Balancing NASA's Investments in Programs

• The agency is in the midst of phasing out the Space Shuttle program and beginning another major undertaking, the Constellation program—which will create the next generation of spacecraft for human spaceflight and is expected to cost upward of $230 billion. This is a massive effort, unparalled since the transition from the Apollo program to the Shuttle program, which has presented the agency with myriad complex and interdependent challenges.


• Agency leaders will be challenged to make difficult choices between new investments in future human space flight systems; scientific and aeronautics research endeavors; and extending the life of the shuttle to complete the International Space Station. The full costs to develop new human space flight systems are still unknown, as are costs associated with disposing of and transitioning Space Shuttle program assets.


• Over the past decade, NASA has experienced significant problems with several of its other major projects, such as unrealistic cost estimates, undisciplined setting of project requirements, underestimating complexity and technology maturity, and inadequate review and systems engineering processes.


• Transparency in NASA's budgeting process has also been a concern to Congress, to ensure investments are balanced and properly accounted for—particularly as new demands related to the transition effort itself arise and cost overruns persist in major agency endeavors.

^ Back to topWhat Needs to Be Done

• NASA needs to develop a new business-oriented culture with the willingness to hold people accountable for meeting cost, schedule, and performance goals, as well as a willingness by senior leaders to stop projects that do not seem to be achieving their goals, so that scarce investments can be redirected toward projects that can produce a higher return on investment.

  Highlights of GAO-06-445 (PDF)

• To fundamentally improve the management and oversight of programs and projects, NASA must establish a program to rigorously and independently assesses technical, cost, schedule, and programmatic performance against established baselines

  Highlights of GAO-04-642 (PDF)

^ Back to topKey Reports

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope

NASA's Deep Space Network

NASA Procurement

NASA

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