Report: NASA Wasted Millions on Own Planes

[DoYouEverWonder]

September 29, 2005

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA wasted millions of dollars over a two-year period by shunning commercial airline flights and instead using its own planes for routine travel, according to a government report provided to The Associated Press on Thursday.

The Government Accountability Office found that NASA spent at least five times more by flying employees on its own planes in fiscal 2003 and 2004, compared with the cost of commercial coach tickets. The extra spending totaled about $20 million.

The GAO also reported that 86 percent of NASA's own passenger flights in those two years -- or about seven of every eight flights -- involved routine business trips prohibited by rules governing what sorts of flights federal workers can take on government aircraft.

Some travel examples cited in the report include meetings, speeches, executive retreats and even the inauguration of Florida's governor and the 60th anniversary ceremony of the Pearl Harbor attack.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-nasa-waste,0,6857624.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

[bahrbearian]

1. I'd love to see Chimpy flying Coach.

[rzemanfl]

3. I'd like to see him riding in the wheel well while trying to get out of

the country undetected. God I love that image, even if I do say so myself.

[bahrbearian]

4. Excellent Image. LOL

[Sydnie]

5. Most excellent visual

I hope to dream about that very thing myself tonight. I could use some sweet dreams for a change! :)

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. Hey! You go w/ the technology you have, not the one you wish you had.

If it flies, if it is aeronautically sound, it is NASA territory. Check out their charter. Seriously.

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. To a number, the NASA people I have known were utterly

worthless bureaucrats who did oversight over utterly worthless contractors. If they closed the whole idiotic enterprise it would fine by me. mr dan golden, almost single handedly irreversibly destroyed NASA.

[struggle4progress]

7. kick