On Monday, September 22 at 2:12 p.m. a memo from Associate Center Director Raymond J. Rubilotta was sent to all Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) employees advising them that the center had been working for months on areas of transformation and now had the green light from agency leadership to move ahead in one of the areas – “building occupancy and utilization at the Greenbelt and Wallops campuses.” Moves would be initiated beginning two days from the announcement, on Wednesday, September 24, said the memo. The “transformation efforts” would “leverage” the 20-year Master Plan approved in 2019, it said. However, “unlike previous large-scale Center reconfigurations, which occurred over a number of years, all planned moves will take place over the next several months and will be completed by March 2026,” announced Rubilotta in the memo.
A civil servant who works at GSFC told the News Review they believe management at GSFC is seeking to vacate all buildings west of Goddard Road, though he says plans have intentionally not been put in writing. After hearing rumors for a few weeks, on Monday he was given written directions to pack up his office, lab equipment and lab supplies in preparation to move to another building. He believes the vacated buildings will be leased to other agencies, contractors or demolished to save on electrical, HVAC and maintenance costs. He hasn’t been told where he or his unique test equipment or hardware supplies will be moved to. “I genuinely believe my direct managers when they say they don’t know where we will be relocated,” he told the News Review. However, over recent months and with increasing urgency, he’s been asked to make the case for why his and his team’s unique test facilities or equipment should be moved rather than auctioned off.
The sciences division at GSFC has several cooperative agreements with local universities to employ research scientists. A co-op scientist who works at GSFC on the western part of the campus said their move was already underway on Tuesday, as movers arrived at 8 a.m. and they had to move several flatbed trucks of specialized equipment. This scientist believes the vacating of buildings on the west part of campus is likely underway, with the exception of Building 30, home to a very specialized cleanroom that could not be recreated elsewhere at Goddard. He also noted that the daycare center at Goddard is located on the west side of the campus and there’s been no communication about any changes planned for that.
A Master Plan?
On Monday morning, GSFC News Chief Rob Garner did not answer the News Review’s questions about how many buildings are being vacated or the plan for those buildings but he shared the following statement: “Goddard Space Flight Center leadership are taking the first steps this week at the Greenbelt and Wallops Flight Facility campuses toward moving into a right-sized footprint of office and technical space. These priority moves will position the campuses to transform for the future and reduce operating costs while maintaining core capabilities. The transformation plan follows a 20-year Master Plan that was approved at the agency level in 2019 and has been guiding all campus infrastructure decisions since then.”
The Master Plan included constructing nine new facilities at the Greenbelt campus, renovating ten facilities and demolishing 61. It emphasized stakeholder involvement. Overall its purpose and priorities were to “maintain mission capability,” “Envision the GSFC Campuses of the Future,” and “Meet Affordability Goals” (GSFC Master Plan Digest, February 2022). It envisioned a denser campus with upgraded bike lanes and sidewalks and parking outside the campus’ “core.” It included a campus that spanned Goddard Road, with new buildings in that area, too.
“They are implementing something different and on a more aggressive timeline,” said the GSFC civil servant we talked with when asked about the master plan, “but someone must think it adheres closely enough.” The office, lab and building moves are taking the workers by surprise because of the lack of warning, he told the News Review. “The 2019 plan isn’t what we’ve been ordered to execute,” said our source. “The actual plan hasn’t been communicated and seemingly management doesn’t know where entire buildings’ worth of offices and people will move to, and we’re not being provided funds for movers to relocate large equipment,” he noted. “We’re being told to expect large amounts of equipment and facilities will not survive the moves,” he said.
Meanwhile the co-op scientist we talked with told us he believes the leadership is cherry-picking parts of the master plan. “I think a lot of these buildings were slated to be closed but not before new buildings on the east side of the center were built as replacements,” he said. His own move from his current building had been planned for months. They’d been told the specialized building they currently occupy was going to be closed in the near future and there was back and forth about potential new locations that would meet their needs before they settled on one. Now they’ve been told that the building they were to move to is also slated to be closed, an unlikely development if closures were all part of a master plan. “In my opinion, they’re using the master plan as an ad hoc explanation for all these poorly planned changes,” he told the News Review.
The Cost of Moves
The Goddard civil servant we spoke with says no funds have been provided to move their test facilities, like large vacuum chambers, equipment that can include entire machine shops, or more standard office supplies like standing desks, refrigerators and so forth. He was told to charge all the time involved to his current projects. “Normally we would be provided with funds for our facilities contractors to move our big stuff,” he said. He says they have even been denied a shred truck to destroy sensitive documents. Instead, they are expected to use consumer grade shredders that can handle five to 10 pages at a time. “Including the cost of our salary, benefits and overhead, NASA is paying roughly $100 per hour for subject matter experts and PhDs to shred papers for days on end instead of paying $300 for a shred truck that several buildings could use,” said the Goddard employee. In contrast, the co-op scientist says center management is paying for their lab’s move.
Presidential Budget
“The President’s proposed budget planned for a Goddard that is about half the size it was in 2024 and it looks like center management is proceeding along that direction with closing the west half of campus with no clear replacements for facilities or capabilities,” the co-op scientist told the News Review Tuesday. Importantly, the proposed budget faced bipartisan opposition (see the July 17 issue) and has not been voted on by Congress. “I believe that center management is filled with folks who think that by complying in advance it will work out for them,” concluded the scientist.
