NASA
Major Management Challenges and Program Risks Gao ID: GAO-03-849T June 12, 2003Since its inception, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has undertaken numerous programs that have greatly advanced scientific and technological knowledge. NASA's activities span a broad range of complex and technical endeavors. But the agency is at a critical juncture, and major management improvements are needed. In January of this year, we identified four challenges facing NASA: (1) strengthening strategic human capital management, (2) improving contract management; (3) controlling International Space Station costs, and (4) reducing space launch costs.
In summary, these challenges affect NASA's ability to effectively run its largest programs. NASA's ultimate challenge will be in tackling the root problems impeding those programs. This will require (1) instituting a results-oriented culture that fosters knowledge sharing and empowers its workforce to accomplish programmatic goals; (2) ensuring that the agency adheres to management controls to prevent cost overruns and scheduling problems; (3) transforming the financial management organization so it better supports NASA's core mission; and (4) sustaining commitment to change.
GAO-03-849T, NASA: Major Management Challenges and Program Risks
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Testimony:
Before the Columbia Accident Investigation Board:
United States General Accounting Office:
GAO:
For Release on Delivery Expected at 9:00 a.m. EDT:
Thursday, June 12, 2003:
NASA:
Major Management Challenges and Program Risks:
Statement of Allen Li, Director Acquisition and Sourcing Management:
NASA Challenges and Risks:
GAO-03-849T:
Chairman Gehman and Members of the Columbia Accident Investigation
Board:
Thank you for inviting me to discuss the challenges and risks facing
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). You asked
that we provide information concerning NASA, particularly the
management of the Space Shuttle Program. We recognize the complexity
and difficulty in establishing not only the cause of the Columbia
accident, but also in understanding the agency's environment in which
management decisions are made. We believe our body of work can help the
Board in this area.
Since its inception, NASA has undertaken numerous programs that have
greatly advanced scientific and technological knowledge. As you are
aware, NASA's activities span a broad range of complex and technical
endeavors. But the agency is at a critical juncture, and major
management improvements are needed. In January of this year, we
identified four challenges facing NASA.[Footnote 1]
* Strengthening strategic human capital management.
* Improving contract management.
* Controlling International Space Station costs.
* Reducing space launch costs.
Weak contract management and financial controls pose risks across the
agency. Therefore, we have placed this area on our high-risk list.
Results in Brief:
In summary, these challenges affect NASA's ability to effectively run
its largest programs. NASA's ultimate challenge will be in tackling the
root problems impeding those programs. This will require (1)
instituting a results-oriented culture that fosters knowledge sharing
and empowers its workforce to accomplish programmatic goals; (2)
ensuring that the agency adheres to management controls to prevent cost
overruns and scheduling problems; (3) transforming the financial
management organization so it better supports NASA's core mission; and
(4) sustaining commitment to change.
Strengthening Strategic Human Capital Management:
An agency's most important organizational asset is its people--they
define the agency's culture, drive its performance, and embody its
knowledge base. Leading public organizations worldwide have found that
strategic human capital management must be the centerpiece of any
serious change management initiative. However, NASA, like many federal
agencies, is facing substantial challenges in attracting and retaining
a highly skilled workforce, thus putting the agency's missions at risk.
While NASA is taking comprehensive steps to address this problem across
all mission areas, implementing a strategic approach to marshal,
manage, and maintain human capital has been a significant challenge.
In January 2001, we reported that NASA's shuttle workforce had declined
significantly to the point of reducing NASA's ability to safely support
the shuttle program.[Footnote 2] Many key areas were not sufficiently
staffed by qualified workers, and the remaining workforce showed signs
of overwork and fatigue. Recognizing the need to revitalize the shuttle
program's workforce, NASA discontinued its downsizing plans in December
1999 and initiated efforts to hire new staff. In September 2001, we
testified that NASA was hiring approximately 200 full-time equivalent
staff and that it had focused more attention on human capital in its
annual performance plan by outlining an overall strategy to attract and
retain skilled workers.[Footnote 3] However, considerable challenges
remain, including the training of new staff and addressing the
potential loss of key personnel through retirement.
