This is not a NASA Website. You might learn something. It's YOUR space agency. Get involved. Take it back. Make it work - for YOU.
Exploration

OIG Annual Report – NASA Spends Money Unwisely

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 28, 2017
OIG Annual Report – NASA Spends Money Unwisely

NASA Office of Inspector General Annual Report April – September 2017
“Specifically, despite spending almost $200 million on three spacesuit development efforts, NASA remains years away from having a spacesuit capable of replacing the suits used on the ISS or suitable for use on future exploration missions. Furthermore, given the current development schedule, there is significant risk a next-generation prototype will not be sufficiently mature for testing on the ISS prior to the Station’s planned 2024 retirement. In addition, we questioned NASA’s decision to spend $80.8 million between 2011 and 2016 to fund a spacesuit development effort despite parallel development activities being conducted elsewhere in the Agency. NASA management concurred with and described corrective actions to address our three recommendations.”
“In August 2013, NASA entered into an agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers to build two test stands at Marshall Space Flight Center (Marshall) to test liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks from the core stage of the Agency’s new heavy-lift rocket. Our review found that the compressed project schedule, uncertain requirements, and design changes resulted in significant cost increases for the project. In addition, NASA did not adequately consider alternative locations before selecting Marshall as the site for the test stands and therefore cannot ensure it made the most cost-effective decision regarding where to build the stands.”

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

9 responses to “OIG Annual Report – NASA Spends Money Unwisely”

  1. Bill Housley says:
    0
    0

    Maybe SpaceX will be supplying spacesuits for NASA. How close are they to completing their spacesuit project?

    • Jeff2Space says:
      0
      0

      Those SpaceX suits are launch/entry suits, not EVA suits, which is what the article is talking about. EVA suits are quite a bit more complex than launch/entry suits.

      • Daniel Woodard says:
        0
        0

        Nevertheless both SpaceX and Boeing are designing new launch/entry suits rather than using the exising (admittidly dated) NASA LES design, which was in turn based loosely on the Air Force full-pressure suit used in aircraft like the U-2.

        • Jeff2Space says:
          0
          0

          Agreed, likely because the old LES design was dated and expensive (the older a design gets, the more expensive the, often “obsolete”, components seem to get).

          • Daniel Woodard says:
            0
            0

            There’s nothing wrong with a new design, I agree the LES is aging. But at this point it’s hard to say if the new suits will be any less expensive; everything is proprietary.

  2. DJE51 says:
    0
    0

    This is mainly a political indecision problem, as I see it. If this administration clearly articulated it’s desire to return to the moon by a certain date, then spacesuit design and fabrication would ensue. The previous administration’s “flexible path” did not impose any deadlines, nor any real destination. This administration is close to suffering the same fate unless it starts to get real about what it can actually do.

    • Vladislaw says:
      0
      0

      You mean like when President Bush, called for a return to the moon as soon as 2015 and no later than 2020?

  3. numbers_guy101 says:
    0
    0

    The NASA project management disasters revealed in all these IG reports will continue for an assortment of reasons. The IG audits themselves, to the extent they favor well defined, tangible problems, lending themselves to defensible analysis, don’t get into political, organizational, or system level problems. The NASA responses are usually just the vague promises of a scolded child to do better, yet the IG has to count the recommendation as “resolved”, letting NASA off the hook until the next report. The cycle repeats ad nauseum. Worse, NASA managers go off to apply lessons learned – meaning trying not to get caught by the IG next time, trying to hide the money better.

    The IG, to stay professional and tangible, often won’t call out what’s really happening. Take spacesuit project, the purpose of which is to keep the burner warm, to keep an expert workforce around. This project, like many, has devolved into an expensive training program. But nobody will write down we just keep these people around messing with surface spacesuit stuff for the day we actually need a surface spacesuit. If you phrased it this way you’d explain lots of the costs you see, but also open the door to asking just what the right yearly level is to keep that burner warm (much less than now perhaps? not the answer anyone wants?).

    It’s a common joke in cost estimating a new thing to ask how much the people that are SUPPOSED to be doing this cost now, per year. Set a date to put them to actually WORK around the defined problem and date, and that’s your development cost! (Takes no Excel, just a pen and a napkin). The unit costs are the same yearly costs divided by a very small number, less than one (pretty much the slow rate of development). For starters! Usually when the definable requirements come around they say “now we need real money”! LOL – with a sad sort of face.

    • Daniel Woodard says:
      0
      0

      Research and devlopment is an ongoing process, particularly for something like the EVA suit. The problem isn’t smply that a new suit is needed for the Moon and Mars, better suits and maintenance are needed for ISS as well, to alleviate some of the probl;ems that have occurred, some quite hazardous, and to improve human performance, reduce EVA preparation time, and reduce cost. Unfortunately when a new design evolves the funding to actually field it often does not materialize and the existing system is patched up and kept in sevice.