Budget of NASA

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

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Agency overview
Formed	July 29, 1958 (1958-07-29)
Annual budget	US$ 20.7 billion (Fiscal Year 2018,about 0.489% of total budget at about US$ 4 trillion)

As a federal agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) receives its funding from the annual federal budget passed by the United States Congress. The following charts detail the amount of federal funding allotted to NASA each year over its past sixty-year history (1958–2018) to operate aeronautics research, unmanned and manned space exploration programs.

Annual budget

NASA's budget as percentage of federal total, from 1958 to 2017

NASA's FY 2017 budget of $19.5 billion (in nominal dollars) represented 0.47% of the $3.98 trillion United States federal budget during that year.

NASA was allocated $601.31 billion (in nominal dollars) overall from 1958 to 2018. According to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Air Force Almanac, when measured in real terms (adjusted for inflation in today's current-value dollars), the total, cumulative figure to date would equal $1.32 trillion, an average of $22.03 billion per year over its sixty-year history. NASA's proposed 2018 budget is $20.736 billion in 2018 dollars -- roughly equal to NASA's 1963 budget of $2.552 billion. However, as a percentage of federal spending, NASA's budget is significantly lower than in 1963.

History of NASA's annual budget (millions of US dollars)

Calendar Year NASA budget Nominal Dollars (Millions) % of Fed Budget 2014 Constant Dollars (Millions) 1958 89 0.1% 732 1959 145 0.2% 1,185 1960 401 0.5% 3,222 1961 744 0.9% 5,918 1962 1,257 1.18% 9,900 1963 2,552 2.29% 19,836 1964 4,171 3.52% 32,002 1965 5,092 4.31% 38,448 1966 5,933 4.41% 43,554 1967 5,425 3.45% 38,633 1968 4,722 2.65% 32,274 1969 4,251 2.31% 27,550 1970 3,752 1.92% 23,000 1971 3,382 1.61% 19,862 1972 3,423 1.48% 19,477 1973 3,312 1.35% 17,742 1974 3,255 1.21% 15,704 1975 3,269 0.98% 14,452 1976 3,671 0.99% 15,345 1977 4,002 0.98% 15,707 1978 4,164 0.91% 15,190 1979 4,380 0.87% 14,349 1980 4,959 0.84% 14,314 1981 5,537 0.82% 14,488 1982 6,155 0.83% 15,170 1983 6,853 0.85% 16,365 1984 7,055 0.83% 16,150 1985 7,251 0.77% 16,028 1986 7,403 0.75% 16,065 1987 7,591 0.76% 15,893

Calendar Year NASA budget Nominal Dollars (Millions) % of Fed Budget 2014 Constant Dollars (Millions) 1988 9,092 0.85% 18,280 1989 11,036 0.96% 21,168 1990 12,429 0.99% 22,618 1991 13,878 1.05% 24,235 1992 13,961 1.01% 23,668 1993 14,305 1.01% 23,546 1994 13,695 0.94% 21,979 1995 13,378 0.88% 20,879 1996 13,881 0.89% 21,042 1997 14,360 0.90% 21,280 1998 14,194 0.86% 20,712 1999 13,636 0.80% 19,467 2000 13,428 0.75% 18,547 2001 14,095 0.76% 18,940 2002 14,405 0.72% 19,045 2003 14,610 0.68% 18,885 2004 15,152 0.66% 19,078 2005 15,602 0.63% 19,001 2006 15,125 0.57% 17,844 2007 15,861 0.58% 18,194 2008 17,833 0.60% 19,700 2009 17,782 0.57% 19,714 2010 18,724 0.52% 20,423 FY2011 18,448 0.51% 17,833 FY2012 17,770 0.50% 17,471 FY2013 16,865 0.49% 17,219 FY2014 17,647 0.50% 17,647 FY2015 18,010 0.49% 17,989 FY2016 19,300 0.50% 19,037 FY2017 19,508 0.47% 18,866 FY2018 (proposed) 20,736 ~20,050 2019 (projected) 19,375 2020 (projected) 19,666

Notes for table: Sources for a part of these data: U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) (needs proper citation-link, numbers here differ from NASA Pocket Statistics),
Air Force Association's Air Force Magazine 2007 Space Almanac
Secondary references: [2] [3] [4]

Cost of Apollo program

File:NASA budget linegraph BH.PNG

NASA's budget peaked in 1966, during the Apollo program

NASA's budget peaked in 1964–66, when it consumed roughly 4% of federal spending. The agency was building up to the first Moon landing; the Apollo program involved more than 34,000 NASA employees and 375,000 employees of industrial and university contractors.

In March 1966, NASA officials told Congress that the 1959–72 "run-out cost" of the Apollo program would be an estimated $22.718 billion. The total cost turned out to be between $20 and $25.4 billion in 1969 dollars (about $136 billion in 2007 dollars).

