There’s no shortage of potential financial concerns at NASA that are worth of the attention of the media, from whether the agency’s budget is sufficient to handle all of its projects to worries about cost and schedule overruns on various programs to general financial management concerns. But those are all dry, boring steak to the sizzle that really attracts the attention of TV in particular: parties.
With all the righteous indignation of a local news I-Team report, the CBS Evening News reported on how NASA is spending up to half a million dollars to honor shuttle workers in December, including rooms at a “luxury Florida hotel”, “fancy receptions”, and view of a shuttle launch. “All paid for by your tax dollars,” the report continues, adding that such events are held for every shuttle launch (although at the current flight rate, it’s not clear how you get from a half-million per event to $4 million a year, as the report claims). Juxtaposed against that is the Senate’s approval last month of a billion-dollar increase in NASA’s FY08 budget. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK): “I think it’s kind of ironic that they’re gonna be extravagant at how they spend money and they’re coming to us saying they want more money.”
(This is not the first time that the CBS Evening News and its anchor, Katie Couric, have taken a jab at NASA: recall a little over a year ago Couric wondered what NASA’s budget “could do for people right here on planet Earth”.)
Setting aside the question of whether spending that money on the event makes sense, here’s a question for CBS News: was it worth three minutes of a half-hour telecast to focus on something that costs a couple million dollars a year when many people have questions about whether NASA is going in the right overall direction with a budget in excess of $17 billion a year?
Well, we can take solace in the fact that nobody’s watching Katie anyway…
But a little more seriously, these evening news spotlights on “government waste” are often so superficial that they distort the situation. Years ago I remember an ABC evening news story about how the FAA was “wasting millions of dollars” on some new airport approach system when a cheaper and “obviously superior” system was available. I don’t remember the details, but I believe that they were attacking the FAA for purchasing a microwave landing system instead of focusing on GPS. Although I did not know the details of what they were discussing, their story was so one-sided that they never even bothered to ask the FAA _why_ they were buying the microwave system. I can certainly imagine reasons why, such as accuracy (GPS has to be augmented in order to reach high accuracy) and how much each system would require modification of existing aircraft (in other words, many planes may already be equipped with one system and not the other). ABC didn’t seem to care about any of that–they made their charge and then zoomed off to the next story without ever bothering to get both sides of the story.
As for the CBS story, the tone seems a little snarky, doesn’t it?
This all nicely supports the view that media leftists a) are anti science and technology with the exception of medicine b) leave no stone unturned to bring down another Bush appointee c) don’t want anybody else to have fun d) never could do maths which explains a).
CBS has an instinct, as usual, for the capillary.
Rand: I think you mean “to go for the capillary”.
CBS is spending 3 minutes criticising a $500,000 party when they could sell three minutes of ads to pay off the party.
While I agree that the dollar amounts involved here are small by NASA (or most federal) program standards, it’s still a wasteful and inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars. This is very different from the Mars spending thread, where taxpayer dollars would be going towards research and technology development, a legitimate use of taxpayer resources. If they havn’t, folks should read the article. This is several million per year in taxpayer dollars providing a very small portion of the Shuttle contractor workforce (about 300) with week-long accommodations at luxury Orlando hotels, multiple receptions with gourmet food, and airfare to every Shuttle launch.
I apologize for my sanctimony, but working for the federal government, and for the civil space program in particular, is a privelege, not an entitlement. I’ve worked as a civil servant for three different federal agencies and never did the dollars associated with similarly sized holiday parties (for example) ever come within several significant figures of these amounts. I’ve overseen contractors on several projects and never did the dollars associated with similarly sized contractor awards ceremonies (for example) ever come within several significant figures of these amounts.
