United States General Accounting Office

GAO Report to the Chairman and Ranking

Minority Member, Committee on

Science, House of Representatives

June 1998 MANAGING FOR

RESULTS

Observations on

NASA’s Fiscal Year

1999 Performance Plan

GAO/NSIAD-98-181

GAO United States

General Accounting Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

National Security and

International Affairs Division

B-279979 

Letter Date Goes Here

The Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr.

Chairman

The Honorable George E. Brown

Ranking Minority Member

Committee on Science

House of Representatives

As requested, this report conveys the results of our review of the National

Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) performance plan for fiscal

year 1999. Under the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993,

also known as “the Results Act,” NASA was required to submit to Congress

its first performance plan, for fiscal year 1999, along with the President’s

fiscal year 1999 budget request. According to NASA officials, the plan was

provided to Congress on March 27, 1998. NASA views its performance plan

as the third component of its “trilogy of Results Act-supporting”

documents, the other two being the annual budget justification and the

strategic plan.

Our report discusses (1) NASA’s goals and objectives, including how the

agency plans to measure its progress towards achieving these goals and

objectives, (2) the agency’s strategies and resources needed to achieve its

goals, and (3) the availability and reliability of data necessary to achieve

progress.

Background The Results Act requires that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

direct each executive agency to prepare an annual performance plan,

beginning with fiscal year 1999. The performance plan is one of three

components of the Results Act, the others being the strategic plan,

submitted by agencies in September 1997, and the annual report due

March 31, 2000. The performance plan should describe (1) annual

performance goals and measures, (2) the strategies and resources to

achieve those goals, and (3) procedures to verify and validate reported

performance. The act requires that performance goals be linked to the

program activities in agencies’ budgets and be expressed in an objective,

quantifiable, and measurable form. OMB is to use agency performance plans

to develop the overall federal government performance plan submitted

annually to Congress, beginning with the President’s fiscal year 1999

budget.

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Results in Brief We found that NASA’s fiscal 1999 performance plan could provide a clearer

picture of intended performance across the agency, does not fully portray

how NASA’s strategies and resources will help it achieve the plan’s

performance goals, and partially provides confidence that the information

NASA will use to assess performance will be accurate, complete, and

credible.

Among its strengths, NASA’s performance plan reflects the mission

statement and goals in its strategic plan and provides good linkage

between these strategic goals and the performance plan’s goals and

targets; incorporates performance measures that are generally objective,

quantifiable, and useful for assessing progress toward the plan’s

performance objectives; and provides for annual external assessments by

its Advisory Council and semi-annual internal assessments by its Senior

Management Council to validate progress toward meeting the agency’s

goals and objectives.

To make the plan more useful for purposes of the Results Act, NASA’s

performance plan should better link performance goals and measures to

the program activities in NASA’s budget; more fully explain NASA’s

procedures for verifying and validating performance data by recognizing

the limitations that affect the credibility of data that will be used to

measure performance; and acknowledge NASA’s major management

challenges and associated corrective actions in order to provide a more

comprehensive understanding of the importance of the goals and

performance measures chosen for its internal crosscutting processes.

Some of the concerns we have regarding NASA’s performance plan are

similar to our observations on NASA’s strategic plan issued on

September 30, 1997. For example, NASA’s strategic plan did not contain

evidence that NASA had coordinated the plan with those agencies whose

programs and activities complement NASA’s and did not discuss the human,

capital, and information resources needed to achieve the goals and

objectives in the plan.

NASA’s Performance

Plan Could Provide a

Clearer Picture of

Intended Performance

Across the Agency

Generally, the performance goals in NASA’s plan are objective and the

performance measures are quantifiable and useful for assessing progress.

While the plan reflects the mission statement and strategic goals in NASA’s

strategic plan and provides clear links between strategic goals and the

annual performance goals and measures, it does not clearly associate the

plan’s performance goals and measures with program activities in the

budget. Although NASA’s plan recognizes that other agencies and partners

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B-279979 

have complementary missions and activities and acknowledges that NASA

must work closely with them to achieve its goals, it does not discuss the

extent to which it has coordinated either its strategies for achieving goals

or its development of performance measures.

