New Government Report Is Extremely Bad News for NASA

The GAO has never been in favor of NASA's planned Artemis missions to the moon.

The GAO criticizes the space agency for not doing its homework.

NASA uses existing schedule management guidance for individual programs, not multi- program missions, according to the latest report. NASA doesn't have assurance that it has consistent schedule management practices in place for the Artemis schedules.

The GAO wrote that this kind of top-level purview will be necessary as the Artemis missions will involve more programs over time.

NASA's ambitious plans to land astronauts on the moon and bring humans to Mars have been underscored by the report.

The agency is feeling the pressure from lawmakers over budget overruns, especially when it comes to the development of the Space Launch System.

The rocket has exceeded projected costs by billions of dollars per launch, with NASA's inspector general warning lawmakers in March that Artemis missions could soon cost $4.1 billion per launch, a price tag that strikes us as unsustainable.

Last year, a report by the GAO found that NASA's plans to get astronauts back to the moon were too ambitious.

At the time, lawmakers reacted with anger.

The GAO report released today should serve as a wake-up call to NASA's leadership and to Members of Congress that the Artemis Moon-Mars initiative is in serious trouble.

Other sobering issues include organizational weaknesses, reliance on immature technologies, and an unrealistic timetable and acquisition approach.

NASA is more confident about its Artemis missions after a year.

The GAO concluded that the agency has made progress to better identify and provide senior leadership visibility into mission-level risks.

It's not out of the woods yet, that's for sure.

Initial steps are being taken to create Artemis mission-level schedules, but more steps are needed to ensure that senior NASA leaders have quality, risk-informed information for decision-making.

According to the GAO, NASA will need an extensive workforce that is "sufficiently flexible in size and mix" to execute missions into the 2030.

A large segment of its workforce is approaching retirement which will affect Artemis missions.

The stakes are high. The Artemis 1 rocket is still sitting on the launch pad after two scrubbed launches.

The level of difficulty is only going to increase from here.

There is a plan to fix the moon rocket.