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Earth Science

NASA OIG Finds Problems at Goddard Institute for Space Studies

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 5, 2018
NASA OIG Finds Problems at Goddard Institute for Space Studies

NASA GAO: NASA’s Management of GISS: The Goddard Institute for Space Studies
“Apart from its substantial scientific contributions and contrary to NASA policy, we found that 43 of 66 (65 percent) new GISS scientific publications publicly released from October 2015 through September 2017 were not approved by GISS or Goddard officials prior to release. NASA policy requires numerous reviews and approvals before scientific information can be publically released. These procedures – which include a technical review, export control review, a series of supervisory approvals and, if needed, a legal review – are designed to ensure the accuracy of scientific information released to the public and to prevent inadvertent release of sensitive information. Moreover, we found inadequate NASA guidance related to the independence and qualifications of the initial approver in the technical review process and other practices not in conformance with best practices.
We also found multiple instances of unallowable use of NASA-appropriated funds by GISS employees, grant recipients, and contractors for salary expenses, sub-contracting, and computer equipment. Based on our review of these unallowable expenses, improper charges under GISS’ support contract, and the improper use of purchase cards, we question $1.63 million of GISS’ expenditures since 2012. In our judgment, this inappropriate use of NASA funds was largely the result of insufficient oversight by the principal investigators, NASA’s technical officers, and approving officials coupled with the absence of a senior-level administrator at GISS to manage the Institute’s grants and cooperative agreements.
Finally, GISS routinely collaborates with public and private institutions on an ad hoc basis to achieve NASA’s strategic research goals. However, we found that the Institute is missing opportunities to partner with other Federal agencies and entities that conduct similar work because NASA lacks the long-term interagency agreements needed to set goals and objectives and provide needed funding. In our judgment, improved coordination may lead to efficiencies across agencies that do similar climate research and modeling.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

11 responses to “NASA OIG Finds Problems at Goddard Institute for Space Studies”

  1. Nick K says:
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    At one time NASA took the review and approval process seriously. But the process broke down years ago when technically trained and experienced personnel were writing reports and papers, and they were being reviewed by “managers” who had been promoted into positions of authority without the requisite experience or education. So the reviewers were unqualified to offer anything of substance.

    I spent several months researching and writing a paper and the first reviewer, someone I considered then (and still) to be totally unqualified in his position, reviewed the 30 page paper and his comment was “no, we don’t want to say that”. He offered nothing substantive and no recommendations on what he did want to say. I stopped writing papers.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      This comment no doubt means something to NASA people but to an outsider there are a lot of questions: what sort of things would a non-technical boss have the authority to alter?

      • Nick K says:
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        My experience since 1980 is that 85-90% of NASA bosses are interested in technical accuracy and fully support their employees researching, evaluating, recommending, writing, and speaking in public or in private, in scientific or technical journals, and at conferences. But there are about 10-15%, and the number has been growing, usually the weakest technically and managerially who are not supportive and will try to subvert, undermine, direct or take credit for work they have had no role in. They often have other problems with morality and honesty as well. As NASA has moved away from a meritocracy and towards a bureaucracy based on personal friendships in certain circles, the percentage has slowly climbed with a number of these individuals reaching the very top ranks of management. It is not only a problem for individuals but entire organizations have been subverted and no longer perform the functions for which they were established. It is also one reason why NASA seems to get so little done while spending such large amounts of money.

  2. cb450sc says:
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    Are we talking technical or scientific papers? Science papers I wrote were subject to center approval in that they had to be cleared to ensure no sensitive (e.g. ITAR, etc) information was included. But the scientific content was never reviewed. That’s what peer review in the field is for.

  3. Michael Spencer says:
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    we found that 43 of 66 (65 percent) new GISS scientific publications publicly released from October 2015 through September 2017 were not approved by GISS or Goddard officials prior to release

    Can anyone point me to a discussion of “approval” criteria, please? I mean re we talking about correctly naming the Agency or office, the spelling of the boss’s name, or what?

    • Nick K says:
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      There is no specific criteria that I have seen. The process, the material content and the review is as difficult or as thorough or as easy as the reviewer wants to make it. There are specific things workers are warned about such as handling of classified (secret, etc) or personally identifiable information, and these are well established and courses provide training in what the information consists of and how it can and should be handled. But what is or should be export controlled, or technically or scientifically acceptable, or any number of other criteria, is not defined as far as I have seen in several decades.

  4. gelbstoff says:
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    Well, for those who may be curious, NASA has an approval policy for the release of technical information, which includes but is not limited to manuscripts to be submitted to peer-review and presentations in scientific fora. Without getting into details, the releases of technical information are approved by the immediate supervisor, and sent to other offices for ITAR and legal review. We are not supposed to submit a paper for publication or present in a meeting until the approval is completed. The process is clonky and ads no value. It is also unenforceable if the first author is not from NASA (for example, someone from academia who does not have to care about NASA policy). The real technical review is done by the peer-review process. In any case, NASA is auditing publications to determine if the process has been followed. We mostly try to comply, but it is impossible and silly to do so for presentations in meetings. Is death by 10^3 cuts….
    G.

    • sunman42 says:
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      Indeed: the “no ITAR” checkbox on a form is, I have to believe, as far as the Export Controls offices and Legal Counsel’s offices at NASA Centers look when they “review” publications to be submitted to refereed journals. Is it fair to suggest that Export Controls personnel can fully understand the content of earth or space science papers? Or that those offices should employ Ph.D.s to do the certification? (Good luck on getting any to apply for such a job.)

      As a result, it should probably not be a surprise that NASA authors sometimes submit the articles to the journals in parallel with the approval process, rather than waiting for its completion.

      Note added as my aged brain kicks into gear: the approval process used to be limited to local management (that is, people who might actually have a chance to understand the content of the manuscript) but was expanded when NASA went into the ISO-9K looniness. Anything to expand (digital now) paperwork and keep people who depend on overhead employed.

      • Carlos DelCastillo says:
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        Yes, the first approval should be done by the immediate supervisor who should be a scientists. Yes, many submit in parallel. Back in my early years at NASA I got papers in print before they were approved for submission, so it took a long time. It is faster now, but not fast enough for presentations in research meetings.

  5. sunman42 says:
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    This is a minor point in the report, but some future, so-called “split” purchases with the P-card may be avoidable because the single-purchase limit has been raised to $10K government wide(?).

    The examples cited in the report would still be pretty egregious, though.

  6. Daniel Woodard says:
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    “We also found multiple instances of unallowable use of NASA-appropriated funds by GISS employees, grant recipients, and contractors for salary expenses, sub-contracting, and computer equipment.”

    It would really be nice if the GAO would audit the grant process itself and find all the requirements that make it so difficult for struggling researchers to actually produce something of value to the nation.