Defining Expected

Performance

The performance plan provides near-term goals for each of NASA’s four

business enterprises and at least one performance target to address each

of the goals for fiscal year 1999. The four enterprises, which were

characterized by NASA in its fiscal year 1999 strategic plan as analogous to

business units in the private sector, are Space Science; Earth Science;

Human Exploration and Development of Space; and Aeronautics and

Space Transportation Technology. In addition, the performance plan

includes goals and measures for the internal processes it characterizes as

crosscutting.

NASA officials told us that the enterprise performance targets are indicators

of progress toward the agency’s near-term goals. Generally, the enterprise

near-term goals are objective and free from bias. The plan provides both

quantitative and qualitative measures for aspects of some of the goals. For

example, in addition to quantitative measures for exploring the role of

gravity in physical, chemical, and biological processes, the plan provides

for using “the data obtained by fluid physics experiments on suspensions

of colloidal particles on MSL-1 [Microgravity Science Laboratory] to

answer fundamental questions in condensed matter physics.....” NASA

officials acknowledged that this would require the use of qualitative

measures to determine whether the fundamental questions have been

answered.

OMB recommends that outcome goals be included in a performance plan

whenever possible, but recognizes that agencies will supplement outcome

goals with output goals. Some of NASA’s performance measures are

outcome oriented; others are output oriented. NASA officials told us that

outputs are used when demonstrating intermediate progress in support of

future outcomes and often reflect program commitments made in

conjunction with science users. For instance, they said that the

performance target of orbiting the asteroid Eros closer than 50

kilometers—a performance measure associated with NASA’s objective of

exploring the solar system—matches Near-Earth Rendezvous program

expectations and specifications. A few performance goals are not specific

to fiscal year 1999; rather, they span multiple years. For example, the plan

provides for reducing “average spacecraft cost for Space Science and

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B-279979 

Earth Science missions to $190 million from $590 million.” However, the

performance target is based on comparing spacecraft programs completed

in the time period of fiscal years 1990 through 1994 with those completed

between fiscal years 1995 through 1999. NASA officials told us that

expressing multiple year programs in a single-year context required by the

Results Act was difficult and a source of frustration for the agency.

In order to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the

importance of the goals and performance measures chosen for its

crosscutting processes, it would have been helpful for the plan to

acknowledge the agency’s major management challenges and associated

corrective actions. For example, NASA officials told us that the plan’s target

of achieving 70 percent or greater of resource authority obligated relates

to funding carryovers—an issue we have identified as a major challenge1

and which the NASA Administrator has recognized in congressional

testimony as a top priority. We have also identified other management

challenges. These include:

• improving systems and information for monitoring contractor activities

and complying with contract management requirements;

• implementing a new accounting system and the importance of this effort

to providing Congress and agency management with better financial

information and allowing the agency to move to full cost accounting; and

• resolving uneven progress toward better NASA and Department of Defense

cooperation and developing a national perspective on aerospace test

facilities.

OMB guidance states that performance goals for corrective steps for major

management problems should be included for problems whose resolution

is mission-critical, such as problems that could materially impede the

achievement of program goals. Recognizing those management challenges

appears to meet the intent of OMB’s guidance.

Furthermore, although the performance plan includes performance targets

related to contracting, such as increasing the obligated funds for

Performance-Based Contracts to 80 percent, the performance measure can

be better understood by referencing the agency’s efforts to ensure that it

has relevant and reliable methods for timely and accurate monitoring of its

contract management activities. For example, the performance plan is

1

NASA: Major Management Problems (GAO/T-NSIAD-97-178, July 24, 1997).

Page 4 GAO/NSIAD-98-181 NASA’s Fiscal Year 1999 Performance Plan
B-279979 

silent on NASA’s planned corrective efforts in fiscal year 1999 to evaluate

the effectiveness of its contract management activities at its field centers.2

Connecting Goals,

Missions, and Activities

NASA’s performance goals are closely aligned with the agency-wide and

enterprise strategic mission, goals, and objectives, and provide good

linkages between the agency’s near-term strategic goals and the enterprise

near-term goals, objectives, and performance targets. This is accomplished

through well-laid out charts summarizing these relationships.

