Critical move: Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine announced that the agency’s headquarters building in Washington DC will be named after Jackson. — AFP
THE National Aeronautics and Space Agency (Nasa) has taken the initiative in a matter that the Trump administration has failed – to use a variant of “feared” – to tread. It has unveiled a decision in the season of the racist upsurge against the establishment, so robust indeed that the movement has spilled over the frontiers and across the Atlantic to several countries in Europe.
The historical significance of Wednesday’s announcement must be that Nasa will rename its Washington DC headquarters after Mary W. Jackson, the frontline entity’s first black woman engineer and a pivotal player in helping US astronauts reach space.
