Trump administration cancels lease for NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies lab in New York City

By Monisha Ravisetti published 5 hours ago

GISS is a leading Earth science research organization.

It would appear that the latest wave of U.S. federal program cuts fueled by the Trump administration has affected NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) lab in New York City, a branch of the agency dedicated to studying climate change and other Earth sciences.

On Friday (April 25), news outlets such as CNN and SpaceNews reported that GISS's lease on office space in a Columbia University building in Manhattan's Upper West Side is set to be canceled. According to SpaceNews, an April 24 email sent to Goddard employees and signed by Makenzie Lystrup, director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland (the parent organization of GISS), stated that the lease will end on May 31. The news outlet says the lease, which costs the agency $3.03 million annually, was originally supposed to last through August 2031.

However, GISS Director Gavin Schmidt assured CNN that "the work continues, the data, the products, the science will continue because science is done by people, not by buildings." As of now, NASA says employees will be placed on "temporary remote work agreements while NASA seeks and evaluates options for a new space for the GISS team."

Lystrup reportedly says the termination is related to "ongoing reviews by the current administration of all government leases," SpaceNews said of the obtained email's contents, but it remains unclear whether the Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) spearheaded the matter. It is worth considering what role DOGE had to play in the decision because the department, led by SpaceX billionaire founder Elon Musk, is behind several other changes happening at NASA.

More:
https://www.space.com/the-universe/earth/trump-administration-cancels-lease-for-nasas-goddard-institute-for-space-studies-lab-in-new-york-city