OMB Circular A-11 provides that the annual performance plan should also

show how specific performance goals are related to the specific program

activities contained in the agency’s program and financing (P&F)

schedules in the President’s Budget. NASA’s performance plan contains a

table that allocates NASA’s $13.5 billion fiscal year 1999 budget request

among its four enterprises and several other consolidated budget

accounts. Each of the enterprises is related to a set of performance goals.

However, the plan does not clearly explain how NASA’s program activities

relate to the budget totals presented for each enterprise. There is no

crosswalk to facilitate an understanding of the relationship between the

specific program activities in the budget and the goals and measures in the

performance plan. Therefore, we believe NASA’s performance plan cannot

help Congress understand which performance goals and measures in the

plan cover which program activities or whether all program activities in

NASA’s budget are covered by its performance goals.

NASA officials with whom we spoke during our review indicated that these

relationships can be determined by simultaneously analyzing information

in its “trilogy” of documents, namely the annual budget justification,

strategic plan, and performance plan. However, they recognize that a

clearer connection between performance goals and the program activities

in the budget needs to be provided in future performance plans to

facilitate analysis. According to those officials, an initiative is underway to

align these documents.

Recognizing Crosscutting

Efforts

The performance plan points out that collaborative efforts with other

agencies and international partners will continue to be key to the

successful implementation of enterprise strategies. Although the plan

identifies the specific agency or international partner involved in carrying

out specific efforts, it does not discuss the extent to which other agencies

2

High Risk Program: Information on Selected High-Risk Areas (GAO/HR-97-30, May 16, 1997).

Page 5 GAO/NSIAD-98-181 NASA’s Fiscal Year 1999 Performance Plan
B-279979 

have been coordinated with in establishing the goals, objectives, and

associated performance targets. For example, in describing the objective

of developing next-generation computational design tools, the plan

indicates that NASA’s efforts are part of the Federal High Performance

Computing and Communications (HPCC) initiative. However, there is no

discussion as to whether NASA coordinated its performance target of a

200-fold improvement with other federal partners, nor is there an

explanation of how NASA’s effort will contribute to the overall federal

initiative.

NASA’s performance plan would be strengthened if it identified activities

being undertaken to address crosscutting issues of broad national concern

and discussed how achieving the agency’s goals will contribute to

addressing the crosscutting issues. To indicate how NASA’s programs

contribute to addressing a crosscutting issue, the plan could present

output goals, output measures, intermediate outcome goals, and

intermediate outcome measures that reflect the agency’s contributions to

addressing the crosscutting issues.

The performance plan could be improved if it discussed efforts to

coordinate NASA’s programs with other federal programs performing

related activities and provided evidence of coordination such as joint

planning and coordination or development of partnerships aimed at

improving program efficiency and effectiveness.

NASA’s Performance

Plan Does Not Fully

Discuss How the

Agency’s Strategies

and Resources Will

Help Achieve Its

Goals

The performance plan does not fully discuss how the agency’s strategies

and resources will help achieve its goals. The implementation strategy

descriptions in each enterprise section are unclear and do not provide

sufficient information on how NASA will go about accomplishing its

near-term enterprise goals. The plan only partially discusses resources; it

does not describe the operational processes, skill and technology, human,

capital, and information resources required to achieve the performance

goals.

Connecting Strategies to

Results

The NASA plan does not fully describe how the agency will achieve its

performance goals, nor does it reference other documents that show how

the strategies will contribute to achieving the agency’s performance goals.

Enterprise implementation strategy descriptions lack detailed information

on how NASA will accomplish its enterprise goals. In several instances,

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B-279979 

these descriptions appear to outline philosophies rather than describe

enabling actions. For instance, application of the “faster, better, cheaper”

approach to spacecraft development identified in both the Space Science

and Earth Science implementation strategy sections is not clearly

explained. At a minimum, it would have been helpful if the plan had

included an explicit discussion on what is involved in applying that

approach and how the establishment of “prudent risks” is part of it.

