More Constellation Management Changes

I'm not sure whether to offer congratulations or condolences? In any event, these folks have a tough job and I wish them the very best success.

There was little or no program control, process and requirements in establishing Constellation and managing it over the last several years. Maybe they will do a better job during the shut down process.

Best of luck to Dale and Charlie, they are competent and experienced managers.
The (real or perceived) lack of controls, processes, etc., is endemic across the Agency, not just with the CxP, as has been articulated by various reviews by GAO. The identification of requirements (which differ from center to center) and full adoption of a single financial system over the past decade revealed the challenge of developing and deploying Agency -wide solutions. This is the NASA culture - not invented here – and embracing a single approach to program management is one of the best candidates for lowering costs across NASA that I can think of.

"The lack of controls, processes, etc., is endemic across the Agency....as articulated by GAO."

Personally, I’d rather not make excuses that this is something that is endemic, commonplace and to be expected in NASA.

NASA needs to be changing its ways and improving its controls and processes to make them more effective and adequate, rather than excusing poor performance as natural and expected.

Constellation had poorly defined and implemented processes and requirements; they were not being adequately managed if such basic constraints/requirements as crew size or landing mass were not/could not be met from the outset, let alone other serious issues with costs, schedules, and, in the last week, problems with the contracts.

Maybe it won't matter for Constellation if the program is in its termination stages. The key is to keep the people responsible away from the new start-up activities.