Fwd: NASA IG rounds up 5 biggest issues facing NASA

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: May 26, 2013 1:55:48 PM GMT-06:00
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: NASA IG rounds up 5 biggest issues facing NASA

 

 

24 May 2013 - NASA OIG Semiannual Report to Congress

 

http://oig.nasa.gov/SAR/sar0313.pdf

 

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     May 25, 2013 11:00 PM   |  

John Kelly: Watchdog rounds up 5 biggest issues facing NASA

Astronaut Chris Cassidy has fun with Robonaut 2 in the Destiny laboratory on the International Space Station. One of NASA challenges in the coming years is maximizing the science and engineering benefits it gets from the space station. / NASA

Written by john kelly

NASA's inspector general is an independent watchdog over the space agency's performance of its duties and spending of your tax dollars.

This week, Inspector General Paul Martin delivered a six month status report on his team's work and what they see as NASA's top issues. His list is worth sharing, so here's a quick summary of the five biggest challenges identified:

• 1. The future of human space flight. Continuing operation of the space station and development of the new super rocket and accompanying human spacecraft are a significant challenge for NASA in an era of flat, or even declining, budgets. The inspector general notes that NASA is limited in its delivery of crew and supplies to the space station and that's cutting into research capability, both in terms of crew time and experiment transportation to and from Earth.

What's more, the inspector general said, the cost of operating the space station and developing the new space transportation system appear to be workable in the short-term. However, the inspector general has concerns about NASA's long-term estimates on cost and schedule.

• 2. Project management. The inspector general identified four long-standing issues with NASA's management of big projects. They included a culture of optimism resulting in rose-colored forecasts; the under-estimation of the technological complexity of problems facing its biggest projects; unstable funding, a problem worsened during austere budget times; and limited opportunities for its project managers to get training and experience.

• 3. Facilities management. NASA is the nation's ninth-largest federal property holder and the vast majority are at least four decades old, according to the inspector general's accounting. NASA is more than $2 billion dollars behind in maintenance projects. The agency hasn't kept its records in order regarding the utilization of the property and facilities it does have, and that's a costly problem that NASA must fix so that it's not wasting money that could be spent on space exploration. Underused and duplicative facilities are wasting taxpayer money.

• 4. Acquisition and contract management. The IG, and other authorities, continue to find overpayment and fraud in NASA's dealings with contractors and grant recipients. One big case was resolved just this week, with the guilty plea of a Merritt Island contractor who bilked the agency out of several million dollars, according to federal prosecutors. One big-picture cause for this kind of problem, the IG said, is weak contract management and oversight by the space agency.

 

• 5. Information technology security. NASA's had a couple of high profile cases recently where employee laptops containing sensitive details about employees and space projects went missing.

 

In the case of employee data, the agency had two cases since 2012 where Social Security numbers and similar information were on unsecured laptops, prompting the agency to spend more than $1 million on credit protection for the victims.

 

Beyond that, the IG said unprotected space-agency data can cause "significant financial loss, adversely affect national security, or significantly impair our nation's competitive technological advantage."

 

 

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