NASA Faces Congressional Scrutiny Over Lab Closures at Goddard Space Flight Center

Workers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center are facing significant disruptions as Congress scrutinizes the agency's recent lab closures. According to Space.com, Representative Zoe Lofgren from California has demanded that NASA halt its facility closures during the ongoing government shutdown.

In a letter sent to NASA's Acting Administrator Sean Duffy, Lofgren expressed concerns about the agency's actions, which appear to be premature implementations of President Trump's 2026 budget request.

This has led to the dismantling and closing of key laboratories and offices at Goddard without congressional approval. Lofgren's letter provides NASA with a 24-hour deadline to confirm that all lab closures and workspace relocations have ceased.

She emphasized the potential for irreversible damage to NASA's scientific capabilities if these actions continue. The Goddard administration has been accelerating its 20-year Master Plan, which includes plans for facility renovations and closures, despite nearly 15,000 NASA employees being furloughed due to the shutdown.

Select groups at Goddard, however, have been granted temporary 'excepted' status, allowing them to return to work to pack up laboratories and offices in a matter of days. This situation has raised alarms among scientists, particularly those involved with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope project, who were given only four days to vacate a mission-critical laboratory.

Reports indicate that millions of dollars worth of equipment could be left abandoned as a result. Lofgren has rejected NASA's explanations for these actions, calling them a grave error and asserting that the agency's handling of the situation lacks transparency and justification.

Additionally, she has highlighted the risk of undermining the United States' leadership in space exploration. The scrutiny from Congress, marked by Lofgren's letter, is the first formal oversight action targeting NASA's internal restructuring at Goddard, resonating with concerns raised in a Senate report issued in September that criticized similar reorganizations at the agency.

These developments underscore the critical nature of funding and priorities in space exploration, which not only affect scientific research but also the broader public interest in space and UFO phenomena.