SAN DIEGO -- The DP-2 Vertical/Short Takeoff and Landing aircraft was the subject of a 10News investigation last June.

The DP-2, currently parked at Gillespie Field in El Cajon, was a $63 million dollar disaster paid for by tax dollars. While funds for the project have been cut off, the builder of the white elephant, Alfred duPont of duPont Aerospace, still had a chance to pick up a million or so dollars on this failed project.

As you struggle with your holiday bills you may wonder: Why should contractor duPont be rewarded for a failed project? As the I-Team reports have shown, multiple reviews of the DP-2 faulted “both the aircraft and the contractor’s management of the program.”

The I-Team reports that the Department of Defense is preparing to auction off and dispose of government property located at duPont Aerospace.

In the course of the preparations, the House Committee on Science and Technology was surprised to find out that a NASA contracting employee, Heidi Shaw, had e-mailed duPont and told him he was entitled to the DP-2 project’s two engines.

These engines had cost tax payers $2 million dollars and are worth about $1.5 million Thursday. Some government officials are now calling this giveaway duPont's “retirement fund.”

On Thursday, NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. said it has changed its position on the engine giveaway.

NASA said duPont is not entitled to this holiday gift paid for by taxpayers. NASA also said it would “assert the government’s title to the engines….”

Read the letters from NASA and the House Committee.