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NSIAD-84-132 1 (1984-08-09)

handle is hein.gao/gaobabnlr0001 and id is 1 raw text is: UNITED STATES GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE Q-n., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20548 NATIONAL SECURITY AND lII11111111 INTERNATIONAL APFAIMI DIVISION B-205805 AUG 9 1984 125077 Lieutenant General James A. Abrahamson, Jr., USAF Director, Strategic Defense Initiative Organization Department of Defense Subject: The Department of Defense's Space Laser Program Plan--Status and Issues (GAO/NSIAD-84-132) Dear General Abrahamson: We reviewed the status of the Space Laser Program Plan and provided a draft report to the Secretary of Defense for his comment in January 1984. Our draft report stated that: --completion of the plan was taking longer and costing more than estimated and --certain high priority tasks'within the plan were off to a slow and reduced start. The draft report proposed that the Secretary assess the Department of Defense's (DOD'S) progress in accomplishing the goals of the plan and determine what adjustments were needed to resolve uncertainties about the feasibility of space-based lasers. We also proposed that he consider the need to change the plan's management structure to assure timely completion of the plan. Since we sent the draft, Secretary Weinberger has estab- lished your program office to manage the President's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). We understand that the SDI effort supersedes the Space Laser Program Plan and consolidates manage- ment of all strategic defense programs related to ballistic mis- sile defense under you as a dedicated program manager. Funding authority for SDI is also centralized and is your responsibility. Because it appears that the structure the Secretary has established for the SDI effort will resolve the program manage- ment and funding problems identified in our draft report, and because the activities covered in the Space Laser Program Plan have been subsumed in SDI, we have decided not to issue that re- port. We believe, however, that awareness of the problems expe- rienced under the Space Laser Program Plan may prevent similar (951746)