posted 04-21-2024 06:24 PM               

At Marshall Space Flight Center, we continue to execute our long-range, strategic plan to revitalize our facilities footprint, which includes identifying the facilities and infrastructure needed to enable our current and future missions.

As part of that plan, the center will demolish several historic structures, including the 363-foot-tall Dynamic Test Stand, the Propulsion and Structural Test Facility, and the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator.

The facilities slated for demolition are outdated, obsolete, and no longer in use, with a backlog of $25 million in needed repairs. Removing them from our footprint will help us continue building a more affordable, innovative, and resilient center.

Our goal is to remove 19 outdated test sites, storage buildings, and other support structures. Teams are working to finalize the details and timeline for this project, though we estimate work will begin in the next few months and end in late 2025. We will update you along the way.

These assets served NASA and the nation well in their time. We know these planned updates will help reduce annual maintenance costs, increase efficiency, and strengthen our core capabilities. I encourage you to read the latest Agency Master Plan report, which provides transparency in how NASA makes decisions with regard to our physical infrastructure.

While the backbone of our missions is formed by the facilities and infrastructure we use, our people are at the heart of everything we do. Together, we will continue building a bright future for NASA and Marshall.

posted 01-08-2026 01:33 AM               

NASA to topple towers used to test Saturn rockets, space shuttle

Two historic NASA test facilities used in the development of the Saturn V and space shuttle launch vehicles are set to be demolished, after towering over the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama since the start of the Space Age.

The Propulsion and Structural Test Facility, which was erected in 1957 — the same year the first artificial satellite entered Earth orbit — and the Dynamic Test Facility, which has stood since 1964, are slated for demolition by a coordinated series of implosions as soon as sunrise on Saturday (Jan. 10). Located in Marshall's East Test Area on the U.S. Army's Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, the two structures are no longer in use and, according to NASA, have a backlog of $25 million in needed repairs.

posted 01-10-2026 05:44 PM               

I love the history of NASA as much as anyone, and I hate to see infrastructure that has been part of the skyline come down. I know many people previously worked in these buildings and have a real attachment to them. If there is a way to honor that history by collecting materials and using them for plaques or memorabilia, we should look into it.

That stated, we are carrying an enormous amount of dated infrastructure from decades ago. Much of it is in terrible condition. I walked through precision labs at GSFC yesterday with leaky roofs, and that is happening because dollars are still going toward trying to maintain infrastructure that has no demand, is falling apart, and in many cases is unsafe.

Our mission today is just as important as it was back then. But if we fund the past indefinitely, we will have very little left to invest in the mission of today. Clearing out old infrastructure, and anywhere else resources are not being efficiently allocated, is how we put more astronauts in space, build new space stations, and increase the rate of world-changing scientific discovery.