Some people argue against NASA's continued funding, saying that the U.S. government spends way too much money on the agency. Indeed, space research comes at a cost, and if your immediate assumption is that it can be quite expensive, you wouldn't exactly be wrong. What may surprise you, though, is that it's actually not as expensive as some think it is.
In 2022, NASA received about $24 billion in funding, or approximately 0.5% — yep, less than a percent — of the U.S. government's overall annual spending. While that number increased to $25.4 billion in 2023, NASA's funding is still a relatively small dent in the national budget, a fact that has remained true over the last five decades. NASA's federal funding is allocated to six major program areas, none of which include intelligence-gathering or national defense: human spaceflight, aeronautics, scientific research, education, facilities and overhead, and technology development.
This, in turn, creates more employment opportunities in these programs' related fields, thereby making the agency a vital and impactful component of the U.S. economy. During the 2021 fiscal year alone, NASA reportedly sustained nearly 340,000 jobs nationwide with above-average compensation; over 93,000 of those jobs were attributed to a single campaign ("Moon-to-Mars"). The agency's investments were also linked to nearly $8 billion worth of federal, state, and local tax revenues.
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