Dr. Lucianne Walkowicz
@RocketToLulu
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@RocketToLulu @projectmushroom .social Co-founder/astronomer @JustSpaceOrg , movement artist. Pronouns: they/them
Chicago, IL
Joined February 2011
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In 2011, I became a TED Fellow-- today, I quit. "We are no longer willing to be associated with an organization that platforms and honors vocal supporters of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians"... Read the full letter here:
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Look, there is a difference between astronomy and astrophysics: you say “astrophysics” when you want the conversation about what you do for work to end right away, and “astronomy” when you want it to end only after they realize you don’t mean astrology
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those who love space
deserve better than rich assholes
who’d sell us shit
and call it sunshine
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@hankgreen
I am an astronomer— one of many who’s been trying to get the telescope’s name changed so it doesn’t honor someone who persecuted queer people
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In the coming weeks, we may each be called to step up to quell potential harm. Please take a moment to educate yourself on de-escalation and bystander intervention techniques. Here's a couple places to start:
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Hi, you cannot legally (or illegally) own a planet, or any other part of space
Unless you built a thing on Earth and sent it there, then you still own that thing
No, not even if you are famous
That is all
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Astronomers Grampa Simpson
🤝
yelling at clouds
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Starlink continues to pollute the sky, creating a giant orbital debris hazard, and not actually providing a meaningfully accessible service all while capitalizing on techno-utopian’s childish understandings of the word “access”
good morning
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Tell me the JWST naming decision is part of a larger problem without telling me the JWST naming decision is part of a larger problem cc
@ISNBS_
#QueerinSTEM
#TransinSTEM
#LGBTinSTEM
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HEY
@CNN
“
@NASA
is not approving any merchandising applications involving Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), as they are not consistent with the categories of products the Agency is approved to merchandise.”
CNN is selling NFTs of Hubble Space Telescope images and thanks I hate Web3 more than ever
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So this morning I went for a run and ended up doing chest compressions on a man very near the brink of death. This is... I don't know how many times?! I have called for an ambulance for someone in clear distress on a busy street where no one has stopped to help. Some thoughts:
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Trans Day of Never Using Names Or An Algorithm To Determine Gender Ever Again
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PS this is a one way trip to block town, folks. Don’t do gross shit like this, no stranger wants your opinion, also there can only be one biggest mistake so pick a fucking priority jfc
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Dose one, down! After 53 weeks of quarantine and trying to navigate this pandemic w/ a compromised immune system, I feel so fortunate to have one foot across the threshold to safety. It was super easy— I feel a bit tired but fine!
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Shot:
Exclusive: Documents reveal NASA’s internal struggles over renaming Webb telescope - by
@alexwitze
@Nature
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📣BIG NEWS!📣 Starting in June, I'm bringing the work I care most about into the center of my life, instead of trying to fit it in around the margins. This means two things in practice: I will be doing my scholarly work on astronomy + its social impacts
@JustSpaceOrg
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Option 4: these men are all already supervillains
Weekend survey: which of these billionaires is more likely to turn into a super villain?
1) Elon "emperor of Mars and commander of Starlink" Musk
2) Jeff "king of Amazon and owner of every goods" Bezos
3) Mark "lord of the Metaverse and controller of all data" Zuckerberg
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Aaaaand that’s a wrap! Onward to new adventures 🤸🏻✨🌈
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Hey! Did you sign our petition to
#DefundCPD
yet? ~80% of Chicago residents responded to a recent city survey in SUPPORT of defunding the police, yet Lori Lightfoot continues to blow us off. BE HEARD! Please add your voice during this crucial time!
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Native Hawaiians wrote the collection of papers you’re referencing, you opportunistic fool
Wokeists campaign against telescopes in Hawaii.
Embracing race as the source of identity, Wokeists view Hawaiians as a separate species that must be kept in superstition, who should not be allowed to take part in science.
Science is not for Hawaiians, say the WoKKKeists.
