NASA GSFC Closes Fitness Center
Keith’s note: As part of the amputation of NASA Goddard, the Fitness Center is being closed. Who needs healthy employees, I guess. Memo below. Update: a reader notes: “This action seems to violate a NASA requirement for field centers to have such facilities. Per NPR 1800.1E 3.2.2.1(c), “3.2.2.1 Centers shall: c. Operate fitness facilities with hours of operation meeting most users’ needs and work schedules. Center fitness facilities operate in NASA-funded space, which may also include swimming pools, indoor basketball courts, locker rooms, and restrooms.”.
From:
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2025 3:33:03 PM
To:
Dear Fitness Center Members,
I am writing to inform you of a difficult but necessary decision regarding our on-campus fitness center. As part of ongoing campus consolidation activities, the Goddard Greenbelt fitness center will close permanently after December 31, 2025.
This decision was not made lightly. In today’s constrained budget environment, we are required to make tough choices about how we allocate our limited funds. Given the center’s ongoing subsidizing of the fitness center for only several hundred members, we could no longer afford to keep it open given our other high-priority mission and institutional needs. We explored all options to make the facility self-sustaining but were unable to.
I understand this news is disappointing to many of you who have made the fitness center an important part of your daily routine and workplace wellness. To help with this transition, we have compiled a list of fitness facilities within an approximate five-mile radius of our front gate, which is attached to this email.
There are several buildings across the campus with shower facilities. They can be found in the following buildings:
For any questions related to refund of pre-paid membership dues you may reach out to the Aquila POC, [DELETED] Any contract related questions can be directed to the GSFC Contracting Officer, [DELETED] .
The fitness center will continue normal operations through December 31st, giving members time to explore alternative options and make arrangements that work best for their individual needs.
Thank you for your understanding as we navigate these changes.
Sincerely,
Raymond J. Rubilotta
Associate Center Director
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
9 responses to “NASA GSFC Closes Fitness Center”
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They’re closing the cafeteria, library, and collaboration center too. The library has won Federal Library of the Year on multiple occasions, and losing the beautiful collaboration center is heartbreaking. And with the huge turnover in science and engineering management, the ones who would normally communicate the impact are mostly gone.
This action seems to violate a NASA requirement for field centers to have such facilities.
Per NPR 1800.1E 3.2.2.1(c), “Centers shall operate fitness facilities with hours of operation meeting most users’ needs and work schedules. Center fitness facilities operate in NASA-funded space”
The NPRs are written by HQ and can be tweaked at any time so they could just go in and remove this section if they’re okay with this.
You are an apologist and giving this team a pass.
That’s not defending the action, it’s simply being realistic that citing the NPR won’t change what’s happening. There’s no rules police coming to save NASA from this stupidity. We already learned this lesson when the unions tried to hold the line and were simply deleted. So will this NPR.
Then let’s force center leadership to officially change the directives. At least make them do some work fudging the paperwork when they gut the services they are supposed to provide.
The current subsidized cost for Goddard to operate the Fitness Center is $100K per year. This represents 1% of the $10M facility operations cost that Goddard is trying to save this year. Members pay about $200/year to use the Fitness Use For many years, there was no cost for employees to use the Fitness Center. Besides helping employees maintain good health, the Fitness Center served as one of the social centers to employees to enhance and build new relationships with colleagues across Goddard. That was priceless to me.
It’s always about the people. There are many services that are not cost effective (NASA Seven, anyone?).but benefiting the majority in a tough time seems like it should be a focus.
Most of the members were willing to pay more to keep it open, but like everything else happening recently, it was already decided and there is no recourse.