From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: 2020 NASA Major Projects Quick Look Description: Cristina Chaplain is with the Watchdog Report to discuss GAO's annual look at the costs and schedules for NASA's major projects. Related GAO Work: GAO-20-405, NASA: Assessments of Major Projects Released: April 2020 [ Intro Music ] [ Cristina Chaplain: ] They have a very challenging deadline for getting to the moon on 2024, so that's going to create some risk. [ Matt Oldham: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the US Government Accountability Office. I'm Matt Oldham. Every year, GAO reports on NASA's major acquisitions projects, taking a look at costs and schedules. This report also includes assessments of 24 major projects, each with a life cycle cost of more than 250 million dollars, and with me to talk about this year's NASA quick look is Cristina Chaplain, a contracting and Natural Security Acquisitions director at GAO. Thanks for joining me, Cristina. [ Cristina Chaplain: ] Thanks. Good to be here. [ Matt Oldham: ] So tell me, what's changed from last year's report? [ Cristina Chaplain: ] Well, the cost for -- cost increases for NASA projects on average have gone up this past year from 27.6% to 31%, and the schedule delays are about the same, but they actually went down a little bit from 13 months to 12 months, and both these kinds of issues can have pretty big implications for NASA because these are pretty big dollars we're talking about. You know, going forward with all the projects they have right now, that's about a 65 billion dollar investment, so it's important that we don't have cost delays. So not all of the 24 projects had major problems this year. It's really just down to a few very large projects that have the cost and schedule increases that affect the overall portfolio. [ Matt Oldham: ] And which of those projects are the biggest contributors to the cost growth? [ Cristina Chaplain: ] As it has been in prior years, it's primarily the large human space flight projects, which include the Orion crew capsule, which will be taking astronauts to the moon hopefully as soon as 2024, and the rocket that'll be launching those astronauts to the moon -- the Space Launch System -- as well as all the infrastructure that comes with human space flight, some of which you might remember from the shuttle era, such as the crawler which brings the rocket from the assembly building to the launch pad. And then there's another large-scale telescope project, the James Webb Telescope, which has had very significant cost increases over the years -- up to 171% for development cost -- and a pretty long delay of 6.7 years. So we see, year after year, these kind of projects are kind of the drivers, but there are others that they're not the usual suspects that are having problems that we're focused on. One is a ground system that NASA's developing that has been problematic for years, and another one is a spacecraft project that's going to be testing future laser communication technologies. [ Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] So it sounds like costs continue to grow for NASA's largest projects, specifically with things like the Space Launch System, Orion, and the Webb Telescope. [ Music ] So what does NASA need to do to get a handle on the cost growth and scheduling delays? [ Cristina Chaplain: ] So NASA is doing quite a bit, and we give them credit for some of these things that they're doing. They have a pretty detailed plan to reduce acquisition risk. It's focused on cost reporting, monitoring contractors, cost estimating improvements. And in the human space flight arena, they're making a number of reforms to help manage the programs going forward. You know, even with all these plans, they're all good, so it's a matter of executing them and making sure programs are executable. If they see problems on a program, they should take action very quickly, and they should also be focused on things like making sure they have competition for these big programs, as well as a good focus on quality management. Because there have been quality issues affecting the NASA projects across the board, and they may seem minor. They may be focused on a bolt or a valve or such, but they can have pretty big implications on any project. [ Matt Oldham: ] So Cristina, what's the bottom line of this report? [ Cristina Chaplain: ] I'd say the bottom line is we've been looking at the NASA projects for 11 years now, and the progress has been mixed. In the past couple years, we're seeing cost increases go up, and we know NASA's taking actions, but there's going to be a lot of challenges ahead. They have a very big deadline that's -- very challenging deadline for getting to the moon on 2024, so that's going to create some risk. They have a whole slew of new projects coming online. That will create some stress on the portfolio. So it's really important that they really concentrate on their high-risk plan and doing the things that they need to do to help control costs. Technology risk is always going to be there because they're NASA, but really focusing on the management risk is what they can do moving forward. [ Matt Oldham: ] Cristina Chaplain was talking about GAO's annual assessment of NASA's major projects. Thank you for your time, Cristina. [ Cristina Chaplain: ] Thank you, Matt. 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