New government reports cast doubt on future of NASA's Mars spacecraft

For the past six years, NASA has been intensely focused on sending people to Mars — but the rocket and spacecraft that the agency is building for the job face delays and budget problems. That’s according to two new independent reviews done by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a federal agency that conducts audits on behalf of Congress. Released last week, the reports paint a grim picture for NASA’s Orion crew capsule and the Space Launch System (SLS) — the huge new expendable rocket that would launch the crew capsule to space. The GAO has little confidence that both the Orion and the SLS will meet their scheduled milestones, and the capsule could exceed its intended budget, the GAO hints.