Space Program Safety

Funding for NASA's Safety Organizations Should Be Centralized Gao ID: NSIAD-90-187 August 16, 1990

GAO reviewed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) safety-related programs to determine whether NASA complied with recommendations that it establish an independent organization with direct authority for safety programs.

GAO found that: (1) NASA established the Office of Safety, Reliability, Maintainability and Quality Assurance (SRM&QA), under which field center safety organizations reported to center directors and SRM&QA regarding safety-related activities; (2) while the SRM&QA organizational structure appeared adequate, field center safety organizations were not entirely independent, since they obtained 90 percent of their fiscal year 1990 budgets from offices that had projects subject to their oversight; (3) NASA officials expressed concern that the current funding process could compromise independence or result in inadequate funding for SRM&QA; and (4) NASA lacked a single standard process to budget for SRM&QA activities.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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