CASIS Funding Commitments – Smoke and Mirrors?
CASIS is tasked to manage the portion of the International Space Station designated as the ISS National Laboratory. But other than NASA funding, CASIS has failed to attract any significant income other than that provided – by NASA.
Yet they want you to think that people beating a path to their door with multi-million dollar “commitments” in hand. Exactly what are these CASIS “commitments”?
According to the CASIS Strategic Plan, page 11, CASIS says that it will “Develop a robust financial model to supplement government funding. CASIS funding from NASA is currently projected at $15M per year, to cover operating costs and to provide seed money for promising R&D. To meet the variety of demands on personnel, infrastructure, business processes and outreach that will grow over time, CASIS must develop additional resources in the form of partnerships and funding and create rigorous business and economic models in order to sustain these. Sources will include private financiers, corporate sponsorship, philanthropists and federal grants that may leverage cost sharing and equity investment in new ventures. Additionally, CASIS will practice management excellence in its operating models to ensure costs are minimized while ISS utilization is maximized effectively toward mission success.”
In its April 2015 report “International Space Station: Measurable Performance Targets and Documentation Needed to Better Assess Management of National Laboratory” the GAO noted (page 7) “According to the cooperative agreement, CASIS will solicit non-NASA funding for research by targeting various sources such as government grants, foundation funding, charitable contributions, private equity, venture financing, and private investors and facilitate matching of projects that meet the research objectives with those qualified funding sources.”
So it is quite clear that CASIS is supposed to be out beating the bushes looking for funding and contributions. So far their success is puzzling to say the least. On one hand they claim to be making all manner of agreements and relationships with the private sector but when it comes to documenting actual contributions, well. There really are none – at least not the kind that a non-profit organization usually documents i.e. cash or in-kind donations.