While not required by the Results Act, we believe that a similar discussion

of external factors and discussion of how NASA will mitigate or use the

identified factors to achieve performance goals could provide additional

context regarding anticipated performance. With the exception of stating

that NASA assumes that International Space Station partners will meet their

own schedules, the plan does not explain how NASA will address external

factors that could affect the agency’s performance during the coming fiscal

year. In its strategic plan, NASA had identified several key external factors,

such as the stability of future budgets. We believe that a similar discussion

in the performance plan would be helpful. This is particularly pertinent for

NASA’s budgetary programmatic priorities, including the International

Space Station, which could potentially consume a large portion of NASA’s

future resources and affect the timely implementation of other programs.

Connecting Resources to

Strategies

NASA’s performance plan partially discusses the resources it will use to

achieve the performance goals. Characterization of resources needed by

NASA to meet its performance goals is limited to identifying fiscal year 1999

funding requirements by enterprise. In addition, the plan does not discuss

operational processes, skills and technology, human and capital resources

required to meet the performance goals.

Information technology issues are discussed in the context of the internal

crosscutting objective entitled “improving technology capability and

services.” The performance target is identified as improving information

technology return on investment and customer satisfaction by maintaining

a positive return on investment and a “satisfactory” rating from

information technology customers. The performance measure of

“maintaining a positive return on investment” is vague and does not

indicate how the target of improving information technology return on

investment will be achieved. Likewise, although maintaining a

“satisfactory” rating from customers is a positive measure, it does not

indicate whether any improvement is being achieved.

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We observe that the information technology goal and measure identified in

the performance plan do not specifically address any of the important

information technology management issues that NASA currently faces.

Specifically, the plan does not discuss how

• NASA plans to measure compliance with the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996,

which calls for agencies to implement a framework of modern technology

management based on practices followed by leading private-sector and

public-sector organizations that have successfully used technology to

dramatically improve performance and meet strategic goals;

• the agency’s new Chief Information Officer (CIO) management structure,

which depends on the cooperation of NASA’s diverse enterprises and field

centers, will measure its success in providing strategic direction to

information technology investments; and

• NASA plans to address the “year 2000 problem” (which requires that

computer systems be changed to accommodate dates beyond the year

1999) as well as any significant information security weaknesses—two

issues that we have identified as high risk across the federal government.3

Both the “year 2000 problem” and information security weaknesses could

seriously undermine the performance and integrity of NASA’s information

systems if not adequately addressed.

In addition, NASA’s performance plan contains no discussion of its strategy

for achieving improvements in information technology capability and

services, nor does it refer to a separate information technology annual

plan that might contain such information. As a result, there is no way to

assess whether NASA is reasonably prepared to undertake any significant

improvement in information technology capability and services or whether

such a goal is attainable. Furthermore, the performance plan gives no

indication of the resources associated with the information technology

improvement goal.

Furthermore, the performance of NASA’s major capital investments in

information technology are not specifically addressed in its performance

plan. For example, the Earth Science Enterprise section discusses an

objective of improving dissemination of Earth Science research results but

does not mention the Earth Observing System Data and Information

System (EOSDIS). NASA has requested $257 million for EOSDIS in fiscal year

1999. No planned measures of the performance of EOSDIS are included.

3

The year 2000 problem refers to the potential for computer programs to generate incorrect results

when using dates from the year 2000 and beyond.

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B-279979 

NASA’s Performance

Plan Partially

Provides Confidence

That Its Performance

Information Will Be

Credible

While NASA’s performance plan identifies internal and external

organizations that will evaluate performance, it does not include a

discussion of the procedures that will be used to verify and validate

performance data and the limitations that could exist with internal sources

of data that NASA plans to use to assess performance. Although the Results

Act does not require that limitations of external sources of data be

discussed in performance plans, we believe NASA’s performance plan

would be improved with the inclusion of such a discussion.

Verifying and Validating

Performance

NASA’s performance plan states that performance will be evaluated by

internal and external processes. Internal assessments will be conducted by

agency management councils throughout the year and semi-annually by

the Senior Management Council. External assessments will be conducted

annually by the NASA Advisory Council and organizations such as the

National Academy of Sciences. For example, the plan indicates that the

Aeronautics and Space Transportation Technology Committee of the NASA

Advisory Council will conduct annual assessments of the progress made

by the Aeronautics and Space Transportation Technology Enterprise. This

committee will provide a qualitative progress measurement, including

commentary to clarify and supplement the qualitative measures. Such

commentary would constitute a means to verify and validate measured

values.