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“If more non-binary people were doing physics, would we be telling them that quantum mechanics won’t be intuitive for them? [...] If you’re used to thinking outside of binaries, maybe things are intuitive to you that aren’t for people who are committed to the binary”
@IBJIYONGI
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Dear friends: I’m mostly ok, but was struck by a car on Tuesday morning and am receiving medical care. As it happens this has coincided with
@NASA
’s cowardly non-response regarding naming their next flagship for a homophobe who helped drive queer people out of their jobs.
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The Harriet Tubman Space Telescope (HTST) has a nice ring to it, but more importantly, embodies a future that includes all of us. Thanks to my coauthors
@IBJIYONGI
@niais
&
@iamstarnord
✨
Rename the space telescope for Harriet Tubman, who likely used the North Star to navigate to freedom. The HTST would be a reminder that the night sky belongs to all of humanity, including LGBTQIA+ people
@IBJIYONGI
@niais
@RocketToLulu
@iamstarnord
@sciam
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And a preemptive fuck you to anyone who says Webb was a “man of his time”— you know who else were men of their time? The gay people he persecuted who lost their livelihoods. Anyway, more when I’m feeling up to it.
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Since the US isn’t being straightforward about
#LongCovid
, check out the messaging from Finland:
“One out of two adults” —> that’s HALF of people experience lingering symptoms, and 20% experience *cognitive* issues
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@IBJIYONGI
@iamstarnord
@niais
I can't imagine literally telling your colleague "I called ten straight people to ask whether this thing that clearly matters to queer people is a problem" and not questioning it. What clearer example of "straight cissex astronomers are the REAL astronomers" could there be?
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Most people with “academic skills” would not last a single shift in the service industry
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I’d love to be unreservedly stoked about the mission. But at this point NASA digging its heels in, combined with watching my fellow scientists and science communicators deciding they can just turn off the part of the part of their brain that’s bothered, is just too much
As you may have heard The James Webb Space Telescope will be releasing "data from its first five targets" on Tuesday. I'm no astronomer but here's what I've gathered about what that means, and what we'll see.
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This supposed list of “slurs" for white people has to be the most accidentally based conservative racebaiting I have ever seen. It is my stance that the right isn't funny, but if anyone wants to call me an "unedited google document" or "no purpose flour" you have my permission 💀
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Want to understand the impact of astronomy on Native Hawaiian/Kanaka 'Oiwi communities? Here's an awesome package of resources for that! See this thread for a short guide:
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good news everyone, I was just notified that in JULY OF 2020 my COVID test was negative!
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Or they are actual astrophysicists who know what the fuck they're talking about
When people say “Team Earth” they seem to forget how much space exploration pushes tech forward. If it werent for NASA, computer miniaturization, solar panels, satellites, medical tech, etc would be years behind. Setting big goals like with Mars forces us to think outside the box
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APPLICATIONS ARE OPEN for the
@VRubinObs
LSSTC Data Science Fellowship Program! Are you a grad student in an astronomy-related field? Are you interested in astronomical surveys, data science, and building better code? Don't know any of it but want to?
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I was chairing a meeting yesterday & only saw this latest Marcy mess tangentially. A few thoughts, now that I have a moment clear. First, everything about this shows how our responses to harm in the astro community are somewhere between "inadequate" and "fucked, actually" 1/n
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Talk complete, back to my real job harassing my cat
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@IBJIYONGI
@iamstarnord
@niais
Again: you don't get to give Webb credit for the Apollo program but excuse him from persecuting LGBTQ+ people just because you like one and not the other
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Ok I promise I really am on break from this bird site but this is great news: Not guilty verdict for Hawaiian elders protesting telescope
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he will lead us
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Everyone replying to our piece in
@sciam
with versions of "But Harriet Tubman wasn't an astronomer" needs to sit and have a think-- a QUIET think-- about
- who is able to access professionalized spaces and why
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finding an exciting new paper to read and then discovering you already saved that pdf in 2019
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"The Straights Are Here To Save Us: On naming telescopes, complicity, and the rewriting of history" from me on
@SubstackInc
. This post would not have been possible without the work of
@adrianlucy
,
@IBJIYONGI
,
@ColdWarScience
, and
@iamstarnord
!
