I work in exactly this space as a NASA contractor. I don't actually have a massive amount of insight into the FAA, but my impression is that they don't do much in the way of R&D on their own. I think (without hard numbers mind you) the vast majority of FAA R&D work starts at NASA or other government labs and gets transferred to the FAA when it gets to a sufficient level of maturity. In that context, it's even more natural for NASA to host the ASRS system.