About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

Letter to the Honorable Ted Stevens: NASA's Space Flight Operations Contract and Other Technologically Complex Government Activities Conducted by Contractors [i] (July 2003)

handle is hein.congrec/cbo9044 and id is 1 raw text is: CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Director U.S. Congress Washington, DC 20515 July 29, 2003 The Honorable Ted Stevens Chairman Committee on Appropriations United States Senate S-128, The Capitol Washington, DC 20510-6025 Dear Mr. Chairman: In response to your request, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has reviewed the past and current use of contractors by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to operate and maintain the Space Shuttle. CBO has also examined other cases in which the United States government uses contractors to perform technologically complex activities. CBO's examination focuses on selected activities that it judges to be of interest based on their content. While informative, these examples do not constitute a comprehensive review of technologically complex activities conducted by the government. Nor has CBO audited the performance of the government sponsors or contractors involved in these activities. The activities CBO examines span a broad range and include maintaining and upgrading weapons systems, designing and producing weapon systems, operating and maintaining government nuclear facilities, and designing nuclear weapons. The nature of the work contractors perform varies among these activities. In some cases contractors are designing and producing complete multi-element systems; in other cases the contractors maintain or install upgrades to specific government-owned hardware or operate facilities for the government. How the government defines the work that the contractors perform also varies-in some cases the government provides a set of detailed, comprehensive specifications; in others the government uses top-level performance measures, leaving some or many details to be defined by the contractors. The cost of the work varies from annual expenditures of tens of millions of dollars to billions of dollars. The contracts used are in some cases sole-source and in others competitively awarded; some contracts are cost plus fee, and some are firm-fixed price. The size of the government workforce performing oversight of the contractors varies from less than one hundred to more than a thousand people, and how that oversight is conducted also varies. Thus, many of the elements of the examples CBO has examined differ from the ways NASA uses contractors to operate the Shuttle. Nonetheless, all of the examples considered by CBO involve the government's use of contractors to perform demanding, technologically complex tasks, a situation that is not unique to NASA. www.cbo.gov

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most