As we reported in January 2003, these challenges have not been
mitigated, and work climate indicators, such as forfeited leave and
absences from training courses continue to reflect high levels of job
stress. In addition, staffing shortages in many key skill areas of the
shuttle program remain a problem, despite the recent hires. These areas
include subsystems engineering, flight software engineering,
electrical engineering, environmental control, and shuttle resources
management. NASA's hiring posture for fiscal year 2003 has been to
target areas where skill imbalances still exist in the shuttle program.
NASA believes that similar workforce problems affect the entire agency
and that, as a result, its ability to perform future missions and
manage its programs may be at risk. Currently, the average age of
NASA's workforce is over 45, and 15 percent of NASA's science and
engineering employees are eligible to retire; within 5 years, about 25
percent will be retirement eligible. At the same time, the agency is
finding it difficult to hire people with science, engineering, and
information technology skills--fields critical to NASA's missions.
Within the science and engineering workforce, the over-60 population
currently outnumbers the under-30 population nearly 3 to 1. As the pool
of scientists and engineers shrinks, competition for these workers
intensifies. The agency also faces the loss of significant procurement
expertise through 2007, according to NASA's Inspector General.[Footnote
4] Coupled with these concerns, NASA has limited capability for
personnel tracking and planning, particularly on an agencywide or
programwide basis. Furthermore, NASA acknowledges that it needs to
complete and submit to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) a
transformation workforce restructuring plan, which it notes that, in
conjunction with its strategic human capital plan, will be critical to
ensuring that skill gaps or deficiencies do not exist in mission-
critical occupations.[Footnote 5]
NASA is taking steps to address its workforce challenges. For example:
* NASA is developing an agencywide integrated workforce planning and
analysis system that aims to track the distribution of NASA's workforce
across programs, capture critical competencies and skills, determine
management and leadership depth, and facilitate gap analyses. NASA has
completed a pilot of an interim competency management system to
facilitate analyses of gaps in skills and competencies. NASA plans to
implement the interim system agencywide in 2003 and integrate it with
the new comprehensive workforce planning and analysis system in 2005.
The new system should foster better management of the existing
workforce and enable better strategic decisions about future workforce
needs.
* NASA has developed a strategic human capital plan, which identifies
human capital goals, problems, improvement initiatives, and intended
outcomes and incorporates strategies and metrics to support the
goals.[Footnote 6] The plan has been approved by OMB and the Office of
Personnel Management (OPM). According to NASA, the plan is based on
OMB's scorecard of human capital standards and OPM's scorecard of
supporting human capital dimensions, as well as our own model, which we
published in March 2002.[Footnote 7]
* NASA has renewed its attention to hiring applicants just out of
college and intends to pursue this even more aggressively in coming
years. The agency is undertaking a number of initiatives and activities
aimed at acquiring and retaining critically needed skills, such as
using the new Federal Career Intern Program to hire recent science and
engineering graduates, supplementing the workforce with nonpermanent
civil servants where it makes sense, and implementing a program to
repay student loans to attract and retain employees in critical
positions.
* Finally, NASA has included an objective in its most recently updated
strategic plan[Footnote 8] and fiscal year 2004 performance
plan[Footnote 9] to implement an integrated agencywide approach to
human capital management. The plans state that this approach will
attract and maintain a workforce that represents America's diversity
and will include the competencies that NASA needs to deliver the
sustained levels of high performance that the agency's challenging
mission requires.
The 108th Congress is currently considering a series of legislative
proposals developed by NASA to provide it with further flexibilities
and authorities for attracting, retaining, developing, and reshaping a
skilled workforce. These include a scholarship-for-service program; a
streamlined hiring authority for certain scientific positions; larger
and more flexible recruitment, relocation, and retention bonuses;
noncompetitive conversions of term employees to permanent status; a
more flexible critical pay authority; a more flexible limited-term
appointment authority for the senior executive service; and greater
flexibility in determining annual leave accrual rate for new hires.
We continue to monitor NASA's progress in resolving its human capital
problems, including how well its human capital initiatives and reforms
and any new and existing flexibilities and authorities are helping to
strategically manage and reshape its workforce.
Correcting Weaknesses in Contract Management:
Much of NASA's success depends on the success of its contractors--who
received more than 85 percent, or $13.3 billion, of NASA's funds in
fiscal year 2002. However, since 1990, we have identified NASA's
contract management function as an area at high risk because of its
ineffective systems and processes for overseeing contractor activities.
