I swear reporters really should talk about ratios like this more more than gross sums when they report on big fines. Too bad that's not sensational enough for the current rat race.
I'm the author and your point is interesting. Yes, the sums involved are a tiny fraction of the total NASA budget. But I write for IT pros - their concern is managing software, not the state of NASA's budget. The story speaks as much to the difficult of working with software vendors - something most of my readers encounter.