In an unfavorable move for the hitherto undigitized authored books and journals on aeronautics and astronautics, backed by extensive research, the Trump administration has closed one of NASA’s largest research libraries.
The closure comes amid proposed significant job cuts and widespread layoffs at the space agency over the past year.
The closure of the lab is expected to jeopardize “tens of thousands” of books, documents and journals, many of which have not been digitized or made available in other libraries, New York Times reported.
A NASA spokesman maintained that the library catalog will be reviewed over the next 60 days, with some materials to be destroyed and others moved to different facilities.
Citing a retired NASA scientist, the Times noted that the library housed rare books, including works by Soviet scientists describing their early missions in the 1960s and 1970s.
The unfortunate development also comes as NASA’s science operations have faced severe budget cuts under the Trump administration.
A report by the spaceflight-focused nonprofit The Planetary Society outlines that 2025 will see the smallest NASA budget since 1961, when adjusted for inflation, calling it “an extinction event for the agency’s most productive and widely supported activities.”
Located at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the library is part of one of the world’s largest complexes dedicated to spaceflight.
Established in 1959, NASA employs about 10,000 civil servants and contractors who manage many of NASA’s high-profile projects, including the Hubble Space Telescope.
Bethany Stevens, a NASA spokeswoman, told the Times that the move is “a consolidation, not a shutdown,” and argued that these measures were put in place before Trump returned to office.
Somewhat contradicting what a spokesman said, newly appointed NASA chief Jared Isaacman stated that the consolidation was ordered under the Biden administration, ensuring that all valuable books and records will be digitized or moved.
