Agreed but what are you trying to achieve, changing a computer system or changing an organisational culture? They’re both achievable with the ‘right’ approach. Been there, done that.

The Constellation program was about pouring billions of taxpayer dollars into SRB development and maintaining that monopoly over liquid fuel booster development for crew and HLV’s. ATK can now use Liberty for commercial purposes all at taxpayer expense.

As for the GOP, it passes a bill that pours billions into Constellation even though there is no possibility of it ever being affordable and slashes commercial programs and demands that competition be eliminated because they are afraid SpaceX might actually work and make SLS/Orion look bad.

That must be why Congress has recently undone O’Keefe’s attempt to introduce full cost accounting. At least, that’s what I understand they did.

Full cost accounting won’t stop a shameless congressman from earmarking the heck out of an agency’s budget or an idiot federal manager from making stupid decisions. But it does inform budget and program decisions better than not knowing the true costs of programs.

Today and for most of NASA’s (and the federal government’s) history, program managers have not known or had control over the actual costs of their programs. They’re able to draw on civil servant resources and engineering pools without booking those costs to their programs. And they contribute on a pro rata basis to field center infrastructure like computational facilities and wind tunnels, regardless of whether their program uses that infrastructure. The only costs program managers have much knowledge and direct control over are the costs of contracted work. That’s about 80% of the NASA budget, which means that the true costs of NASA programs are, on average, 20% higher than advertised. Worse, a significant portion of those budgets go to things that do not contribute materially to the programs — the programs are heavily taxed to support unnecessary facilities, infrastructure, and overhead that they (or no one) uses. If program managers knew and had control over the actual costs of their programs, they could make intelligent decisions and allocate those resources most efficiently to achieve their program’s goals. It wouldn’t stop stupid managers from being stupid, but smart (or average) managers wouldn’t be hamstrung by only having partial knowledge of what resources they’re receiving and what they’re paying for.

Same goes for earmarks, lazy cuts, and other congressional interference. Grossly expensive earmarks like MPCV/SLS would be that much harder to get passed if their true costs were known and advertised. And cuts to unallocated personnel accounts like Cross-Agency Support would be impossible — Congress would have to cut actual programs, not just engineering and overhead pools.

“which is what NASA suffers from, not a lack of money.”

No argument there. But for those who think NASA needs more money, full cost accounting would better justify that need (and better protect the budget NASA has from cuts). Unfortunately, Griffin (and others before and after him) would rather play budget shell games to protect their pet programs and facilities from scrutiny, rather than take the painful steps necessary to manage the true costs of the agency’s programs.