Specifically, NASA has lacked accurate and reliable information on
contract spending and has placed little emphasis on end results,
product performance, and cost control. NASA has addressed many of these
acquisition-related weaknesses, but key tasks remain, including
completing the design and implementation of a new integrated financial
management system.
Since 1990, our reports and testimonies have repeatedly demonstrated
just how debilitating these weaknesses in contract management and
oversight have been. For example, our July 2002 report on the
International Space Station found that NASA did not effectively control
costs or technical and scheduling risks, provide adequate oversight
review, or effectively coordinate efforts with its partners. In other
examples, we found that NASA lacked effective systems and processes for
overseeing contractor activities and did not emphasize
controlling costs.
Center-level accounting systems and nonstandard cost-reporting
capabilities have weakened NASA's ability to ensure that contracts are
being efficiently and effectively implemented and that budgets are
executed as planned. The agency's financial management environment
is comprised of decentralized, nonintegrated systems with policies,
procedures, and practices unique to each of its field centers. For the
most part, data formats are not standardized, automated systems are not
interfaced, and on-line financial information is not readily available
to program managers. NASA's lack of a fully integrated financial
management system also hurts its ability to collect, maintain, and
report the full cost of its projects and programs. For example, in
March 2002, we testified that NASA was unable to provide us with
detailed support for amounts that it reported to the Congress as
obligated against space station and related shuttle program cost
limits,[Footnote 10] as required by the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration Authorization Act of 2000.[Footnote 11]
In recent years, NASA made progress in addressing its contract
management challenges. For example:
* In July 1998, we reported that NASA was developing systems to provide
oversight and information needed to improve contract management and
that it had made progress in evaluating its field centers' procurement
activities on the basis of international quality standards and its own
procurement surveys. In January 1999, we reported that NASA was
implementing its new system for measuring procurement-related
activities and had made progress in evaluating procurement functions in
its field centers.
* NASA has also made progress reducing its use of undefinitized
contract actions (UCA)[Footnote 12]--that is, unnegotiated, or
uncosted, contract changes. In 2000, we reported that NASA's frequent
use of undefinitized contract changes could result in contract cost
overruns and cost growth in the International Space Station program. In
March 2003, NASA's Office of Inspector General reported that NASA had
significantly reduced both the number and dollar amount of
undefinitized contract actions since we highlighted UCAs as one reason
for designating NASA's contract management as a major management
challenge.
* NASA has also recognized the urgency of implementing a fully
integrated financial management system. We recently reported that NASA
has estimated the life-cycle cost of this effort through 2008 to be
$861 million.[Footnote 13], [Footnote 14] While this is NASA's third
attempt at implementing a new financial management system (NASA's first
two efforts covered 12 years and cost $180 million), this effort is
expected to produce an integrated, NASA-wide financial management
system through the acquisition and incremental implementation of
commercial software packages and related hardware and software
components.[Footnote 15] The core financial management module, which
NASA considers to be the backbone of the Integrated Financial
Management Program, is currently operating at 6 of NASA's 10
centers[Footnote 16] and is expected to be fully operational in June
2003. According to NASA's business case analysis for the system, the
core financial module will provide NASA's financial and program
managers with timely, consistent, and reliable cost and performance
information for management decisions.
While NASA has made noteworthy progress in strengthening its contract
oversight, much work remains. As NASA moves ahead in acquiring and
implementing its new financial management system, NASA needs to ensure
that its systems and processes provide the right data to oversee
its programs and contractors--specifically, data to allow comparisons
of actual costs to estimates, provide an early warning of cost overruns
or other related difficulties, and monitor contract performance and
make program requirement trade-off decisions. In addition, NASA must
employ proven best practices, including (1) aligning its selection of
commercial components of the system with a NASA-wide blueprint, or
"enterprise architecture;" (2) analyzing and understanding the
dependencies among the commercial components before acquiring and
implementing them; (3) following an event-driven system acquisition
strategy; (4) employing effective acquisition management processes,
such as those governing requirements management, risk management, and
test management; (5) ensuring that legacy system data are accurate to
avoid loading and perpetuating data errors in the new system; and
(6) proactively positioning NASA for the business process changes
embedded in the new system, for example, by providing adequate formal
and on-the-job training.
