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Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren is telling the Trump administration to stop plans to close parts of a key NASA facility. Staff at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland describe a campaign of chaos and destruction. Here's NPR's Katia Riddle.
KATIA RIDDLE, BYLINE: The work at Goddard in recent decades has been essential in helping us understand the universe and its origins. Among the many groundbreaking projects there, the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope and OSIRIS-REx. That's the mission that sent pieces of an asteroid back to Earth. People interviewed for this story say until recently, working there, it was a dream job.
CASEY MCGRATH: I loved joining Goddard after finishing my Ph.D., and this was my first, like, real job as a professional scientist getting to work at NASA.
RIDDLE: Casey McGrath is an astrophysicist. He spoke about this in his own capacity, not as a representative of the government. He says he loved working there for its intellect and open exchange of ideas. But earlier this year, President Trump indicated he wanted to see the center staffing cut by nearly half in his budget. After that, leadership changed, and the climate took a sharp turn.
MCGRATH: Like, we haven't had a real moment of reprieve because it feels like we're constantly being attacked pretty much on every front that we can think of.
RIDDLE: For this story, NPR interviewed seven people who work at Goddard and reviewed internal emails and documents. Five of the people spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing their jobs. Everyone interviewed described a campaign of disruption from the highest levels of leadership - an information blackout, buildings closed, labs and projects moved without warning, staff rotated off projects and reorganized chaotically. All of this has made little sense and has jeopardized the work, they say. McGrath says at least two buildings have been shut down completely.
MCGRATH: They've even put chain and lock on the doors to prevent anyone from even entering the building at this point.
RIDDLE: Which means they can't access specialized lab equipment, like clean rooms or pipes that supply deionized water used for safely maintaining equipment. NASA did not respond to a request for comment on this story, nor did the White House. Monica Gorman is a research analyst at Goddard. She spoke in her personal capacity, not on behalf of the government. Gorman says she fears the administration is trying to cripple the entire campus and its operations.
MONICA GORMAN: If they do that, there are science and engineering capabilities that the United States, as a whole, is going to lose. And it would cost, I don't even know how many millions and millions of dollars and a really long time if we ever decided we wanted to bring that back.
RIDDLE: One example - the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope is one of NASA's flagship projects. Among other things, this specialized telescope is helping scientists understand dark energy and the expansion of the universe. People interviewed for this story report their colleagues on the project have been reassigned or forced off the job. Engineers in the middle of the job, they say, have been ordered to suddenly move their specialized labs for the project, potentially damaging equipment and compromising the work.
GORMAN: They're wasting the taxpayer money that we're always trying to steward effectively, and they're throwing U.S. space science leadership in the trash.
RIDDLE: Both Gorman and Casey McGrath say they are trying to stay here and keep working on the projects they love as long as possible. But Gorman says she and her colleagues are also angry for themselves, for the U.S. taxpayer and for the field of science.
Katia Riddle, NPR News.
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