Congress is wondering why NASA’s headquarters is 69% empty of employees

The House’s Committee of Science, Space, and Technology penned a letter to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson asking why most NASA Headquarters staff is still remote. This change should have been reverted after President Biden announced an end to the pandemic.

Most of us are still remote

Four years ago, the world changed forever with the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Many of us moved to work from home for what was thought to be only two weeks but many weeks later, we’re still here. While the office world has changed and adapted to remote work, implementing hybrid schedules or closing down offices entirely, so has NASA. During the pandemic, the space agency continued launching important missions and conducting science while dealing with restrictions created by Covid.

However, a year since President Biden called for the return to in-person work for federal employees, according to the committee’s letter, only 31% of NASA headquarters staff showed up to the office. The committee now wants answers because, unlike commercial business, NASA can’t close down its offices for fear of losing critical political support.

In the letter, the committee members call for Nelson to answer why the move back to office work has been so slow at the headquarters and provide similar numbers for all NASA centers. It’s important to note that NASA Headquarters is majority a lot of traditional office work compared to sites like Johnson and Kennedy Space Center, which need their employees on-site to complete their work.

Also, all of us here at 9to5 are remote and have always been so. So I have no issue with NASA employees working remotely. We all love it here. However, Congress has some concerns.

The committee states concerns about potential project delays

In the letter, the House committee refers to a report on why NASA’s Psyche mission was delayed. One problem in the report stated the need to reduce remote and hybrid work on the Psyche mission and “reestablish informal communications, such as ‘walking the floor’ and ‘drop-in discussions.’”

I want to note that Psyche mission managers are not just at NASA Headquarters, with a large staff also at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the opposite coast. So I guess if NASA found it in their investigation, then I think it’s a valid reason to remove that barrier. But NASA has been a master of country-wide coordination for decades, and it also seems like Congress could spend time doing more important things than this.

The committee has required a response from Nelson by April 18 (tax day for those like me still working on them), with updated numbers for 2023.

Read the entire letter here: