
NASA names headquarters after first Black female engineer Mary W. Jackson - chewdatgenie
https://www.axios.com/nasa-black-female-engineer-headquarters-7e859612-0832-4448-af5c-6a7ad3b64f19.html
======
HenryKissinger
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 deserved announcement.

~~~
electronWizard
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.

~~~
jjeaff
I think you are seriously lacking in historical knowledge and context for the
general regard and treatment of black professionals in the 60s.

------
austincheney
Edit: the article spells this out.

She was the junior of the three starring characters in the movie Hidden
Figures.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Figures](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Figures)

~~~
warent
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-wu
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.

~~~
austincheney
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.

------
cyberlurker
I've seen negative comments of people claiming this is fruitless and that it
pretends to solve racism forever (here and elsewhere).

No one involved in naming this thought that was the case. They are giving
overdue recognition.

I can't imagine why people would be negative about this besides feeling
threatened.

~~~
grugagag
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 up some other ones and appear to make a
bit of justice. The question is, will black americans be treated as second
class citizens in 10, 20, 50 years from now?

~~~
Thorentis
> I want to remind them we dont live in a meritocratic society

The reason I love the sciences is that in general, people are more
meritocratic in those circles compared to others. I've found especially in
scientific academia that people are far more meritocratic compared to other
disciplines. This also applies at science/engineering companies. No, not at
all levels (the more business-y you get, the less of a meritocracy it
becomes). But usually team-leads, senior engineers, etc. rise because of
merit. Always exceptions, but in general. Much more than as an accounting firm
where you rise because you know somebody who knows somebody.

Unfortunately, as time goes on, I've seen academic circles in sci&eng, and
especially tech companies (and silicone valley in general) become much more
interested in stay relevant, keeping up with social trends and movements, and
appearing progressive. You see this with all the FAANG companies calmoring to
be the first to speak out against some injustice or another, or be the first
to take a stand on Their Platform(TM).

And with this, the meritocracy has slowly declined. You don't rise in a
company because you're a skilled engineer - you can rise because you're a
token minority. Or because you're the most outspoken on a social injustice and
can see a way for your company to solve it (sorry, profit from it). You can be
rewarded because you were the first (insert random minority here) to solve a
problem or do something that plenty of other people had already done. Rather
than celebrating scientific advancement, we're now celebrating _the type of
people making that advancement_. What next, the first black woman to clone a
GitHub repo? Let's name the GitHub HQ after that.

~~~
Ar-Curunir
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.

~~~
Thorentis
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 nobody gets a prize in science
without actually putting in the work and achieving something. Though,
admittedly we are seeing that less and less. Society in general is becoming
less meritorious (participation awards, etc).

~~~
Ar-Curunir
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.

~~~
LudwigNagasena
This is simply not true. Most people can’t afford education but they still
take loans and pursue it, even if they have no aptitude for science.

It is indeed gaslighting to talk about “safety nets” when there is a student
loan crisis in the country.

~~~
jjeaff
I believe they are referring to the safety net provided by relative white
wealth. Median net worth for white families in America is 10x that of black
families.

Which means they are much more likely to be able to get support from home or
even a home to move back to if things get tough.

It's a lot easier to take the economic risk of a post-grad or post-doc program
when you know there is a family with means to fall back on.

Excessive student loans are not a serious issue relative to what many in
poverty face. If you don't make enough money to pay your student loans, then
you can defer them indefinitely. Or just not pay them. It might keep you from
getting rich. But it's not going to keep you from eating.

~~~
Ar-Curunir
Yes that’s what I mean by safety net

------
RedComet
They should have named it after their key man, Wernher von Braun.

~~~
lixtra
Well, intent matters.

She wanted humans in space, he wanted them in heaven (early in his career).

------
mleonhard
This is good because it encourages African-Americans, other minority people,
and women to pursue engineering. There are so many people who would be great
engineers but aren't. They are missing out on good careers. And society is
missing out on good engineers.

Renaming buildings is an easy way to help improve things.

~~~
throwaway829
Asians do very well in America and they didn't need buildings named after
them. Why do you think black people need buildings renamed before they start
learning calculus, physics, etc?

------
TedDoesntTalk
This woman should be on the front of a limited edition $100 US bill.

~~~
Rebelgecko
No offense to Salmon Chase, but the bill denomination your face shows up on is
not proportional (even logarithmically) to one's importance or worth as a
human being

------
sheqels
We haven't been to the moon since 1969.

~~~
HenryKissinger
There have been six Moon landings. The last happened in 1972.

------
onetimemanytime
Strongly disagree. If the overall contribution was close, I'd say give her
name to the building but apparently it isn't. Also naming the building after
her solves nothing, in fact its obvious why they did it.

Yes, I know as a black woman she had so many things against her, but so did a
lot of people back then.