Forget my income taxes, I hate to see a poorly paid office secretary, waitress, or taxi driver’s income taxes going towards such frivolous excess. Again, I agree with the sentiment that it would be a better use of CBS airtime to focus on one or two of the bigger problems that really threaten to derail NASA’s human space flight programs (probability of losing a third Shuttle before ISS assembly ends; ESAS errors; wasterful Ares I duplication of existing national launch capabilities; safety issues, schedule delays, and mismatch between content and budget on Ares I/Orion; inability of Ares I/V to support the lunar architecture; raiding of other NASA program budgets; etc.). But going back to Mr. Foust’s title, this kind of waste of taxpayer dollars actually is a very legitimate and meaty issue in any government program, NASA or otherwise. CBS is doing the taxpayer a service by investigating and reporting on it.
“This all nicely supports the view that media leftists a) are anti science and technology with the exception of medicine b) leave no stone unturned to bring down another Bush appointee c) don’t want anybody else to have fun d) never could do maths which explains a).”
If any of that were true, then a Republican Senator (Coburn, R-OK) would not be leading the charge on this issue. Seems as though the “media leftists” are doing something that we fiscal conservatives should be doing more of — identifying, reporting on, and helping to stop wasteful government spending.
FWIW…
Fellow Space Enthusiasts –
First, a disclaimer: I have been on two of the Space Flight Awareness trips so far.
That being said, a career in and around the military and NASA tells me that it is reasonable and justifiable to use some of your funds to motivate, recognize, and encourage the many people that work to make a project successful.
The government (and all bureaucracies) has several ways to do that – one is group awards, where the project leader gets up to accept some item (which will be soon relegated to a dusty trophy case somewhere). One way is to have gatherings where many of the actual worker bees get to have a discounted adult beverage together. Another is the medal, where you get a special dangly thing to wear on your clothes.
My experience is that the gathering is very motivational, very reasonable since a large part of the group gets together as a group to be lauded.
The two trips I have been on have NOT included luxury hotels. A fancy gathering just means that they rent a room somewhere and everyone wears their (personal) best clothes. A view of a shuttle launch does not involve significant additional expense as far as I can tell. So CBS is choosing emotionally charged language to sell their news. This is their business and making money is their reasonable goal.
But … Dare we point out the enormous salaries of the CBS executives and anchors? Dare we note that they may also go to a fancy reception once in a while? Dare we mention the vast gulf between the compensation they get and their results (measured perhaps in percentage of the viewer watching Ms Couric)?? Why does so much news appear to be infotainment now – stories about Anna Nicole Smith and OJ Simpson? Maybe CBS needs to recruit and retain a few more actual news professionals.
As so many people, I have questions about how many bureaucracies spend their money. Perhaps we should ask Sen Coburn why Congressional staffers cannot rely on OSHA to check their working conditions??
The CBS story is an example of the news sellers picking the low hanging fruit when many more important stories await higher in the branches. But getting the real news would take time, effort, and expertise. Real news might actually make those reported about (for instance the Congress) upset and wreck the next correspondent’s dinner.
Charles
Mainstream media has become nearly useless at “investigative†reporting. Anyone that knows anything about subjects being reported also know of the many inaccuracies. Only by going close to the source can you get close to the facts. I feel that all the accusation of the media being leftist or rightist is a distraction created by both parties. The media is basically used as a pawn because they don’t check the facts of a story. Special interest media I think has gained in popularity since it gives a lot more information which makes it easier to wade through biases. It’s also nice to read stories from other counties since it usually gives you a different perspective on a story. I only read from countries that have English versions of stories since I can’t read other languages except a little French. I would love to read Russian and Chinese news articles.
“Parties” can get really expensive fast. I’m not sure that this is really excessive. PR is very important for NASA since most of these people may be sharing the expense of programs. I’m bet Health and Human Services “waste†a lot more of their $600+ billion budget than NASA’s annual budget.
