Audit Finds Problems with ISS Management

SuperBanana writes "According to an AP story carried by the Boston Globe, an internal audit released yesterday by NASA found numerous problems with management of the station, in some ways similar to the problems in the shuttle program. This includes missing, inconsistent, or outdated technical drawings; inadequately trained staff, and analysis of failure trends that is 'severely lacking'. Despite the report's length(172 pages) no specifics are cited. The report is not yet available in the press section of NASA's site."

Comments

And this is suprising?

[nighty5]

I was an IT technical auditor for a big 5 a few years back. I also did some (boring) process work to map out IT areas of audit weaknesses / risk.

The job of an auditor is to find weaknesses. Like any profession its their job to satisify their existance and to find issues, no matter how big or how small.

I havent read the article (in true Slashdot style - I'm actually writing up some design docs right now!) but I'd say what they have found is typical of any normal IT / technology company where their process is never updated to the standards of their documentation.

This really burns me

[pq]

So we're flying a large, noisy, semi-empty garage in space, and it is so under-staffed (2 people instead of 2.5 required to maintain it) that we can't even use it for scientific experiments. The only reason it got built is that NASA had spread out pork in too many states to kill it, and the space shuttle needed something to do. Meanwhile, the only reason the space shuttle will fly again is to finish the ISS. And to top it off, both are death traps and we don't even have accurate building plans any more...?

On the other hand, we're cancelling the Hubble servicing mission because of safety concerns - which are very real concerns, but unfixable only because of a political decision that we'd rather go to Mars.

I'm all for the ISS, actually - I love the idea that humanity will not have all its eggs in one basket ever again. Even if the other basket is in a very low orbit around the first one for now, it's a start! But it's sad to watch the old pioneering spirit reduced to election campaign sound bites and random mismanagement, while we shortchange the real science.

Re:This really burns me

[jadel]

So we're flying a large, noisy, semi-empty garage in space, and it is so under-staffed (2 people instead of 2.5 required to maintain it) that we can't even use it for scientific experiments. The only reason it got built is that NASA had spread out pork in too many states to kill it, and the space shuttle needed something to do. Meanwhile, the only reason the space shuttle will fly again is to finish the ISS. And to top it off, both are death traps and we don't even have accurate building plans any more...?

Don't forget the bit about being in the wrong orbital inclination making it useless as a staging point on trips to other planets.

On the other hand, we're cancelling the Hubble servicing mission because of safety concerns - which are very real concerns, but unfixable only because of a political decision that we'd rather go to Mars.

Now this I have to disagree with, the shuttle is a deathtrap because it's an overcomplicated compromise between disparate goals and every attempt to produce a replacement has been deliberately killed off - after all, it's not the McDonnell Douglas people who crashed the DC-X.
The orbital space plane is basically an update of the 1960s era X-20 DynaSoar with a more streamlined look about it. It cant replace the shuttle because it has almost no cargo capacity.
IMNSHO what is required is something like the DC-X, a new fully reusable design which can be turned around in a matter of days instead of months, but with enough capacity to replace the cargo hauling now being done by the shuttle. If it's done well enough hopefully flying to orbit could be as safe and routine as international passenger flights are today.

Sound just like a US goverenment document...

[sparkeyjames]

172 pages yet says nothing.

Outdated drawings?

[October_30th]

Outdated drawings?

Sounds like a prime example of a typical auditor's chickenshit-mentality.

Any project - not to mention a project of this size - is bound to have holes in the documentation, inventory or accounting. Documents get misplaced, tools and materials get stolen/wasted/lost and some spending cannot be accounted for.

Re:Outdated drawings?

[Detritus]

It doesn't help when the people who used to maintain the documentation get outsourced and/or laid off due to budget cuts.

Re:You know...

[LinuxGuyFriend]

With pretty much anything that goes wrong (including 9-11), post-incident audits always seem to find a pile of organizational problems. It's interesting to see how often organizations evolve almost exclusively because of such findings. Perhaps a lot of governmental programs would benefit from regular audits that would look not just at things like how much cash is spent and where, but rather at the procedures themselves.

Re:NASA has lost its soul

[cavac]

There's nothing wrong with 30-year-old rust-bucket space technology as long as it does its work cheap and reliable.

The old (ancient?) Soyuz launcher is a nice example: Nearly 1700 launches up until now, most of them sucessfull. It is in fact so cost effective, that Arianespace is planing to use Soyuz at Guiana Space Center from 2006 on (as well continuing to use them in Baikonur).

You're forgetting

[lxt]

...that the budget crisis that casued the Mir was the mainly result of the collapse of communism, and Russia realising it actually had no money left.

Re:You know...

[El Volio]

The problem is not that process audits aren't done they are. Both private and personal organizations have regular audits performed and reports like this generated. The real problem is that, in many cases, those with the power to make substantive changes (management) simply don't want to do so because it's too expensive, whether in terms of time, money, or other resources, and it requires some disaster to really motivate them.

So what you get are organizations that are always fixing the previous generation of problems. Challenges morph over time, and if you're fixing the problems you should have fixed ten years ago, and as cheaply as possible, then you're probably not fixing the problems you need to fix now, looking ahead to the challenges you'll be facing over the next few years.

Re:Prelude to killing ISS?

[Martin Blank]

If it is, then there is ammo for killing a lot of government programs.

A few weeks ago, I made a post somewhere else about running independent audits on the government by an outside firm (or two). My guess was that in the course of a given year, something like $100 billion could be picked out as inefficiencies, waste, fraud, or abuse. Following a report last week about the Secret Service -- hardly the biggest agency -- unable to account for a few billion on its own, I wonder if my guess was far too low.