The costs of the Apollo spacecraft and Saturn rockets came to about $83 billion in 2005 dollars. Apollo spacecraft cost $28 billion, including the command and service module, $17 billion; lunar module, $11 billion; and launch vehicles (Saturn I, Saturn IB, Saturn V cost about $46 billion in 2005 dollars).

Economic impact of NASA funding

A November 1971 study of NASA released by MRIGlobal (formerly Midwest Research Institute) of Kansas City, Missouri concluded that "the $25 billion in 1958 dollars spent on civilian space R & D during the 1958–1969 period has returned $52.5 billion through 1971 – and will continue to produce payoffs through 1987, at which time the total payoff will have been $181 billion. The discounted rate of return for this investment will have been 33 percent."

A map from NASA's web site illustrating its economic impact on the U.S. states (as of FY2003)

Other statistics on NASA's economic impact may be found in the 1976 Chase Econometrics Associates, Inc. reports and backed by the 1989 Chapman Research report, which examined 259 non-space applications of NASA technology during an eight-year period (1976–1984) and found more than:

• $21.6 billion in sales and benefits
• 352,000 (mostly skilled) jobs created or saved
• $355 million in federal corporate income taxes

According to a 1992 Nature commentary, these 259 applications represent ". . .only 1% of an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 Space program spin-offs."

A 2013 report prepared by the Tauri Group for NASA showed that NASA invested nearly $5 billion in U.S. manufacturing in FY 2012, with nearly $2 billion of that going to the technology sector. NASA also develops and commercializes technology, some of which can generate over $1 billion in revenue per year over multiple years

In 2014, the American Helicopter Society criticized NASA and the government for reducing the annual rotorcraft budget from $50 million in 2000 to $23 million in 2013, impacting commercial opportunities.

The 2017 Economic Impact Report prepared by NASA for their Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) awards found that for FY 2016, these programs created 2,412 jobs, $474 million in economic output, and $57.3 million in fiscal impact with an initial investment of $172.9 million.

Public perception

The perceived national security threat posed by early Soviet leads in spaceflight drove NASA's budget to its peak, both in real inflation-adjusted dollars and in a percentage of the total federal budget (4.41% in 1966). But the U.S. victory in the Space Race — landing men on the Moon — erased the perceived threat, and NASA was unable to sustain political support for its vision of an even more ambitious Space Transportation System entailing reusable Earth-to-orbit shuttles, a permanent space station, lunar bases, and a manned mission to Mars. Only a scaled-back Space Shuttle was approved, and NASA's funding leveled off at just under 1% in 1976, then declined to 0.75% in 1986. After a brief increase to 1.01% in 1992, it declined to about 0.49% in 2013.

To help with public perception and to raise awareness regarding the widespread benefits of NASA-funded programs and technologies, NASA instituted the Spinoffs publication. This was a direct offshoot of the Technology Utilization Program Report, a "publication dedicated to informing the scientific community about available NASA technologies, and ongoing requests received for supporting information." according to the NASA Spinoff about page the technologies in these reports created interest in the technology transfer concept, its successes, and its use as a public awareness tool. The reports generated such keen interest by the public that NASA decided to make them into an attractive publication. Thus, the first four-color edition of Spinoff was published in 1976.

The American public, on average, believes NASA's budget has a much larger share of the federal budget than it actually does. A 1997 poll reported that Americans had an average estimate of 20% for NASA's share of the federal budget, far higher than the actual 0.5% to under 1% that has been maintained throughout the late '90s and first decade of the 2000s. It is estimated that most Americans spent less than $9 on NASA through personal income tax in 2009.

However, there has been a recent movement to communicate discrepancy between perception and reality of NASA's budget as well as lobbying to return the funding back to the 1970–1990 level. The United States Senate Science Committee met in March 2012 where astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson testified that "Right now, NASA's annual budget is half a penny on your tax dollar. For twice that—a penny on a dollar—we can transform the country from a sullen, dispirited nation, weary of economic struggle, to one where it has reclaimed its 20th-century birthright to dream of tomorrow." Inspired by Tyson's advocacy and remarks, the Penny4NASA campaign was initiated in 2012 by John Zeller and advocates the doubling of NASA's budget to one percent of the Federal Budget, or one "penny on the dollar."

Political opposition to NASA funding

Public opposition to NASA and its budget dates back to the Apollo era.  Critics have cited more immediate concerns, like social welfare programs, as reasons to cut funding to the agency. Furthermore, they have questioned the return on investment (ROI) feasibility of NASA’s research and development. In 1968, physicist Ralph Lapp argued that if NASA really did have a positive ROI, it should be able to sustain itself as a private company, and not require federal funding. More recently, critics have faulted NASA for sinking money into the Space Shuttle program, reducing funding available for its long-term missions to Mars and deep space. Manned missions to Mars have also been denounced for their inefficiency and large cost compared to unmanned missions. In the late 1990s climate change skeptic political groups opposed the Earth science aspects of NASA spending, arguing that spending on Earth science programs such as climate research was in pursuit of political agendas.

