NASA Auditor: We're Losing Millions on Underused Buildings

It's budget cutting season in Washington, D.C., and the news is full of dire warnings of services lost and projects delayed. NASA is not immune: The agency has already dropped funding for an international trip to Mars planned for 2016. Yet it turns out the agency could save some money simply by being a smarter landlord.

NASA's inspector general Paul Martin released a report (full report pdf) last week detailing ways the agency can save money. On his list was underused infrastructure that NASA owns. Of the federal government's agencies, NASA is the ninth largest property owner, he notes, "controlling approximately 4900 buildings and structures with an estimated replacement value of more than $30 billion. In addition, more than 80 percent of the agency's facilities are 40 or more years old and beyond their design life." NASA estimates the shortfall on maintaining these buildings is $2.3 billion.

In an audit, the inspector general's office identified 33 wind tunnels, test stands, thermal-vacuum chambers, airfields, and launch-related facilities that "NASA was not fully utilizing or for which agency managers could not identify a future mission use." The upkeep cost in 2011 alone: $43 million.

Martin says NASA should shutter these facilities, selling them or transferring them to new ownership. "To be successful in this effort, NASA must move beyond its historic ?keep it in case we need it' approach of managing its facilities," he says. He suggests "an independent outside process similar to the Department of Defense's Base Realignment and Closure Commission" to help break the political and institutional resistance to closing, well, just about anything.?He also suggests leasing facilities that can be used for specific missions (as required by federal law.)

"The challenge for NASA is to use leasing when appropriate to generate revenue to offset facilities operations and maintenance costs," he says. "Not using it as a way to hold on to facilities it does not need."

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/nasa-auditor-were-losing-millions-on-underused-buildings-15159205?src=rss

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