NASA wasted millions on routine travel

NASA wasted millions of dollars over a two-year period by shunning commercial airline flights and instead using its own planes for routine travel, according to a government report provided to The Associated Press on Thursday.

The Government Accountability Office found that NASA spent at least five times more by flying employees on its own planes in fiscal 2003 and 2004, compared with the cost of commercial coach tickets. The extra spending totaled about $20 million.

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Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who requested the GAO investigation, said she is troubled that "this abuse of the aircraft has been going on for years." Her office provided a copy of the GAO report to the AP on Thursday, a day before its public release.

"It's frustrating that it's taken two (inspector general) audits, a GAO investigation and the threat of a congressional oversight hearing to get an agency to comply with its obligations to the taxpayers," Collins said in a phone interview.

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