Workers fear NASA is quietly gutting the iconic home of Hubble and Webb. The agency says it’s strategically closing buildings

Alarm is growing among federal workers at NASA’s iconic [Goddard Space Flight Center’s main campus in Greenbelt, Maryland](https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/04/science/nasa-goddard-building-closures-government-shutdown?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=missions&utm_source=reddit) — the nerve center for groundbreaking missions like the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes — as more than a dozen buildings on the campus are being emptied and padlocked during the federal shutdown, with very little notice to employees, said four sources who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. NASA leadership has pushed back against those concerns.

In one instance, furloughed employees were given just days to temporarily return to work and help empty entire buildings of highly specialized equipment, according to sources and internal emails obtained by CNN. In the communications, NASA managers wrote that equipment not moved in time — including one-of-a-kind hardware — could be thrown away or donated.

In a statement, a NASA spokesperson said the building closures are part of a “strategic consolidation” plan mapped out by Goddard leaders that should not impact ongoing projects.

But some of the sources CNN spoke with say they fear the sudden moves are part of an effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to quietly gut the Maryland Goddard campus while the government remains unfunded — a claim the spokesperson denied.

>”All truth passes through three stages.
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident”

Making space travel political is destroying our future

>Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. -Carl Sagan

This was planned pre-shutdown and is geared towards consolidating facilities in order to save money and focus maintenance and operations costs on the most mission relevant facilities. That being said, pretty shocked they didn’t wait until the government reopened to start.