Recent developments

The NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017 was signed into law on March 21, 2017, and marked some changes to NASA’s mission. It reaffirms interest in:

• long-term deep space exploration
• manned missions to the Moon by 2021 and Mars by 2033
• supersonic and hypersonic aircraft development
• exploration of Europa
• maintenance of current initiatives including the James Webb Space Telescope, the Orion spacecraft, the Space Launch System, and the International Space Station

The law also expanded the TREAT Astronauts Act, which provides medical diagnostic and treatment services to former astronauts. Absent from the law is any mention of NASA’s earth science programs, which some critics believe is a politically motivated move.

The proposed NASA Authorization Act of 2018 would increase NASA’s budget from $19.5 billion in FY 2017 to $20.74 billion in FY 2018, and again to $21.21 billion in FY 2019. This act supports the initiatives outlined in the NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017, and adds a detailed outline of goals regarding NASA’s earth science division.

Related legislation

• 1961—Apollo mission funding PL 87-98 A
• 1970—National Aeronautics and Space Administration Research and Development Act, PL 91-119
• 1984—National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act, PL 98-361
• 1988—National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act, PL 100-685
• 2005—National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2005, PL 109-155
• 2010—National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2010
• 2014—(proposed) National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2014 (H.R. 4412; 113th Congress)
• 2017—National Aeronautics and Space Administration Transition Authorization Act of 2017, PL 115-10
• 2018—(proposed) National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2018 (H.R. 5503; 115th Congress)

See also

• Space policy of the United States
• Federal budget (United States)
• Budget
• Space exploration
• Vision for Space Exploration

References

• Inflation Index
• Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2009
• Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2008
• The National Debt in FY 2007 – $406 Billion spent on interest payments compared to NASA at $16 Billion, Education at $61 Billion, and Department of Transportation at $56 Billion.
• Medicare, Medicaid, State Children's Health Insurance Program information
• U.S. Census Clock
• American Association for the Advancement of Science (Research and Development programs budget extract)
• NASA Appropriations and Authorizations: A Fact Sheet Congressional Research Service
• "NASA chief set to cut projects" Orlando Sentinel – Apr. 6, 2007
• "NASA budget $550M less than hoped" Florida Today – Feb. 15, 2007
• "NASA, other agencies denied pay raise" MSNBC and Space.com – Feb. 15, 2007
• "JPL faces program cuts with fewer NASA funds" Pasadena Star News – Feb. 7, 2007
• "NASA Spending Plan Reflects White House Policy" Space News/Space.com – Feb. 5, 2007
• "Highlights of NASA's FY 2008 Budget Request" Remarks by NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin's during Feb. 5, 2007 press conference at NASA Headquarters
• "NASA's FY 2008 Budget Full Report (4.2Mb PDF) – Feb. 5, 2007
• "NASA's FY 2008 Budget" Budget Summary (710Kb PDF) – Feb. 5, 2007
• "NASA FY 2008 Budget" Presentation Chart (743 Kb PDF) – Feb. 5, 2007
• "Congress may trim NASA budget" Florida Today – Feb. 4, 2007
• "Should NASA be a spending priority?" The Position Page: The Blog of the Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board – Feb. 2, 2007
• "Coalition for Space Exploration Statement Regarding U.S. House of Representatives Budget Proposal" SpaceRef.com – Feb. 1, 2007
• "NASA faces budget cutbacks" Florida Today – Feb. 1, 2007
• "House budget proposal could delay shuttle replacement" Space News/Space.com – Jan. 31, 2007
• "NASA announces FY 08 budget press conference" NASA Media Advisory #M07-014 – Jan. 30, 2007
• "Planetary Society petitions President to save space science" SpaceRef.com – Jan. 22, 2007
• "IFPTE Calls for Balanced and Transparent NASA Budget Preserving Science & Aero, Core Technical Capabilities Achievable Within FY06 baseline" SpaceRef.com – Jan. 2, 2007
• NASA's portion of the Budget of the United States Government, FY 2007 Office of Management and Budget (through the U.S. Government Printing Office)
• NASA 2006 Strategic Plan
• NASA 2006 Pocket Statistics
• NASA FY2006 Budget breakdown
• NASA FY2006 Performance and Accountability Report
• H.R. 3070 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2005 (from Congressional Budget Office, July 20, 2005 – Cost estimate for the bill as reported by the House Committee on Science on July 18, 2005)
• NASA Previous Years (FY2005, FY2004 and FY2003) Performance and Accountability Reports
• NASA FY2003 and Previous Years' Budget
• NASA Strategy based on long-term affordability Budget Chart – Jan. 14, 2004
• Midwest Research Institute homepage

External links

• Table 1 – NASA's budget compared to other federal government expenditures (1999 Data)
• Table 2 – NASA's budget compared to various consumer expenditures (1997 Data)
• Table 3 – NASA's budget compared to the budgets of the 50 state governments (1997 Data)
• Table 4 – NASA's budget compared to revenues of various large corporations (1998 Data)
• NASA – Budget Documents, Strategic Plans and Performance Reports (NASA – Budget Information)