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Restorative/transformative justice processes are serious work, not a flimsy vocabulary to be appropriated in service of rehabilitating harassers who have not engaged in— or even shown interest in— any kind of accountability (1/n)
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For anyone who needs it and isn’t a cop: here is a soothing cat
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An interviewer just asked who I “would prefer on Mars: Branson, Musk, or Bezos” and so help me my next words were DO THEY SURVIVE THE LANDING 💀💀💀 I need a break
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About that reported op-ed in the NYT on the
#RenameJWST
issue. There actually is an interpersonal story behind the origins of debate over the name, but it isn't the one that's in the article, bc they sent a clickbait-hungry amateur culture warrior to do a journalist's job (1/n)
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"inaccurate to say that white supremacists have merely “infiltrated” law enforcement [...] American policing is rooted in white supremacy: many contemporary police departments originated as patrols dedicated to terrorizing and capturing enslaved people."
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@IBJIYONGI
@iamstarnord
@niais
It is clear that, from the beginning, NASA leadership and personnel minimized the importance of the objects we and other LGBTQ+ people raised. Our critiques were characterized as a "social media scuffle". Internal efforts that guided research seem aimed at a "no evidence" result.
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white people should not get a day off on Juneteenth send tweet
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Everyone who paid/pays taxes paid for
@NASA
data, including
@NASAHubble
images— I call bullshit on
@cnn
selling a version of exclusive ownership
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Uhhhh so twice this year the Chinese Space Station had to maneuver to avoid Starlink satellites— and from Jonathan’s plot below one of those near-misses is like <5km 😨 that is…VERY close in space terms
I confirmed the Starlink/Chinese Space Station conjunctions on Jul 1 at 1315 UTC (S-1095) and Oct 21 at 2200 UTC (S-2305), with CSS orbit adjustmets at about 0950 UTC Jul 1 and 0316 UTC Oct 21. The Oct passes shown here:
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And finally, to anyone who so much as thinks to argue that Webb was a "man of his time": FUCK YOU. You know who else was a man of his time? Clifford Norton, who was subjected to an overnight interrogation at NASA headquarters and then fired, all for being gay
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Chaser:
#RenameJWST
: NASA Hid Findings Affirming James Webb Homophobia - by
@IBJIYONGI
,
@iamstarnord
,
@niais
& myself
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Pretty sure members of Congress are wearing more than $600 in clothing on any given day
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@debrafischer18
@toomanyspectra
@awhoward
@leerosenthalj
@Caltech
Ah yes, poor Geoff, who had literally nothing but chances and forgiveness until it was too public for people to ignore.
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I wish I was surprised by the
@NASAGoddard
"no pronouns in your email name" move, but honestly the world is full of "cis people are uncomfortable so please hide who you are" bullshit. Like it's not uncomfortable to have people constantly trying to erase our existence?
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I appreciate the support folks are showing, but also: I’m a non-binary person, not a woman 🧑🏼🎤 I use they/them pronouns, it’s in my bio, etc etc. Men will explain things to anyone but themselves
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Sign on to
#RenameJWST
! Join me,
@IBJIYONGI
,
@niais
and
@iamstarnord
by signing here:
JWST reflects the rainbow of possible universes that our community imagines, dreams about, and works for, and its name should reflect a future in which we are all free.
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in case you need proof that the devil is real, there's a matplotlib tutorial that generates this figure
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I mean... anyone who names their kid after a spy plane and then claims spy planes are non-violent bc they’re fast is not wielding a solid political analysis 😅
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This tutorial on bystander intervention by
@modernistwitch
is one of those articles I just share over and over again. It's helped me immensely and I can say from experience the advice in here is sound:
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We'll be lucky if humans keep Earth habitable long enough for solar evolution to be our problem
@OmanReagan
@RocketToLulu
@shannonmstirone
This is stupid. The sun will eat us. Steps must be taken so that human civilization will someday in a very distant future be able to move to another planet. That planet will not be Mars. Stepping stones. We need to push the technology forward to do that.
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First and foremost: the fact that people are literally dying on the street without anyone trying to help is a direct outcome of people's willingness to ignore suffering. You assumed he was asleep/high? Why the fuck would you not check? Just fucking check! Ask if the person is OK!
