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NASA Inspector Says Agency Wasted $80 Million On An Inferior Spacesuit (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the to-be-determined dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: When NASA began developing a rocket and spacecraft to return humans to the Moon a decade ago as part of the Constellation Program, the space agency started to think about the kinds of spacesuits astronauts would need in deep space and on the lunar surface. After this consideration, NASA awarded a $148 million contract to Oceaneering International, Inc. in 2009 to develop and produce such a spacesuit. However, President Obama canceled the Constellation program just a year later, in early 2010. Later that year, senior officials at the Johnson Space Center recommended canceling the Constellation spacesuit contract because the agency had its own engineers working on a new spacesuit and, well, NASA no longer had a clear need for deep-space spacesuits. However, the Houston officials were overruled by agency leaders at NASA's headquarters in Washington, DC. A new report released Wednesday by NASA Inspector General Paul Martin sharply criticizes this decision. "The continuation of this contract did not serve the best interests of the agency's spacesuit technology development efforts," the report states. In fact, the report found that NASA essentially squandered $80.6 million on the Oceaneering contract before it was finally ended last year.

2 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. One-sided article. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I feel like there is some information missing from this claim, particularly, the rationale for which NASA HQ decided to continue the contract. NASA isn't known for making illogical decisions, so it stands to reason that there is a logical explanation that is missing from this article.

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    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:One-sided article. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The stated rationale was that this was a technology development contract. So even if there wasn't an immediate need for the suits the R&D was still worth it.

      The unstated rationale was that this happened at a time when the economy was still struggling and the government was looking for excuses to inject money into it.