{"id":226573,"date":"2026-01-10T10:12:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T10:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/226573\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T10:12:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T10:12:12","slug":"nasas-library-shutdown-scandal-is-ballooning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/226573\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA’s Library Shutdown Scandal Is Ballooning"},"content":{"rendered":"

By March of this year, the Trump administration is hoping to shutter over a dozen buildings<\/a> and more than 100 labs at NASA\u2019s iconic Goddard Space Flight Center (GFSC) in Maryland, the space agency\u2019s first and oldest space center and a keystone for space research since around the time NASA was established in the late 1950s.<\/p>\n

As part of its plans to gut the center, it shut NASA\u2019s largest library at the GFSC<\/a> last month, threatening to trash important documents in the process.<\/p>\n

The news was met with outrage by NASA insiders<\/a>, who pointed out that many of these historical documents remain undigitized, a scandal that has metastasized into the first major PR challenge for recently sworn-in NASA administrator and billionaire space tourist Jared Isaacman.<\/p>\n

While agency officials have maintained that the move was part of a 2022 master plan<\/a> \u2014 a \u201cconsolidation, not a closure\u201d per NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens \u2014 and that researchers would continue to have access to the library\u2019s archives<\/a> as NASA teams conduct a 60-day review of all materials, GFSC staffers were taken aback at the abrupt and careless nature of the Trump administration\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like crying,\u201d planetary scientist David Williams, who has curated space mission data for NASA\u2019s archives, told NPR<\/a> this week. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s horrible. I\u2019m so frustrated. I\u2019m so mad, and I\u2019m just so upset.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to staffers interviewed by the broadcaster, the closures of buildings at Goddard were \u201crushed and disorganized, with no clear blueprint to replace important spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n

The approach has been reminiscent of the Trump administration\u2019s vindictive approach<\/a> to slashing agency budgets, as exemplified by Elon Musk\u2019s bull-in-a-china-shop approach<\/a> with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency last year.<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s budget, in particular, has become a major target of the administration, with a proposed 2026 fiscal budget potentially cutting the agency\u2019s science directorate budget by more than half<\/a>, an \u201cextinction-level event<\/a>,\u201d as characterized by critics. (Congress has since rejected Trump\u2019s proposed cuts outright<\/a> as NASA\u2019s budget continues to be hotly debated.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way that they\u2019ve gone about it has just been extraordinarily haphazard and chaotic, and really to the point of being cruel to the people who work in these buildings,\u201d Goddard operations research analyst Monica Gorman told NPR.<\/p>\n

The library\u2019s closure is only the latest in a string of what appear to be tumultuously implemented consolidation efforts. Gorman recalls \u201cchaotic disruptions\u201d and lab equipment being \u201ctreated carelessly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The agency has since attempted to pour water on the flames, with Isaacman accusing the New York Times<\/a> of sensationalizing its reporting<\/a> and mischaracterizing NASA\u2019s plans to throw out undesirable documents currently being stored at the GSFC library.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe [NYT] story does not fully reflect the context NASA shared,\u201d he tweeted on January 2. \u201cAt no point is NASA \u2018tossing out\u2019 important scientific or historical materials, and that framing has led to several other misleading headlines.\u201d<\/p>\n

But NASA veterans and advisors say the Trump administration\u2019s approach lead lead to important documents being lost.<\/p>\n

\u201cLibraries and archives around the world are being \u2018consolidated\u2019 out of existence,\u201d spaceflight engineering expert Dennis Wingo, who has advised NASA as a subject matter expert for decades, wrote in a reply<\/a> to Isaacman. \u201cI can tell you for an absolute fact that many of the people making the determinations on what is historically valuable or not are not qualified to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawmakers are equally taken aback by the gutting of the GSFC.<\/p>\n

\u201cNASA Goddard really is the crown jewel of the NASA facilities when it comes to space science,\u201d senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MA) told NPR. \u201cThis administration is essentially doing things without letting the team at NASA Goddard know what their intentions are.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on the situation: NASA Veterans Disgusted by Plans to Shut Down Its Largest Library<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By March of this year, the Trump administration is hoping to shutter over a dozen buildings and more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-226573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}