From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: 2017 NASA Major Projects Quick Look Description: GAO's 2017 review of the NASA's major acquisitions projects, such as the James Webb space telescope and the Orion multipurpose crew vehicle. Related GAO Work: GAO-17-303SP: NASA: Assessments of Major Projects and GAO-17-414: NASA Human Space Exploration: Delay Likely for First Exploration Mission Released: May 2017 [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's May 2017. Each year, GAO looks at how well NASA is planning and executing its major projects, such as the James Webb Space Telescope and the Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle, which will help with human space exploration. A team led by Cristina Chaplain, a director in GAO's Acquisition and Sourcing Management team, recently completed this year's Quick Look. Sarah Kaczmarek sat down with Cristina to talk about what they found. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So we all know NASA's projects are big, but how big are we actually talking about here? Can you kind of break this down for me in their major acquisitions by how many it's got in its portfolio and how much money NASA spends on its major acquisition projects? [ Cristina Chaplain: ] This year, NASA had about 21 projects over $250 million, and we looked at each one. They range from the James Webb Telescope, which is almost $9 billion-it's a very sophisticated telescope looking to discover the origins of the universe-to a new Mars probe that's expected to go up in a few years, to a probe that will go to one of the moons at Jupiter that's estimated to cost about $3-4 billion, as well as some human space flight projects that are probably the most expensive items in NASA's portfolio. The lower cost ones have, mostly deal with Earth science issues, as well as planetary exploration. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So let me ask you a little bit more about costs and schedules. It seems like NASA's been able to keep its costs down and maintain its launch schedules recently. Do you expect that trend to continue? [ Cristina Chaplain: ] I think NASA will be tested a lot in the next few years. A number of projects are reaching their most critical stages of development, where there's a lot of integration going on and testing. Those are the phases we tend to see the most problems come up. Within the next couple years alone, they're trying to launch the James Webb Telescope, as I mentioned, several human space flight-related projects, six science missions, along with some others. So it's going to be a very tough couple years ahead for NASA. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Ok, so let's talk about some of this new technology. I know your team recently issued a report on NASA's programs to continue human space exploration beyond low Earth orbit. So first, what exactly does that mean? [ Cristina Chaplain: ] Right. Well, since the Apollo era that we all remember, human space flight has largely been confined to what we call low Earth orbit, which is 400 to 1,000 miles above Earth, and that's where it stopped. And since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011, we've actually not had a capability to send people to space at all. We buy our capability from the Russians to get people to the International Space Station. So NASA's focused on two things. One, just getting people, our capability back to fly people into low Earth orbit, and it's working with two commercial companies to do that. And then second, to develop a capability to get people far beyond that, to go to the moon and to Mars, and that requires bigger rockets, more advanced crew capsule, technologies that can endure those tougher environments. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] And what did you find out about these programs in your latest report? [ Cristina Chaplain: ] The past few reports we've found that the management of these projects has had some issues. They have had some problems estimating costs correctly. They've been operating with very thin reserves. They've had a very optimistic schedule. And in our latest report, we found that the November 2018 date where they want to test, a full out major test of this program, is really in question given the delays that we're seeing on the individual projects. For example, for the Orion Crew Capsule, the service module developed by the European Space Agency is very, very late. NASA really needs to re-examine that date and what it needs, what's more realistic. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So in looking at these missions getting us beyond low Earth orbit human space flight, what recommendations did your team make in that report? [ Cristina Chaplain: ] Because of the urgency of the issue we saw in terms of not meeting this date and possibly overextending themselves to try to meet this date, we really recommended that they look at their schedule once again, we've already recommended it once, but once again in light of this new evidence, and really come up with a more realistic date. And NASA agreed to that. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So taking a step back and looking at the big picture again, how well would you say NASA is managing its risks and challenges to its major projects? [ Cristina Chaplain: ] It's still doing a better job than it has in the past, particularly with its small projects. The bigger projects, it really still needs to focus on a lot of management and oversight issues, especially for human space flight. And it should be remembered that these cost the most so the problems that they experience have far-reaching consequences across NASA. [ Sarah Kaczmarek:] And I would imagine since they involve people traveling into space, there has to be extra concern there as well. [ Cristina Chaplain: ] Yes. You need to keep people safe, and safety costs money. And you don't really want to rush to a date if you really have a lot of technical issues, engineering issues to resolve. You need to do everything you can to make sure you have that mission assurance. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Finally, what would you say is the bottom line in your report? [ Cristina Chaplain: ] The bottom line is that NASA continues to do a good job reducing acquisition risk, and they'll always face risk because space is risky, it's complex. So there will always be problems, but we think it's doing a pretty good job managing that for the smaller projects. Bigger projects, more work to be done. 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