Recognizing Data

Limitations

The plan falls short in this area. NASA’s plan does not address limitations to

the data from internal or external sources. To gauge its progress, NASA

enterprises will likely rely extensively on internal sources of data, such as

program management reports. However, the plan does not discuss any

limitations that these data sources have. For example:

• As previously discussed, the performance target of “improving information

technology” will require assessments of the trend in the ratio of benefits

achieved to information technology costs. The plan would be more

complete if it identified the challenges associated with determining

benefits attributable to information technology investments.

• In describing its internal crosscutting process characterized as

“Communicate Knowledge,” one of the objectives described is the

development of educational outreach programs. One of the associated

performance targets in fiscal year 1999 is to increase the number of

students reached through its NEWEST/NEWMAST programs to 42,000

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B-279979 

students from 37,000 students. It is not clear whether NASA will do its own

survey or need to rely on other external information sources.

NASA’s performance plan could also benefit from a discussion of the

accuracy and reliability of data from external sources, even though such a

discussion is not required by the Results Act. As previously discussed, the

plan recognizes that securing collaboration and cooperation with other

agencies and research partners is key to the successful accomplishment of

its goals. In its description of the objective of making major scientific

contributions to national and international environmental assessments,

the plan can be improved by indicating whether NASA will rely on

information provided by its partner, the Federal Aviation Administration

(FAA), to assess atmospheric effects of aviation, and if so, how the

accuracy and reliability of FAA’s data will be assessed. Since the

performance target associated with this objective is to make significant

contributions—further defined by NASA officials as being referenced in

technical literature—such added information could influence greater use

of the information generated.

As previously noted, a critical component to NASA’s evaluation of its

performance is the establishment of a financial management system and

its integration with full cost accounting. Full cost accounting facilitates

decision making and increases accountability by automating the agency’s

operations and linking data results and costs to major agency activities,

budgets, accounts, and reports. Unfortunately, all the information NASA

needs to measure the costs associated with its performance is currently

not available. NASA’s plans to implement full cost accounting are

contingent upon the timely completion of its new financial management

system, which NASA plans to implement in 1999. Until the new integrated

financial management system is operational, performance assessments

relying on cost data may be incomplete.

Agency Comments

and Our Evaluation

We provided a draft of this report to NASA for review and comment. In its

comments, NASA stated that it will continually improve the content of its

annual plan and recognizes the usefulness of our comments and

recommendations. NASA intends to use its strategic plan, budget

justification, and performance plan as a “trilogy of documents” to be

reviewed as a package. Even though the areas we identified in our report

as lacking specificity may be addressed in NASA’s strategic plan, budget

justification and other documents, we maintain that the performance plan

could be more useful by better linking performance goals and measures to

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B-279979 

program activities in the budget; more fully explaining procedures for

verifying and validating performance data and recognizing the limitations

that affect the credibility of data that will be used to measure

performance; and by acknowledging major management challenges and

associated corrective actions. Including these areas in the plan would

provide a more comprehensive understanding of the importance of NASA’s

goals and performance measures, making it more useful for purposes of

the Results Act.

NASA’s comments and our evaluation of them are presented in appendix I.

Scope and

Methodology

The scope of our work was limited to the information contained in NASA’s

fiscal year 1999 performance plan and clarifying discussions we had with

NASA officials. The criteria we used to conduct this review were the Results

Act, OMB’s guidance on developing the plans (Circular A-11, part 2), our

February 1998 guidance for congressional review of the plans (GGD/AIMD

10.1.18), and the December 17, 1997, letter to OMB Director Raines from

several congressional leaders. For purposes of our analysis, we collapsed

the six requirements for annual performance plans in the Results Act and

the related guidance into three core questions: (1) To what extent does the

agency’s performance plan provide a clear picture of intended

performance across the agency? (2) How well does the performance plan

discuss the strategies and resources the agency will use to achieve its

performance plan? (3) To what extent does the agency’s performance plan

provide confidence that its performance information will be credible?

We conducted our work between December 1997 and April 1998 in

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

As requested, we plan no further distribution of this report until 7 days

after its issue date. At that time we will send copies to the Director of the

Office of Management and Budget, the Administrator of NASA, and

appropriate congressional committees. We will also make copies available

to other interested parties on request.

