SAVE Award 2011 National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Eliminate the ISO Certification, thereby saving the cost of third party certification and eliminating the cost of staff dedicated to performing audits and ensuring that documentation is compliant with audit standards. As a Federal Agency that outsources most of its work to contractors, and being the customer, the need for ISO certification doesn't make much sense for the Agency and is costly, both in the price of the... more »

Recently, I was sent multiple copies (nine) of the same form on the same person related to a background check or search for a security clearance. Each form was simply for verifying the person's residence address for different time periods. This could all be contained within one form to save on individual's time, paperwork, and postage. Also, in this case, the individual undergoing the background check was a recent... more »

Currently the Reduced Gravity program, conducted at Ellington Field through NASA Johnson Space Center, is required to contract with a commercial company to provide a reduced gravity platform (airplane and crew) for conducting training and research. In short, NASA has to pay a commercial company to fly their experiments and people. The average cost the private company, Zero-g Corp., charges is many times greater than... more »

The economy is a mess with several economic indices approaching levels of those seen in the 1930s. There are several stimuli, but there is one important item that has been overlooked: student loan debt is a tremendous economic burden to the work force. Forgive some private student loans for graduates with overbearing debt – debt that (a) is crippling that person’s development after being in the workforce for some period... more »

Mandate that all government documents be signed electronically to reduce the need for paper copies of forms.

Corruption and unethical practices occur every day in our government. One way to mitigate this would be to have random polygraph screenings. The CIA seems to think this is a viable way as do I. Instead of paying for drug screening, let’s get a two for one deal (polygraph has ability to determine if there is drug use) and make sure we aren’t enabling corruption or unethical practices. This should go all the way to... more »

The economy is struggling partly due to cheaper competition coming from outside our country. If we are forced to acquire material and products from a foreign source over a United States company (due to our rules for competitive bidding, we in many cases get a poor quality product and hurt the economy simultaneously. For example, let’s say we need a system and there is only one United States owned company that designs... more »

I discovered some statistics about my government center that were intriguing. We have 900 paper towel dispensers across our center with a population of 74% engineers. We purchase about 15,000 rolls each year costing the government easily over $100,000 per year. The Dyson Airblade claims to be the fastest hand dryer that is hygienic, with a sticker price of $1,119 for each system. I propose that if the government replaced... more »

As NASA’s goals are more ambitious and more complex it is extremely necessary to enable strategic partnerships at Hispanic communities. These partnerships will increase our research opportunities and capabilities, as well as give us a competitive edge through innovative solutions. In addition, we can train the future workforce, and feed the pipeline. Why Hispanic Serving Institutions? The two main reasons for partnerships... more »

Being a new employee and planning recent travel to Chicago, I found out that (NASA?) regulations don't allow purchase of the ticket until 5 days prior to departure. Having come from private industry, the wait period was explained ot me as the Govt avoiding cancellation travel plans. While waiting for the purchase of a ticket, I watched as more flights became sold out, boosting the cost of the eventual cost of any ticket.... more »

I know that it has long been a policy that the government cannot make any "profit" from "fruits" that came from government funding. But I cannot see why the government can't make a "re-sell" from the "waste" materials, as long as the money is going back into the program. I do not feel that it should be considered as a "profit". I have been at the Kennedy Space Center since 1973 and have watched our government scrap... more »

We're spending millions of dollars on office supply each year. As I'm shutting down the Space Shuttle Program, I walked through the aisles and aisles full of containers of office supply. We should have central location for all returned office supply and a check box on the order form, forcing people to check the available office supply before ordering new ones. Also, we need to encourage employees to recycle gently... more »

I have seen the effectiveness of the FPDS system. I feel strongly that the technology exists to allow the Federal Government to design an integrated financial system and have it built for the entire federal Government to use. We, the Federal Government, would own it and only have a contractor maintain the system, rather than each agency independently pursuing their own COTS products that do not necessarily fit the Federal... more »

NASA sponsors several summits that are not directly related to NASA's mission. For example, the NASA IT Summit. Although this summit may be useful to those in the IT community, NASA is not in the business of developing IT. If we are serious about saving money, then these types of activities that do not relate to NASA's core mission, should be canceled or held less frequently. Another alternative would be to hold on-line... more »

Create a program that requires Unemployment Insurance (UI) reciepients to work in community service to qualify for UI weekly benefit check from the government. It will eliminate costs by filtering those reciepients that do not want to work. Work assignments can include daycare for other program members, degreed UI reciepients training less educated UI reciepients in interview skills and resume building, cleaning up... more »