However, as we reported in April 2003, the core financial module is not
being designed to accommodate much of the information needed by program
managers and cost estimators.[Footnote 17] For example, to adequately
oversee NASA's largest contracts, program managers need reliable
contract cost data--both budgeted and actual--and the ability to
integrate these data with contract schedule information to monitor
progress on the contract. However, because program managers were not
involved in defining system requirements or reengineering business
processes, the core financial module is not being designed to integrate
cost and schedule data needed by program managers. In addition, because
NASA has embedded in the core financial module the same accounting code
structure that it uses in its legacy reporting system, the core
financial module is not being implemented to capture cost information
at the same level of detail that it has received from NASA's
contractors. Finally, because NASA has done little to reengineer its
acquisition management processes to ensure that its contractors
consistently provide the cost and performance information needed, the
core financial module does not provide cost estimators with the
detailed cost data needed to prepare credible cost estimates.
Because more work is needed to demonstrate substantial progress in
resolving the root causes of NASA's contract management weaknesses, our
2003 Performance and Accountability Series continued to report contract
management as a major management challenge for NASA and a high-risk
area. We are continuing to monitor NASA's progress in addressing
contract management weaknesses. In response to a request from the
Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee and the House
Science Committee, we continue to assess the extent to which NASA's
financial management system acquisition is in accordance with effective
system acquisition practices and is designed to support NASA's
decision-making needs and external reporting requirements.
Controlling International Space Station Costs:
The International Space Station represents an important effort to
foster international cooperation in scientific research and space
exploration. It is also considered one of the most challenging
engineering feats ever attempted. The estimated cost of the space
station has mushroomed, and expected completion has been pushed out
several years. NASA is taking action to keep costs in check, but its
success in this area still faces considerable challenges. In the
meantime, NASA has had to make substantial cuts in the program,
negatively impacting its credibility with the Congress, international
partners, and the scientific community.
The grounding of the shuttle fleet following the Columbia accident has
had a significant impact on the continued assembly and operation of the
International Space Station. The shuttle is the primary vehicle for
transferring crew and equipment to and from the station and is used to
periodically reboost the station into a higher orbit. Although on-orbit
assembly of the station has stopped, NASA must continue to address the
challenges of developing and sustaining the station and conducting
scientific experiments until shuttle flights resume. While controlling
cost and schedule and retaining proper workforce levels have been
difficult in the past, the shuttle grounding will likely exacerbate
these challenges. Because the return-to-flight date for the shuttle
fleet is unknown at this time and manifest changes are likely, the
final cost and schedule impact on the station is undefined at this
time.
NASA has had difficulty predicting and controlling costs and scheduling
for the space station since the program's inception in 1984. In
September 1997, we reported that the cost and schedule performance of
its prime development contractor, which showed signs of deterioration
in 1996, had continued to worsen and that the program's financial
reserves for contingencies had all but evaporated. In our January 2001
Performance and Accountability Series, we reported that the prime
contract was initially expected to cost over $5.2 billion and that the
assembly of the station was expected to be completed in June 2002. But
by October 2000, the prime contractor's cost had grown to about
$9 billion--$986 million of which was for cost overruns--and the
current estimate is about $11 billion. Because of on-going negotiations
with the international partners and uncertainty associated with the
shuttle's return to flight, the station's final configuration and
assembly date cannot be determined at this time. NASA's Office of
Inspector General also reported cost overruns in a February 2000 audit
report, and based on recommendations in that report, NASA agreed to
take several actions, including discussing the prime contractor's cost
performance at regularly scheduled meetings and preparing monthly
reports to senior management on the overrun status. However, in July
2002, we reported continued cost growth due to an inadequate definition
of requirements, changes in program content, schedule delays, and
inadequate program oversight.[Footnote 18] While NASA's controls should
have alerted management to the growing cost problem and the need for
action, they were largely ignored because NASA focused on fiscal year
budget management rather than on total program cost management.
NASA is instituting a number of management and cost-estimating reforms,
but significant challenges threaten their successful implementation.
