NGST = Hawking Space Telescope

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