A Comparison of Science and Technology Funding for DOD's Space and Nonspace Programs

Letter to the Honorable Terry Everett

As is the case with many of its other programs, a number of the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) unclassified space programs have experienced growth in their costs and delays in their schedules—compared with what DoD envisioned when the programs entered the development and demonstration phase of their implementation. Some analysts have suggested that those problems may be caused in part by insufficient funding for science and technology (S&T) activities before the programs began. In this analysis, CBO considered whether a difference exists between the funding that the Defense Department provides for unclassified S&T activities that support such space programs and the funding it provides for S&T activities that support other, nonspace programs.

In its comparisons, all of which involve unclassified activities, CBO found that, relative to the programs’ total spending on research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) activities, funding for S&T activities in support of space programs has been significantly less over the 1980–2007 period than S&T funding for programs that do not involve space systems; moreover, DoD’s plans for the future maintain that difference. CBO’s analysis did not, however, establish a causal link between that lower amount of S&T funding and the cost growth and schedule delays that have occurred in some ongoing space programs. Also, CBO’s analysis did not consider the extent to which funding for classified space programs might be supporting unclassified space programs.

CBO’s analysis is based on funding data from the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) for fiscal year 2008 (which spans 2008 through 2013) and other government budget documents. (All years referenced in this attachment are fiscal years.) Using those data, CBO compared the ratio of S&T funding to total spending on RDT&E activities (S&T funding is a subset of that broader category). In this report, CBO refers to that measure as “S&T intensity.” The study period spanned 1980 to 2007; the analysis considered five mutually exclusive sets of DoD programs: space and nonspace programs run by the Army, space and nonspace programs run by the Air Force, and nonspace programs run by the Navy. Over the 1980–2007 period, funding for all of DoD’s S&T activities averaged about $10 billion annually, and funding for all of DoD’s RDT&E activities averaged about $50 billion annually. Over that 28-year period, funding for space-related S&T activities averaged about $400 million annually.

CBO found significant differences between the S&T intensities for space and nonspace programs. Its analysis indicates that over the 1980–2007 period, relative to the programs’ total spending for RDT&E, the Army and Air Force spent significantly less for S&T activities that support space programs than they spent for such activities supporting their other programs. S&T intensity for the Army’s space programs averaged about 10 percent; however, S&T intensity averaged 28 percent for the service’s other (nonspace) programs. S&T intensity averaged about 12 percent for the Air Force’s space programs but 17 percent for its other programs (see Figure 1). Those differences between S&T intensity for space and nonspace programs are statistically significant, according to CBO’s analysis; that is, the differences are unlikely to have occurred by chance.

Will the priorities that the services assign to funding S&T activities for their space and nonspace programs change markedly in the future? CBO used data from the FYDP to compare the historical data discussed above with the S&T funding that the military services plan to allocate to support their unclassified space and nonspace programs:

• The 2008 FYDP indicates that S&T intensity for the Army’s space programs will fall to about 6 percent or less over the 2008–2013 period—or 40 percent lower than its 28-year average of 10 percent. That prospective 6 percent intensity for those programs falls at the lower end of the range of annual variation over the past 28 years.
• According to the FYDP, S&T intensity for the Air Force’s space programs will average about 4 percent during the 2008–2013 period, a figure significantly below the range of annual variation over the past 28 years.

CBO’s analysis also indicates that if the plans in the 2008 FYDP are executed, S&T intensity for the Air Force’s and Army’s space programs will continue to be significantly lower than the S&T intensity for the two services’ other programs. In other words, both the Army and the Air Force plan to continue to allocate relatively less funding to S&T activities that support space programs than to such activities that support their other programs. In addition, the Air Force’s funding for space-related S&T activities will be significantly lower in the future than it has been in the past.

CBO also conducted case studies of individual space programs. The National PolarOrbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System and the Space-Based Infrared System in High-Earth Orbit are two ongoing unclassified programs that have experienced substantial schedule delays and cost growth. Historical data from the FYDP indicate that the predecessors of those programs—respectively, the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program and the Defense Support Program—were both allocated a comparable or greater amount of S&T funding for activities uniquely associated with them than has been provided for their successors; moreover, both of the older programs experienced less cost growth and fewer schedule problems than their successors have experienced. CBO’s analysis, however, does not indicate whether that better programmatic performance is linked to more funding for S&T activities, nor does it suggest whether historical and current experience with those four programs can be used to draw general conclusions about other DoD space programs.