NASA is poster child for government cost overruns.

NASA has cost overruns for several reasons, said the GAO's Chaplain. Those include poor cost estimating at the beginning, trying to do cutting-edge science, constantly changing designs, and poor contractor performance. Six of the projects had problems with contractors, including lack of experience, that led to delays or higher costs.

In his December news conference, Griffin said there isn't a very good way to estimate at the front end of a mission what it's going to take to achieve scientific priorities.

Griffin, whose replacement hasn't been named yet by President Barack Obama, said scientists tend to downplay costs early to convince NASA that their project is cheaper than someone else's. Later, once NASA commits and the money is being spent, more bucks are needed. So NASA spends more instead of canceling the project.

That's a problem everyone knows about and accepts, but shouldn't, Chaplain said.

The Mars Science Laboratory, which has ballooned to a $2.3 billion price tag, is a good example of NASA's approach. In 2003, its cost was put at $650 million on the National Academy of Sciences wish list, which NASA used to set priorities.

But on Tuesday, Doug McCuistion, who heads NASA's Mars exploration program, said the proper estimate to start with was $1.4 billion, not $650 million because it was not an official NASA projection.

By last December, the number was up to $1.9 billion. Then technical problems delayed launch plans from this year to 2011, adding another $400 million. The extra money came from cuts to other science projects.

"The costs of badly run NASA projects are paid for with cutbacks or delays in NASA projects that didn't go over budget," Stern wrote in his newspaper piece. "Hence the guilty are rewarded and the innocent are punished."

Sound familiar? Lowball initial estimates, constant change orders and cost overruns, and outrageous sume of money spent on each and every project. Out of control government spending lives in Washingto, D.C., but has a smaller second home here in the Springs.