NASA on Thursday promised to cancel a contract under which the agency paid up to $20,000 per seat on flights to Moscow for work on the International Space Station.
NASA Administrator Dan Goldin pledged to end the contract after NASA's inspector general released a report Thursday criticizing the Johnson Space Center in Houston for using charter services instead of commercial flights for trips to Moscow.
The average cost per passenger under the charter contract ranged from $2,753 to $19,883, according to IG reviews of cost data between January and September 1998. Because the average cost of a commercial round-trip flight to Moscow is $2,048, NASA could have saved $3 million over that nine month period if employees had flown commercially, estimated David M. Cushing, assistant inspector general for inspections, administrative investigations, and assessments.
Goldin also received a letter from Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., calling on him to "halt this waste immediately."
"My staff contacted the airlines to determine the cost of a flight to Moscow, and they were quoted a round-trip fare of $555," Thompson told Goldin.
NASA's contract is with the Defense Department's Air Mobility Command Civil Reserve Air Fleet, which makes its services available to civilian federal agencies during peacetime.
The Johnson Space Center contracted with DoD in January 1998. On Feb. 6, the NASA inspector general raised concerns about the center's cost-benefit analysis for the contract. Johnson center officials responded by promising to review the contract after three months and again after six months.
In those reviews, the Johnson center found that the charter service cost more than had been projected, but that intangible benefits-"personnel security," "occupational safety and health," and "employee morale and well-being"-justified the charter service.
The inspector general disagreed.
Each charter flight would have to have carried at least 90 passengers to be cost-effective, the IG said. But most flights carried fewer than 50 passengers, dipping down to as few as seven.
"Individuals who have used the charter service described morale benefits in terms of convenient airport locations in Houston and Moscow, and the space available on the aircraft to lie down across the seats and sleep," the IG said. "This 'benefit' of course depends on the aircraft remaining unfilled."
On Dec. 7, NASA's Office of Space Flight, which oversees the International Space Station project, told the inspector general that it believed the charter service was justified. NASA's comptroller concurred with the Office of Space Flight on Dec. 30, saying that the charter "should have been justified on programmatic grounds, and not on grounds of cost-effectiveness." The comptroller approved funding through fiscal 2001.
The IG continued to press the issue, releasing a report for "official use only" on Dec. 31. Last Thursday the IG office posted a public version of its report on the Web. Goldin's decision to terminate the contract came later that day.
"We're going to terminate the program as soon as practicable," said Peggy Wilhide, NASA's associate administrator for public affairs. NASA must review its contract to determine when it can be canceled without saddling NASA with additional costs.
Wilhide said that NASA decided the charter flight program was not as cost-effective as commercial carriers based on a new internal review of the program and the independent IG assessment. But she noted that there were a number of benefits "you couldn't put a price tag on." For example, employees could work in groups during the flights and could get through customs faster, Wilhide said.
Bill Greenwalt, a spokesman for Sen. Thompson, said the Governmental Affairs Committee will follow up with NASA to make sure the contract is canceled.
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