spacetoday.net: NASA HQ reopens, many centers remain closed

Posted: Wed, Sep 12, 2001, 12:26 PM ET (1626 GMT)
NASA

NASA Headquarters in Washington reopened for business Wednesday but many field centers remained closed a day after a series of horrifying terrorist attacks rocked the nation. NASA opened its headquarters at the request of the Office of Personnel Management, which called for federal offices in the nation's capital to open Wednesday. Today is an "unscheduled leave day" for NASA and other federal personnel, meaning that they can elect to take a vacation day without prior notice to their supervisors. However, NASA's field centers are generally closed to non-essential personnel: notices on several web sites, including those for the Johnson Space Center, Ames Research Center, Goddard Space Flight Center, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory state that only employees working on essential tasks should report Wednesday. Those centers are expected to make decisions regarding their status for Thursday by late Wednesday or early Thursday. The closings were a security measure in the wake of terrorist attacks Tuesday that destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and significantly damaged portions of the Pentagon in Washington DC. President Bush called those attacks, which may have killed thousands, an "act of war" during a brief statement Wednesday morning.