thread is he
Stephen Hawking and "Zero Gravity"
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...ry/NdnlocUFZko

Here is a cut&paste of the closing position:
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Gravity, in 2018, is still a huge mystery. But there are many things that we are absolutely clear that it is not. This telescope holds the promise of unlocking many of gravity's mysteries. And it now seems questionable to name it after a person who has this embarrassingly loose terminology so intricately associated with his name.
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~ CT





On Wednesday, March 14, 2018 at 9:20:40 PM UTC-5, Stuf4 wrote:
This needs to be said...
The NGST, scheduled to be launched a year from now, should be renamed:

Hawking Space Telescope

I don't know who came up with the name JWST. The rationale that's been presented by NASA is quite weak. NGST is a scientific instrument and deserves to be named for a scientist. Hawking is well deserving.

A petition can be started so that Stephen Hawking will be permanently honored this way, with the anticipated major breakthroughs that the new telescope will provide for new insights into black holes and looking way back into the early universe.


There's a potential source of confusion to have two space telescopes that would have the abbreviation HST. One view on this is that it would be a fitting sense of continuity from Hubble to its replacement. But if the scientific community would prefer to avoid this potential ambiguity, then they could always go with:

NGST = SHST

Alternatively, Hubble could be retroactively referred to as the EHST. But I myself am partial to the continuity angle. HST will be replaced by the new and improved HST.

~ CT