In a letter to President Donald Trump, a group of Texas lawmakers asked the federal government to move the headquarter for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to Texas.
Led by U.S. Sen. Tec Cruz (R-TX), the chair of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, and U.S. Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX), the chair of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, a group of Texas lawmakers from both houses of Congress wrote to Trump to request the move once NASA’s current lease for its DC office expires in 2028. The proposal would move NASA’s headquarters to the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“Houston is particularly well suited for NASA’s headquarters due in part to the unique strengths of the city and the state,” the lawmakers wrote. “Texas is the eighth largest economy in the world, with low government regulation and a strong business environment. Houston boasts a cost of living that is less than half that of the Washington, D.C. area; three ‘R1: Doctoral Universities’ producing the high caliber professionals necessary for human spaceflight; and two major commercial service airports for easy connectivity around the country.”
The lawmakers said NASA is not connected to the day-to-day work of its centers and is hindered by bureaucratic micromanagement in DC, and that a move to Houston would tie it to the JSC’s involvement in “everything that makes America a leader in space exploration.” The group said JSC maintains the largest workforce in NASA and houses Mission Control, the NASA astronaut corps and the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility.
The state of Texas also boasts low government regulation, a robust commercial space sector and a lower cost of living than the DC-area, the Congress members said, which will in turn create more jobs, save taxpayer dollars and reinvigorate the agency.
“Consolidating greater and greater levels of work and authority in Washington, D.C. has been a decades-long trend, resulting in decision making funneled up to bureaucrats at headquarters rather than empowering scientists and astronauts across the centers. This strategy has separated decision makers from the actual workforce and stands antithetical to NASA’s core function.