NASA OIG Audits All Space Act Agreements
Letter from NASA Inspector General: Audit of NASA’s Management of Space Act Agreements
“The Office of Inspector General is initiating an audit evaluating NASA’s management of its Space Act Agreements. Among the issues we intend to examine are: Whether NASA is accurately identifying its full costs for work performed under reimbursable agreements and properly billing partners; Whether NASA is receiving fair and reasonable benefits from partners when it chooses to waive costs under partially reimbursable Agreements; NASA’s process for monitoring export control laws when entering into Agreements with foreign entities. We will also review internal controls as they relate to the overall objective. The primary audit location will be NASA Headquarters. Additional locations may be identified as our work progresses.”
Keith’s note: The NASA OIG apparently does not know the name of the current Director is at Glenn Research Center. As for the audit itself, Space Act Agreements are one unique tool that NASA has at its disposal that other agencies do not. Some amazing things – with real public benefits – can be done via this type of agreement. Lets hope that the NASA OIG sees the value to these agreements and does not knuckle under to Congressional pressure – pressure driven by ill-informed partisan agendas.
“Space Act Agreements are one unique tool that NASA has at its disposal that other agencies do not”… at other agencies reimbursable agreements are called CRADAs and sometimes dual-use. Only the name “Space Act” is unique to NASA. I would be interested to know more about your statement, “Congressional pressure – pressure driven by ill-informed partisan agendas.” To who in congress are you refering?
For simplicity audits frequently only apply to current projects. So a list of successful projects that used SAA and what was produced may be useful.
Note to OIG: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Space act agreements are the most effective mechanism NASA has today to work synergisticly with industry and academia to improve American competitiveness. It is neither necessary nor possible for every SAA to directly benefit the very limited “NASA mission”. Moreover, some projects will fail. What’s important is that the program as a whole contribute something that NASA contracts seldom can; practical benefits to American industry and America’s economy, environment, and people.
“As for the audit itself, Space Act Agreements are one unique tool that
NASA has at its disposal that other agencies do not. Some amazing things
– with real public benefits – can be done via this type of agreement.
Lets hope that the NASA OIG sees the value to these agreements and does
not knuckle under to Congressional pressure – pressure driven by
ill-informed partisan agendas.”
OK who are you and what have you done with Keith?
I see 3 successive sentences where you write nice things about NASA. I do not remember 3 similar previous sentences.
Don’t reply Keith. I know why you work so hard on this forum. I do not want you to change your writing. What is clear is that NASA is a group of some smart people, managed by the same people who on another day could manage a pig farm or the department of agriculture supervised by self serving politicians.
Keith, if you happen to know who ‘invented’ the Space Act Agreement (SAA), please post that. I would like to thank them for developing that NASA to external-entity business instrument.
I hope the OIG spends ample time auditing SAAs. I hope they dig into SAA use and realize how valuable they have been in establishing effective NASA to researcher relationships and how SAAs enable research, in many instances, to move forward productively. I hope the OIG possesses the analytical horsepower needed to not only examine SAAs but to quantify the value of SAAs that have been executed.
SAAs aren’t perfect. Some are effective others are less so. But without them, the pursuit of research in space would be more difficult. Every space research effort I’ve been involved with that required private sector investment succeeded -because- NASA entered into an SAA with the research partner. The SAA was a key enabler of that investment action. In the course of its audit, the OIG should take steps to analyze that and to incorporate that into its findings.
I hope the auditors will recognize the positive domino effect that the SAAs have been creating.
1. SAAa allowed companies like SpaceX to progress faster and much more effectively than if they had been working under the usual contracting arrangement.
2. This earlier availability of new, better and cheaper space hardware made possible things like American resupply of the ISS and Mr. Tito’s Mars program, both many years earlier than they would have otherwise happened.
3. The success of SpaceX , the Inspiration of Tito’s Mars flight, etc. will spur others in the aerospace and related fields to undertake more advanced programs, and do so much sooner than they otherwise would have.
4. The increased number of players moving forward will almost certainly result in a synergy that significantly benefits aerospace and the rest of society, resulting in widely distributed increased (new) wealth.
5. Whereas space has been a pay-lots-for-no-profit game to date, the programs and capabilities resulting from SAAs appear to be the first step in turning that around, so that space activities can derive income, and then later actual profits, both much sooner than if we were to keep doing things the old way.
6. The introduction of ROI in space should result in very different kinds of space activities than what we’ve had to date, and these new activities will almost certainly be conducive to increase ROI, accelerated growth, and increased public interest and participation.
The use of SAAs at this time may well have chopped decades, perhaps even a century or more, off of the time required to get to #6 by the old established route.
I agree, moreover the vast majority of SAAs don’t even involve spectacular spacecraft but rather small projects that don’t cost much (in many cases no money at all is exchanged) but leverage the experience and facilities of NASA with the imagination and resourcefulness of industry and universities to make incremental but crucial advances in science and technology.