日批在线视频_内射毛片内射国产夫妻_亚洲三级小视频_在线观看亚洲大片短视频_女性向h片资源在线观看_亚洲最大网

  Home>News Center>World
         
 

NASA wasted millions on routine travel
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-10-03 10:39

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.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin speaks at a news conference at NASA headquarters in Washington September 19, 2005.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin speaks at a news conference at NASA headquarters in Washington September 19, 2005. [Reuters]
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.

It was the government's latest criticism of NASA's use of passenger planes. Twice during the 1990s, the space agency's own inspector general office found faults with the travel system.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who requested the GAO investigation, said she is troubled that "this abuse of the aircraft has been going on for years." Her office provided a copy of the GAO report to the AP on Thursday, a day before its public release.

"It's frustrating that it's taken two (inspector general) audits, a GAO investigation and the threat of a congressional oversight hearing to get an agency to comply with its obligations to the taxpayers," Collins said in a phone interview.

"In the environment we're in right now with tight federal budgets and the demands of responding to Hurricane Katrina, it is particularly disturbing to learn that a federal agency is not being a more careful steward of the taxpayers' dollars. There's also a waste of fuel here, too."

Collins, who heads the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, said she has talked to NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, who took over the space agency just this year, and he has promised to make changes.

"Our goal is to fully comply with federal-wide aircraft management policy," Griffin assured the GAO in a letter included in the report.

Griffin's predecessor, Sean O'Keefe, now Louisiana State University's chancellor, was in charge of NASA during the period covered by the GAO investigation. O'Keefe is not mentioned by name in the report; former and current senior NASA officials told the AP earlier this year he was being investigated personally for potential misuse of government planes and taking too many expensive getaways with his staff.

The GAO noted that while most NASA air travel is on commercial airlines, employees took at least 1,188 flights using space agency planes during the two-year period under review. Collins said she asked the GAO to subtract flights related to the 2003 Columbia tragedy.

Even so, "we're talking about almost 1,200 flights during fiscal years 2003 and 2004 that are questionable flights," she said.

In 2003, NASA owned and operated 85 planes valued at $362 million -- 53 planes to support the space shuttle, space station and astronaut programs, 25 for research and development, and seven for passenger travel. The space agency has owned a small fleet of passenger planes since its inception in 1958.



Bali bombings kill 25, 100 injured
US millionaire ready for space trip
Los Angeles fire
 
  Today's Top News     Top World News
 

Suicide bombers blamed for carnage on Bali

 

   
 

President Hu stresses scientific development

 

   
 

Typhoon Longwang hits Fujian after Taiwan

 

   
 

Wen visits rural residents on National Day

 

   
 

China may have world's biggest steelmaker

 

   
 

21 die as tour boat capsizes on US lake

 

   
  Japan to slash contribution to UN budget by a quarter
   
  Minister's brother free after gunbattle
   
  NASA wasted millions on routine travel
   
  Suicide bombers blamed for carnage on Bali
   
  EU FMs fail to break Turkey deadlock
   
  21 die as tour boat capsizes on US lake
   
 
  Go to Another Section  
 
 
  Story Tools  
   
  Related Stories  
   
NASA planning moon launch for 2018
   
NASA pushes back next launch date to 2006
   
NASA postpones launch of Mars orbiter
   
NASA to launch orbiter with new tools
   
Shuttle Discovery lands safely in California
   
NASA gives up first landing opportunity for Discovery
   
NASA delays Discovery landing until Tuesday
  News Talk  
  Are the Republicans exploiting the memory of 9/11?  
Advertisement
         
主站蜘蛛池模板: 国产a免费视频 | 黄页网站免费在线观看 | 亚洲欧美视频一区 | 久久中字| 美女视频久久 | 亚洲精品高潮 | 一级免费片 | 一级免费av | 中文视频在线观看 | 亚洲成人精选 | 日韩欧美一二三区 | www.欧美激情 | www.欧美色| 日韩久久中文字幕 | 久久永久视频 | 岛国大片在线免费观看 | 欧美激情三区 | 欧美日本一区二区 | 香蕉网av| av天天在线 | 在线亚洲天堂 | 有码一区| 亚洲国产精品尤物yw在线观看 | 欧美人体视频 | 成年人黄色免费视频 | 日韩免费中文字幕 | 午夜高清福利 | 中文在线视频 | 国产情侣网站 | 亚洲三级黄色 | 国产中文一区 | 成人片免费视频 | 91精品视频一区 | 一区二区三区福利视频 | 视频二区在线观看 | 福利精品视频 | 色婷婷av一区二区 | 中文字幕日本 | 亚洲精品在 | 污污视频在线观看免费 | 午夜影院在线观看18 |