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If you or your staff have any questions concerning this report, please

contact me on (202) 512-4841. The major contributors to this letter are

listed in appendix II.

Allen Li

Associate Director

Defense Acquisitions Issues

Page 12 GAO/NSIAD-98-181 NASA’s Fiscal Year 1999 Performance Plan
Page 13 GAO/NSIAD-98-181 NASA’s Fiscal Year 1999 Performance Plan
Contents

Letter 1

Appendix I 

Comments From the

National Aeronautics

and Space

Administration

16

GAO Comments 19

Appendix II 

Major Contributors to

This Report

22

National Security and International Affairs Division, Washington,

D.C.

22

Accounting and Information Management Division 22

Atlanta Regional Office 22

Office of the General Counsel 22

Related GAO Products 24

Abbreviations

CIO Chief of Information Officer

EOSDIS Earth Observing System Data and Information System

FAA Federal Aviation Administration

HPCC High Performance Computing and Communications

NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration

OMB Office of Management and Budget

Page 14 GAO/NSIAD-98-181 NASA’s Fiscal Year 1999 Performance Plan
Page 15 GAO/NSIAD-98-181 NASA’s Fiscal Year 1999 Performance Plan
Appendix I 

Comments From the National Aeronautics

and Space Administration

Page 16 GAO/NSIAD-98-181 NASA’s Fiscal Year 1999 Performance Plan
Appendix I 

Comments From the National Aeronautics

and Space Administration

Page 17 GAO/NSIAD-98-181 NASA’s Fiscal Year 1999 Performance Plan
Appendix I 

Comments From the National Aeronautics

and Space Administration

Page 18 GAO/NSIAD-98-181 NASA’s Fiscal Year 1999 Performance Plan
Appendix I 

Comments From the National Aeronautics

and Space Administration

The following are GAO’s comments on NASA’s letter dated April 24, 1998.

GAO Comments 1. Responding to the issues raised in this report, NASA concludes that it has

complied with the requirements of GPRA. We agree. Our point in the

report was that the plan contains areas that could be strengthened, making

it more useful to the Congress. In discussing the strengths of NASA’s

performance plan, our report recognizes that the plan provided good

linkage between strategic goals and the goals in the performance plan and

that performance measures were generally objective, quantifiable, and

useful for assessing progress. However, our report also clearly states that

NASA’s plan could provide a clearer picture of intended performance across

the agency and does not fully portray how NASA’s strategies and resources

will help it achieve the plan’s performance goals. The report also states

that NASA’s plan does not clearly explain how program activities relate to

the budget; and that there is no crosswalk to facilitate an understanding of

the relationship between the specific program activities in the budget and

the goals and measures in the performance plan. As stated in our report,

NASA is in agreement to merge the budget justification and performance

plan process in an effort to provide a crosswalk showing the relationship

of performance targets to program activities and resources.

2. In commenting on measures for major management challenges, NASA

recognizes that the plan does not include measures to improve the

management challenges we address. While these management issues may

be addressed in other management documents, such as the Chief Financial

Officer’s Five-Year Plan, Chief Information Officer’s Information

Technology Implementation Plan and implementation planning documents

being developed by the Office of Procurement, to which NASA alludes, we

did not review these documents; neither does the performance plan

include reference to them. Referencing these documents in the plan would

have been useful in providing specific sources for obtaining a more

comprehensive understanding of the importance of these issues. We

continue to believe that an acknowledgement of major management

challenges and associated corrective actions would make the plan more

useful for purposes of the Results Act.

3. In addressing the issue of resource requirements to achieve

performance, NASA correctly restates our concern that the plan only

addresses funding requirements for fiscal year 1999 at the Enterprise level.

As in their comment to our point on not identifying management

challenges, NASA makes the assumption that, since a discussion of

Page 19 GAO/NSIAD-98-181 NASA’s Fiscal Year 1999 Performance Plan
Appendix I 

Comments From the National Aeronautics

and Space Administration

operational processes, skills and technology, human and capital resources

required to meet the performance goals is provided in the budget

justification, it need not be included in the performance plan. Referencing

these documents in the plan would have been useful in providing specific

sources for obtaining a more comprehensive understanding of the

importance of these issues.

