New Approaches on Energy and the Environment

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19

Smarter Budgeting for Space Missions

by Molly K. Macauley

Mr. President, I strongly recommend that your administration reform the method by which the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) budget is allocated and administered. Doing so will avoid the massive cost overruns that plague the space station, space shuttle, Hubble telescope, and virtually every other ongoing program. Unless corrected, this problem will undermine all future NASA projects as well. The new approach that I propose—known as “incentive-compatible” institutional design—will accomplish two challenging objectives: it will minimize wasteful spending and, at the same time, enable NASA to better manage the highly uncertain costs naturally associated with ...