First, NASA's new life-cycle cost estimate for the program--which is
based on a three-person crew instead of a seven-person crew, as
originally planned--will now have to be revised because of changes to
the program's baseline. The lack of an adequate financial management
system for collecting space station cost data only exacerbates this
challenge. Second, NASA must still determine how research can be
maximized with only a limited crew. Last, NASA has yet to reach
agreement with its international partners on an acceptable on-orbit
configuration and sharing of research facilities and costs. As a
result, the capacity and capabilities of the space station, the scope
of research that can be accomplished, and the partners' share of
operating costs are unknown at this time.
Ongoing cost and schedule weaknesses have profoundly affected the
utility of the space station--with substantial cutbacks in
construction, the number of crew members, and scientific research. As a
part of the space station's restructuring, further work and funding for
the habitation module and crew return vehicle have been deferred, which
led to the on-orbit crew being reduced from seven to three members,
limiting the crewmember hours that can be devoted to research.
Additionally, the number of facilities available for research has been
cut from 27 to 20. NASA's international partners and the scientific
community are not satisfied with these and other reductions in
capabilities and have raised concerns about the viability of the space
station science program.
Reducing Space Launch Costs:
In our earlier identification of costs to build the International Space
Station, we identified space shuttle launch costs as being a
substantial cost component--almost $50 billion.[Footnote 19] NASA
recognized the need to reduce such costs as it considered alternatives
to the space shuttle. Indeed, a key goal of the agency's earlier effort
to develop a reusable launch vehicle was to reduce launch costs from
$10,000 per pound on the Space Shuttle to $1,000 through the use of
such a vehicle. As we testified in June 2001, NASA's X-33 program--an
attempt to develop and demonstrate advanced technologies needed for
future reusable launch vehicles--ended when the agency chose not to
fund continued development of the demonstrator vehicle in February
2001.[Footnote 20]
Subsequently, until November 2002, NASA was pursuing its Space Launch
Initiative (SLI)--a 5-year, $4.8 billion program to build a new
generation of space vehicles to replace its aging space shuttle fleet.
SLI was part of NASA's broader Integrated Space Transportation Plan,
which involves operating the space shuttle program through 2020 as
successive generations of space transportation vehicles are developed
and deployed, beginning around 2011. The primary goals for SLI were to
reduce the risk of crew loss as well as substantially lower the cost of
space transportation so that more funds could be made available for
scientific research, technology development, and exploration
activities. Currently, NASA spends nearly one-third of its budget on
space transportation.
In September 2002, we reported that SLI was a considerably complex and
challenging endeavor for NASA--from both a technical and business
standpoint.[Footnote 21] For example, SLI would require NASA to develop
and advance new technologies for the new vehicle, including (1) new
airframe technologies that will include robust, low-cost, low-
maintenance structure, tanks, and thermal protection systems, using
advanced ceramic and metallic composite materials, and (2) new
propulsion technologies, including main propulsion systems, orbital
maneuvering systems, main engines, and propellant management. The
program would also require NASA to carefully coordinate and communicate
with industry and government partners in order to reach agreements on
the basic capabilities of the new vehicle, the designs or architectures
that should be pursued, the sharing of development costs, and
individual partner responsibilities. Last, the SLI project would
require careful oversight, especially in view of past difficulties NASA
has had in developing the technologies for reusable launch vehicles to
replace the space shuttle. These efforts did not achieve their goals
primarily because NASA did not develop realistic requirements and,
thus, cost estimates, timely acquisition and risk management plans, or
adequate and realistic performance goals.
Most importantly, however, we reported that NASA was incurring a high
level of risk in pursuing its plans to select potential designs for the
new vehicle without first making other critical decisions, including
defining the Department of Defense's (DOD) role in the program;
determining the final configuration of the International Space Station;
and identifying the overall direction of NASA's Integrated Space
Transportation Plan. At the time, indications were that NASA and DOD
differed on program priorities and requirements; NASA had yet to reach
agreement with its international partners on issues that could
dramatically impact SLI requirements, such as how many crew members
would operate the station.