$500,000 over 300 people isn’t really all that much per person, if you’re going to send them by plane to an award for a week. A week-long course will probably cost a lot more than that, when tuition, air fare, hotel, rental car, and meals are considered. I’ve also seen bonuses that were bigger than that. This is in private industry, though. I’ve also seen some nice non-cash mass award ceremonies that were fairly nice (not quite week-long trips, though).
To some extent such incentives are justified. The number of people involved, the fact that it’s a government program in an environment where other agency programs are being eliminated, and the size of the award all combined make it a questionable practice for NASA, though – sort of begging for such a news story.
On the other hand, what would the message be if the award program were removed? Safety isn’t important?
It might be better, politically speaking, to pick a handful of “superstars” to go on the award trip, and give the rest of the winners a nice ceremony and award – perhaps something in the $200-$500 range? – locally.
The astronauts who benefited from the hard safety work could be at the event.
Assuming this results in some savings, it would be cool to pick a small NASA program to be funded in the honor of the award winning group, and cover that in the ceremony, too. For example, a new Centennial Challenge could be made, some help for Arecibo or NIAC could be funded, or some suborbital experiment could be implemented and flown in honor of the group.
http://sfa.nasa.gov/
“My experience is that the gathering is very motivational, very reasonable since a large part of the group gets together as a group to be lauded.”
Agreed. But there is a huge difference between a government awards ceremony, even at an offsite location with a nice dinner, and a week-long vacation to Orlando. The latter is excessive by the standards of the former.
“But … Dare we point out the enormous salaries of the CBS executives and anchors? Dare we note that they may also go to a fancy reception once in a while? Dare we mention the vast gulf between the compensation they get and their results (measured perhaps in percentage of the viewer watching Ms Couric)??”
This is a non-sequitor. CBS employees are not paid or rewarded out of our tax dollars. CBS management has to answer to shareholders, not taxpayers and voters.
“A week-long course”
This is the point. This isn’t training or education — it’s a vacation. As taxpayers, we should be more than willing to pay to keep a civil space workforce competent and up-to-date. But we should not be willing to pay to send that same workforce and their families on week-long vacations to Orlando. There are appropriate and inappropriate uses of taxpayer dollars, and this falls into the inappropriate category.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for rewarding good, hard work. But again, there are appropriate and inappropriate types and levels of reward, especially when those rewards are paid for by taxpayers.
“will probably cost a lot more than that, when tuition, air fare, hotel, rental car, and meals are considered.”
Maybe. But I’ve been to handful of such week-long civil servant training programs, and I stayed at a Budget Suites or the equivalent, not a “luxury Orlando hotel”. And I drove across two states to the site; taxpayers did not have to pay for airfare. And I had to live within a modest daily per diem; no one served or paid for me to eat from a “carving station with beef and turkey, coconut fried shrimp… shrimp wrapped with bacon” or a “three-course sit-down dinner”.
“it would be cool to pick a small NASA program to be funded in the honor of the award winning group, and cover that in the ceremony, too. For example, a new Centennial Challenge could be made, some help for Arecibo or NIAC could be funded, or some suborbital experiment could be implemented and flown in honor of the group.”
It is interesting to juxtapose these spending items. NASA, Congress, and the White Hosue can find a few million dollars a year in the NASA budget for week-long, luxury-class Orlando vacations for Space Shuttle contractors. But they can’t come up with similar annual amounts for, say, a prize program in which the teams pay out of their own pocket to develop new technologies and capabilities with no guarantee of getting paid back? Or to keep a highly successful advanced study institute going, in which awardees have brought large percentages of their own matching resources to bear?
Again, the dollar amounts are small and there are arguably much bigger problems in NASA’s human space flight programs that need to be recognized and dealt with. But something is pretty screwed up with this kind of bizarro world allocation of taxpayer dollars…
My 2 cents… your mileage may vary… FWIW.
I would tend to agree with anonymous.space here. Rewards are all well good, and a valuable part of any good management plan, but even if this article does exaggerate, I’d be concerned that this was a waste of taxpayer dollars.