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Like, Iron Man exists because no one let Robert Downey Jr die of his substance abuse problems. The only difference is that he is a rich white man. The unhoused person in your neighborhood is just as deserving of care and safety, so don't be a piece of shit about it
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NO THANK YOU
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You don’t hear about Venus rovers for a reason! Like putting your iPhone in a kiln
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@DrSianProctor
This is really disappointing for those of us who are disabled and vulnerable. It makes planes yet another place we can't go, and means things like "good thing I saw my family in CA last week, because now I can't fly to see them again"
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@IBJIYONGI
@iamstarnord
@niais
I spent this past weekend reading the full FOIA request and let me tell you, I have
A
LOT
OF
FEELINGS
AND
THOUGHTS.
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@333Wokehmegrl
@hankgreen
Oh shit you’re right, I have an opinion about being discriminated against! please, someone take this PhD away!
Take the camera I helped build out of Hubble!
Oh and deorbit the Kepler Mission, too, return all the planets to the planet store!
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Don't say "oh, drugs" unless you are prepared to offer some useful information on what drugs the person actually took-- don't know that? Then you don't know shit, make yourself useful by shutting the fuck up.
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And you know what? Men in astronomy should figure accountability and responsibility the fuck out instead of constantly catching the vapors like they're passing through a SEP (Somebody Else's Problem) field (12/12)
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And how when I worked
@UCBerkeley
I expended energy to safeguard myself and e.g. never be alone with him, never allow the office door to be closed etc. All the while my male colleagues got to freely think about science, & not about how to both do science and not be harassed (8/n)
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@IBJIYONGI
@iamstarnord
@niais
NASA staff stated that it would only be a problem if they found evidence that Webb was "overtly anti-gay". At one point, there was an informal survey to take the temperature of the astronomy community on the name change, which consisted of calling ~10 faculty who are not LGBTQ+
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Happy
#PrideMonth
, NASA’s new flagship is named after a man who persecuted LGBTQIA+ people, NASA spent all last year trying to dismiss queer astronomers, and then sharted out a statement by email to 6 journalists that there was “no evidence” warranting a name change 🤡🌈
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@HeyChelseaTroy
@mollypriddy
gentle reminder that they could also be disabled, have cancer or be a cancer survivor, or have another underlying health risk
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So on a personal note, I can't even begin to convey how depressing and infuriating it is to read a ~400 page packet of my colleagues all trying to figure out how to ignore me and their other LGBTQ+ fellow astronomers
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I appreciate this point (&
@JuniperLSimonis
as an amazing human) but I think picking on big price tags that are actually small fry in government spending is a mistake. The defense budget is nearly $700 billion— tap the war machine and pay people reparations, income, etc
i know mars is coolAF, but how many people could be housed and fed with the $2.7 billion it took for this latest probe
how many local utilities with redundancies could be built?
how much REPARATIONS could be given?
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@IBJIYONGI
@iamstarnord
@niais
Very early-- like February 2021 early-- a name-redacted person had already provided NASA staff with academic literature describing how the purge of gay employees from the State Dept was not confined to State, but ignited a wider ranging purge of LGBTQ+ people from federal service
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Dear lord I hope the Just Wonderful Space Telescope assembles with FAR less difficulty than most ikea furniture
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Imagine coming for Jill Tarter over *checks notes* SETI, which she has championed for years? No thank you 🤡🤡🤡
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@IBJIYONGI
@iamstarnord
@niais
Also, a word about THIS revelation, which comes near the end of the docs: 1) so the head of NASA outreach actually instigation the "excuses for homophobia" blog post, and 2) the head of NASA's outreach thinks queer people's concerns are "cancel culture"
Also, yes, the head of public engagement basically labeled this cancel culture. Which is interesting because
1. James Webb has been dead for a long time
2. Purges of gay people under Webb's watch are actual cancel culture?
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@IBJIYONGI
@iamstarnord
@niais
I pursued it and told her that things designed for "everyone" are typically not good for anyone outside whoever already thinks of themselves as the audience-- which in the case of space science is still overwhelmingly white and male. She didn't want to hear it
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