Scientific Knowledge of the Earth System

NASA revised its strategic goal and most of its objectives for this key outcome in its fiscal year 2002 performance plan. Generally, NASA’s fiscal year 2002 annual performance goals for this outcome appear to be objective and help to measure progress toward achieving it. The agency also explains how each performance goal will benefit the public. International Space Station’s Operation, Cost, and Safety

Since the selected key outcome of deploying and operating the space station safely and cost effectively is not included in NASA’s fiscal year 2002 performance plan as a specific strategic goal or objective, we based our assessment of it on a related strategic objective in the plan—to operate the space station to advance science, exploration, engineering, and commerce. First, NASA portrays its planned efforts to verify and validate performance information more comprehensively than in 2001, providing greater confidence that the performance results will be credible. Despite improvements in addressing data verification and validation methods, NASA still does not acknowledge data limitations that could hinder performance measurement. Appendix II: Comments From the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Why GAO Did This Study

GAO reviewed the following key outcomes in National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) fiscal year 2002 performance plan: expanding scientific knowledge of the Earth's system, expanding the commercial development of space, and deploying and operating the International Space Station.

What GAO Found

GAO found that NASA has improved its fiscal year 2002 performance plan and responded to recommendations by GAO and others to make its plan more useful--particularly by providing more comprehensive explanations of how it plans to verify and validate performance data and by better explaining how its performance goals will benefit the public. NASA's annual performance goals appear to be objective and should help to measure progress toward the outcomes. However, the plan still does not explain the reasons for changes in performance goals. Not having these explanations could hinder assessments of NASA's performance.