NASA agreed with our findings and, in October 2002, postponed its
systems requirements review for SLI so that it could focus on defining
DOD's role, determine the future requirements of the International
Space Station, and firm up the agency's future space
transportation needs. In November 2002, the administration submitted to
the Congress an amendment to NASA's fiscal year 2003 budget request to
implement a new Integrated Space Transportation Plan. The new plan
makes investments to extend the space shuttle's operational life for
continued safe operations and refocuses the SLI program on developing
an orbital space plane--which provides a crew transfer capability to
and from the space station--and next-generation launch technology. The
Integrated Space Transportation Plan is an integral part of our ongoing
work assessing NASA's plans to assure flight safety through space
shuttle modernization through 2020.
As NASA proceeds with its revised plans, it will still be important for
NASA to implement management controls that can effectively predict what
the total costs of the program will be and minimize risks. These
include cost estimates, controls designed to provide early warnings of
cost and schedule overruns, and risk mitigation plans. With such
controls in place, NASA would be better positioned to provide its
managers and the Congress with the information needed to ensure that
the program is on track and able to meet expectations.
Better Mechanisms Needed for Sharing Lessons Learned:
In addition to taking actions to address its management challenges,
NASA uses various mechanisms to communicate lessons garnered from past
programs and projects. In 1995, NASA established the Lessons Learned
Information System (LLIS), a Web-based lessons database that managers
are required to review on an ongoing basis. NASA uses several
mechanisms to capture and communicate lessons learned--including
training, program reviews, and periodic revisions to agency policies
and guidelines--but LLIS is the principal source for sharing lessons
agencywide. In January 2002, we reported that NASA had recognized the
importance of learning from the past to ensure future mission success
and had implemented mechanisms to capture and share lessons
learned.[Footnote 22] However, spacecraft failures persist, and there
is no assurance that lessons are being applied toward future mission
success. We reported that insufficient risk assessment and planning,
poor team communications, inadequate review process, and inadequate
system engineering were often cited as major contributors to mishaps.
(See table 1.):
Figure 1: Persistent Reasons for Spacecraft Failures:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
At that time, we also reported on a survey we conducted of NASA's
program and project managers. The survey revealed that lessons are not
routinely identified, collected, or shared by programs and project
managers. The survey found that less than one-quarter of the
respondents reported that they had submitted lessons to LLIS; almost
one-third did not even know whether they had submitted lessons. In
addition, most respondents could not identify helpful lessons for their
program or project.
Furthermore, many respondents indicated that they were dissatisfied
with NASA's lessons learned processes and systems. Managers also
identified challenges or cultural barriers to the sharing of lessons
learned, such as the lack of time to capture or submit lessons and a
perception of intolerance for mistakes. They further offered
suggestions for areas of improvement, including enhancements to LLIS
and implementing mentoring and "storytelling," or after-action reviews,
as additional mechanisms for lessons learning.
While NASA' s current knowledge management efforts should lead to some
improvement in the sharing of agency lessons and knowledge, they lack
ingredients that have been shown to be critical to the success of
knowledge management at leading organizations. Cultural resistance to
sharing knowledge and the lack of strong support from agency leaders
often make it difficult to implement an effective lessons-learning and
knowledge-sharing environment. We found that successful industry and
government organizations had overcome barriers by making a strong
management commitment to knowledge sharing, developing a well-defined
business plan for implementing knowledge management, providing
incentives to encourage knowledge sharing, and building technology
systems to facilitate easier access to information. The application of
these principles could increase opportunities for NASA to perform its
basic mission of exploring space more effectively.
To fulfill its vision, NASA is taking on a major transformation aimed
at becoming more integrated and results-oriented, and at reducing risks
while working more economically and efficiently. However, to
successfully implement its human capital, financial management, and
other reforms, NASA will need sustained commitment from senior leaders.
Given the high stakes involved, it is critical that NASA's leadership
provide direction, oversight, and sustained attention to ensure that
reforms stay on track. NASA's Administrator, who comes to the position
with a strong management background and expertise in financial
management, has made a personal commitment to change the way NASA does
business and has appointed a chief operating officer to provide
sustained management attention to strategic planning, organizational
alignment, human capital strategy, performance management, and other
elements necessary for transformation success. The challenge ahead for
NASA will be to achieve the same level of commitment from managers at
NASA centers so that NASA can effectively use existing and new
authorities to manage its people strategically and quickly implement
the tools needed to strengthen management and oversight.
Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:
This testimony was drawn from the most recent[Footnote 23] in a series
of GAO reports first issued in 1999 as well as additional reports that
summarize numerous individual GAO reviews that identify important
management, oversight, and workforce issues facing NASA. The purpose of
the series is to help sustain congressional attention and an agency
focus on continuing to make progress in addressing these issues. The
individual reviews were conducted in accordance with generally accepted
government auditing standards.
Chairman Gehman, this concludes my statement. I will be happy to answer
any questions you or members of the board may have.
Contacts and Acknowledgments For further information regarding this
testimony, please contact Allen Li at (202) 512-4841. Individuals
making key contributions to this testimony included Jerry Herley,
Shirley Johnson, Charles Malphurs, and Karen Sloan.
FOOTNOTES
[1] See U.S. General Accounting Office, Major Management Challenges and
Program Risks: National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
GAO-03-114 (Washington, D.C.: January 2003).
[2] See U.S. General Accounting Office, Major Management Challenges and
Program Risks: National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
GAO-01-258 (Washington, D.C.: January 2001).
[3] See U.S. General Accounting Office, Space Shuttle Safety: Update on
NASA's Progress in Revitalizing the Shuttle Workforce and Making Safety
Upgrades GAO-01-1122T (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 6, 2001).
[4] See National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Audit Report:
Procurement Workforce Planning, IG-01-041 (Washington, D.C.: September
2001).
[5] As stated in President's Management Agenda Action Plans for the
National Aeronautics And Space Administration, (Washington, D.C.: May
9, 2002). This document is an agreement between NASA and OMB on NASA's
plans for addressing the governmentwide initiatives in The President's
Management Agenda.
[6] NASA has also developed a companion strategic human capital
implementation plan that contains detailed action plans for the
improvement initiatives.
[7] See U.S. General Accounting Office, A Model of Strategic Human
Capital Management, GAO-02-373SP (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 15, 2002).
[8] See National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2003 Strategic
Plan (Washington, D.C.: 2003).
[9] NASA's fiscal year 2004 performance plan is integrated with its
fiscal year 2004 budget request.
[10] See U.S. General Accounting Office, National Aeronautics and Space
Administration: Leadership and Systems Needed to Effect Financial
Management Improvements, GAO-02-551T (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 20, 2002).
[11] Section 202 of P.L. 106-391.
[12] An undefinitized contract action means a unilateral or bilateral
contract modification or delivery/task order in which the final price
or estimated cost and fee have not been negotiated and mutually agreed
to by NASA and the contractor. 48 C.F.R. 1843.7001.
[13] See U.S. General Accounting Office, Business Modernization:
Improvements Needed in Management of NASA's Integrated Financial
Management Program, GAO-03-507 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 30, 2003).
[14] For this estimate, NASA has defined life-cycle costs to include
implementation efforts through fiscal year 2008 and major upgrades,
plus operation and support costs for each system module for the first 2
years after the module goes live.
[15] The system is to consist of nine modules: core financial
management, resume management, travel management, position description
management, human resource management, payroll, budget formulation,
contract administration, and asset management.
[16] NASA is comprised of its headquarters offices, nine centers
located throughout the country, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The
Jet Propulsion Laboratory is operated by the California Institute of
Technology, but for the purpose of this testimony, we treat the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory as a center.
[17] See GAO-03-507.
[18] See U.S. General Accounting Office, Space Station: Actions Under
Way to Manage Cost, but Significant Challenges Remain, GAO-02-735
(Washington, D.C.: July 17, 2002).
[19] U.S. General Accounting Office, International Space Station: U.S.
Life-Cycle Funding Requirements, GAO/NSIAD-98-147 (Washington, D.C.:
May 22, 1998).
[20] U.S. General Accounting Office, Space Transportation: Critical
Areas NASA Needs to Address in Managing Its Reusable Launch Vehicle
Program, GAO-01-826T (Washington, D.C.: June 20, 2001).
[21] See U.S. General Accounting Office, Space Transportation:
Challenges Facing NASA's Space Launch Initiative, GAO-02-1020
(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 17, 2002).
[22] See U.S. General Accounting Office, NASA: Better Mechanisms Needed
for Sharing Lessons Learned, GAO-02-195 (Washington, D.C.: January
2002).
[23] GAO-03-114.
