Jan 7 1999
From The Space Library
NASA Inspector General Roberta L. Gross released a report estimating that NASA had "spent [US] $3 million in `excessive costs"' on its Houston-to-Moscow air-charter program. The investigators criticized the program, saying it was more expensive than commercial travel. An investigation had revealed that the flights, which typically used Boeing 727s seating 143 travelers, sometimes carried as few as nine people. The charter flights originated in Houston and usually stopped in Huntsville, Alabama, and Washington, DC, before continuing on to Moscow. A few weeks before the release of the report, NASA's Office of Space Flight had rejected a recommendation from the Inspector General to terminate the service, arguing that the program "provided `tangible and intangible' benefits to workers on the International Space Station [ISS]." NASA had developed the program as a cost-saving measure and as an alternative to contracting with the U.S. Department of Defense to transport employees involved with the multibillion-dollar space station program. The Inspector General found that the chartered flights averaged around 50 people; NASA had estimated a 90-passenger threshold for the program to realize savings. In response to the demand of U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs Chairperson Fred Thompson (R-TN) that NASA "halt this waste immediately," Administrator Daniel S. Goldin announced that NASA would terminate the program "as soon as practical.”
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