Tighten Those Purse Strings, Scientists Tell NASA

The cost overruns of the 14 missions ran from about 10% to about 160% and amounted to a total of about $1.3 billion. The problem involves "a small number of bad actors and NASA's lack of a comprehensive approach to control costs," says planetary scientist and committee member Larry W. Esposito of the University of Colorado, Boulder.

The committee's solution—gleaned from 10 cost-containment studies—includes adding a phase early in the development of proposals for competing mission concepts submitted to NASA "with funding and time to better develop cost estimates and estimates of risk," says Esposito. The shakedown period as well as other key development milestones should include more "parametric" cost estimates that "rely on observations rather than opinion," according to the report. NASA could then, presumably, weed out competing missions that had unrealistic initial cost estimates. The committee also chided NASA for increasing "the size and number of external project reviews to the point that some reviews are counterproductive and disruptive."

Buying space missions isn't like buying pencils, notes Esposito. "Each mission is a complicated and difficult activity; there's always some risk" of underestimating the challenges and resulting costs, he says, but there's still room for improvement.