4. Responding to our concern that the plan’s implementation strategy of

applying the “faster, better, cheaper” approach to spacecraft development

is not clearly explained, NASA contends that the statement that follows in

the plan is a clear enough description of its approach. We do not agree.

The statement NASA alludes to says that “Program managers are

encouraged to accept prudent risk, shorten development time of

technologies and missions, explore new conceptual approaches,

streamline management, and incorporate innovative methods and

technologies to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.” In our opinion, this

statement does not provide a clear explanation of NASA’s implementation

strategy. We continue to believe that a more explicit discussion of this

approach is needed.

5. Our issue regarding EOSDIS is not in its lack of identification in the

section discussing crosscutting information technology. Rather, we take

issue with EOSDIS not being specifically mentioned either in the references

cited in NASA’s comments or anywhere else in the performance plan,

despite the fact that NASA plans to spend well over $1 billion on the system.

NASA’s comment assumes that the reader of the plan would recognize

EOSDIS as the vehicle for improving dissemination of Earth Science

research results. We believe that a large investment such as EOSDIS should

be explicitly addressed in the performance plan in order to ensure that its

actual performance is understood. For example, a test of one part of EOSDIS

in March 1998 revealed software problems that will force the launch of the

EOS AM-1 satellite to be delayed by at least 6 months. We believe that the

cost and schedule impact of this and other EOSDIS development problems

needs to be explicitly and objectively assessed.

6. Responding to our concern about the lack of any discussion in the plan

about the credibility of performance information, NASA officials expressed

the belief that the data it collects will be credible and that we may be

premature in passing judgement. As support, NASA references the audit of

its fiscal year 1996 and fiscal year 1997 Accountability Reports by Arthur

Andersen LLP, which the agency says found no significant issues with the

credibility of NASA’s performance information plans. We have three points

Page 20 GAO/NSIAD-98-181 NASA’s Fiscal Year 1999 Performance Plan
Appendix I 

Comments From the National Aeronautics

and Space Administration

regarding NASA’s comment. First, the plan would have been strengthened

by referencing the results of the Arthur Andersen LLP audit in the

performance plan. Second, while a review of the Accountability Reports

was not in the scope of our review, we believe that the objectives and

performance measures in the performance plan are likely to be more

results oriented than those included in the Accountability Reports NASA

references. Third, while the plan does identify internal and external

organizations that will evaluate its performance, we believe that it is not

premature for NASA’s performance plan to include a discussion of

procedures that will be used to verify and validate performance data and

the limitations that could exist with internal sources of data that NASA

plans to use to assess performance.

Page 21 GAO/NSIAD-98-181 NASA’s Fiscal Year 1999 Performance Plan
Appendix II 

Major Contributors to This Report

National Security and

International Affairs

Division, Washington,

D.C.

Richard J. Herley

Samuel N. Cox

Shirley B. Johnson

Accounting and

Information

Management Division

Joseph A. deFerrari

Atlanta Regional

Office

Elizabeth M. Mixon

Office of the General

Counsel

William T. Woods

Page 22 GAO/NSIAD-98-181 NASA’s Fiscal Year 1999 Performance Plan
Page 23 GAO/NSIAD-98-181 NASA’s Fiscal Year 1999 Performance Plan
Related GAO Products

NASA Budget: Carryover Balances in Selected Programs (GAO/NSIAD-96-206,

July 16, 1996).

High-Risk Program: Information on Selected High-Risk Areas (GAO/HR-97-30,

May 16, 1997).

Results Act: Observations on NASA’s May 1997 Draft Strategic Plan

(GAO/NSIAD-97-205R, July 22, 1997).

NASA: Major Management Problems (GAO/T-NSIAD-97-178, July 24, 1997).

Managing for Results: Agencies’ Annual Performance Plans Can Help

Address Strategic Planning Challenges (GAO/GGD-98-44, Jan. 30, 1998).

Aerospace Testing: Promise of Closer NASA/DOD Cooperation Remains

Largely Unfulfilled (GAO/NSIAD-98-52, Mar. 11, 1998).

(707313) Page 24 GAO/NSIAD-98-181 NASA’s Fiscal Year 1999 Performance Plan
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