From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Quick Look at NASA Acquisitions Description: Audio interview by GAO staff with Cristina Chaplain, Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management Related GAO Work: GAO-15-320SP: NASA: Assessments of Selected Large Scale Projects Released: March 2015 [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's March 2015. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has 16 major science and technology projects in its acquisition portfolio, each with an estimated lifecycle cost of at least $250 million. A team led by Cristina Chaplain, a director in GAO's Acquisition and Sourcing Management team, recently reviewed how well NASA is planning and executing it's major acquisitions. GAO's Jacques Arsenault sat down with Christina to discuss what they found. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] Can you tell me about some of the major projects in NASA's portfolio? [ Cristina Chaplain: ] Yes. We looked at 16 major projects this year. They include the human space flight systems, including the Orion Crew Capsule, which will eventually transport human beings to Mars in way outer space. And as well as the space launch system, which is a very capable, large rocket, on the scale of the Saturn 5 during the Apollo era. The projects also include the James Webb telescope, which will be replacing the Hubble telescope, and will be focused on studying the origins of the universe. The projects also include a host of Earth climate satellites, looking at such things as soil changes, ice changes, changes in oceans, that will help tell science community learn more about climate change. And the projects also include -- one project focused on getting the sample from an asteroid and bringing it back to Earth. So you can tell these are very challenging projects that NASA’s developing. They range in cost from $400 million to $10 billion. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] And what are some challenges that NASA faces in developing and executing these projects? [ Cristina Chaplain: ] I like to put the challenges into two different buckets. There's first inherent challenges. Those that come with building space projects in general. The technologies are challenging. The designs are very, very challenging. And then for NASA in particular, the partners that they sometimes operate with, there's a lot of uncertainty as to whether they'll deliver on time or not, and the capability they might have. And then the environment that they build in for space, is it -- it's a vacuum. It's a very difficult environment. And depending on where the satellites are being placed, puts special challenges, like going near the Sun, creates a lot of heat issues for satellites. Then the other bucket I have is management challenges. And that's what has put NASA on our high-risk list for a long time. Those include things like being too optimistic in estimating, not very good oversight over contractors, things of that issue—that they could probably do a better job with effort in managing. It's not as much of an inherent problem with space. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] So then in this year's quick look, what are some of the things that you've found about NASA's recent progress? [ Cristina Chaplain: ] NASA's making very good progress in reducing cost growth and schedule delays. Since we've been looking at them, they've brought down the cost growth for development about 10 percent or more, so they've gone from 12 percent to 3 percent. That's excluding their largest project at the moment, the James Webb telescope, which did have considerable cost growth. But it was a while ago, so we like to look at cost growth with and without that particular project. They've been doing a better job at adopting best practices—things for like technology maturity and their satellite programs. They've gone from only 30 percent of programs, adopting the best practices for that to about 70 percent. And they've taken a number of good actions in recent years to improve things like cost estimating and oversight. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] So then what kinds of recommendations has GAO made to NASA to improve the development of these projects? [ Cristina Chaplain: ] Over the years, we've been making a number of recommendations for the high-risk, large-scale projects. The things like James Webb. We're really focusing on cost estimating and making sure it has a very long-term perspective, so we all know what we're getting into when we invest in these programs. To also making sure that cost estimates are updated when risks change. Those are very important. We'd also like NASA to continue making improvements in oversight and to sustain those improvements as well as its efforts to commit to best practices. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] And finally, what would you say is the bottom line of this report? [ Cristina Chaplain: ] The bottom line is that NASA is making good progress at reducing acquisition risk. But right now it's this portfolio is in a good place. It's not as technically ambitious right now, but in a few years it's gonna be problematic for NASA. A lot of the big projects are coming to a head. They're gonna be entering their difficult phases of development. So, it's exceedingly important for NASA to sustain the good things it's already done and to also be candid about the risks ahead. [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] To learn more, visit GAO.gov and be sure to tune in to the next episode of GAO's Watchdog Report for more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office.