Each year, the
United States CongressThe United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
passes a Federal Budget detailing where federal tax money will be spent in the coming fiscal year.
Each year, the
United States CongressThe United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
passes a Federal Budget detailing where federal tax money will be spent in the coming fiscal year.
The following charts detail the amount of federal funding allotted to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (
NASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
) each year over its past fifty year history (1958–2008) to operate
aeronauticsAeronautics is the science involved with the study, design, and manufacturing of airflight-capable machines, or the techniques of operating aircraft and rocketry within the atmosphere...
research, unmanned planetary and manned
space explorationSpace exploration is the use of space technology to explore outer space. Physical exploration of space is conducted both by human spaceflights and by robotic spacecraft....
programs.
Annual budget, 1958-2011
Seen in the year-by-year breakdown listed below, the total amounts (in nominal dollars) that NASA has been budgeted from 1958 to 2008 amounts to $471.23 billion dollars—an average of $9.06 billion per year. By way of comparison, total spending over this period by the
National Science FoundationThe National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
was roughly one-fourth of NASA's expenditures: $101.5 billion, or $2 billion a year. NASA's FY 2008 budget of $17.318 billion represents about 0.6% of the $2.9 trillion
United States federal budgetThe United States federal budget for fiscal year 2008 was a spending request by President George W. Bush to fund government operations for October 2007-September 2008...
during the year, or about 35% of total spending on academic scientific research in the United States.
According to the Office of Management and Budget and the Air Force Almanac, when measured in real terms (adjusted for inflation), the figure is $790.0 billion, or an average of $15.818 billion dollars per year over its fifty year history (NASA's 2011 budget is on a continuing resolution of the 2010 budget at $18.724 billion).
History of NASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
's annual budget (millions of US dollars)
| Year |
NASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
budget |
| (Nominal)(in $Millions) |
% of Fed Budget |
2007 Constant
Dollars |
| 1958 |
89 |
0.1% |
488 |
| 1959 |
145 |
0.2% |
1,841 |
| 1960 |
401 |
0.5% |
3,205 |
| 1961 |
744 |
0.9% |
6,360 |
| 1962 |
1,257 |
1.18% |
12,221 |
| 1963 |
2,552 |
2.29% |
24,342 |
| 1964 |
4,171 |
3.52% |
33,241 |
| 1965 |
5,092 |
4.31% |
33,514 |
| 1966 |
5,933 |
4.41% |
32,106 |
| 1967 |
5,425 |
3.45% |
29,696 |
| 1968 |
4,722 |
2.65% |
26,139 |
| 1969 |
4,251 |
2.31% |
21,376 |
| 1970 |
3,752 |
1.92% |
18,768 |
| 1971 |
3,382 |
1.61% |
15,717 |
| 1972 |
3,423 |
1.48% |
15,082 |
| 1973 |
3,312 |
1.35% |
14,303 |
| 1974 |
3,255 |
1.21% |
11,494 |
| 1975 |
3,269 |
0.98% |
11,131 |
| 1976 |
3,671 |
0.99% |
11,640 |
| 1977 |
4.002 |
0.98% |
11,658 |
| 1978 |
4,164 |
0.91% |
11,411 |
| 1979 |
4,380 |
0.87% |
11,404 |
| 1980 |
4,959 |
0.84% |
11,668 |
| 1981 |
5,537 |
0.82% |
11,248 |
| 1982 |
6,155 |
0.83% |
11,766 |
| 1983 |
6,853 |
0.85% |
13,051 |
| 1984 |
7,055 |
0.83% |
13,561 |
| 1985 |
7,251 |
0.77% |
13,218 |
| 1986 |
7,403 |
0.75% |
13,421 |
| Year |
NASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
budget |
| (Nominal) |
% of Fed Budget |
2007 Constant
MillionDollars |
| 1987 |
7,591 |
0.76% |
17,735 |
| 1988 |
9,092 |
0.85% |
14,454 |
| 1989 |
11,036 |
0.96% |
16,734 |
| 1990 |
12,429 |
0.99% |
18,019 |
| 1991 |
13,878 |
1.05% |
19,686 |
| 1992 |
13,961 |
1.01% |
15,310 |
| 1993 |
14,305 |
1.01% |
18,582 |
| 1994 |
13,695 |
0.94% |
18,053 |
| 1995 |
13,378 |
0.88% |
16,915 |
| 1996 |
13,881 |
0.89% |
16,457 |
| 1997 |
14,360 |
0.90% |
15,943 |
| 1998 |
14,194 |
0.86% |
15,521 |
| 1999 |
13,636 |
0.80% |
15,357 |
| 2000 |
13,428 |
0.75% |
14,926 |
| 2001 |
14,095 |
0.76% |
15,427 |
| 2002 |
14,405 |
0.72% |
15,831 |
| 2003 |
14,610 |
0.68% |
16,021 |
| 2004 |
15,152 |
0.66% |
15,559 |
| 2005 |
15,602 |
0.63% |
16,016 |
| 2006 |
15,125 |
0.57% |
16,085 |
| 2007 |
15,861 |
0.58% |
15,861 |
| 2008 |
17,318 |
0.60% |
17,138 |
| 2009 |
17,782 |
|
|
| 2010 |
18,724 |
|
|
| 2011 |
19,000 |
|
|
| 2012 (est.) |
19,450 |
|
|
| 2013 (est.) |
19,960 |
|
|
| 2014 (est.) |
20,600 |
|
|
| 2015 (est.) |
20,990 |
|
|
Notes:
Sources: U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) (needs proper citation-link, numbers here differ from NASA Pocket Statistics),
Air Force AssociationThe Air Force Association is an independent, 501 non-profit, civilian education organization, headquartered in Arlington, Virginia...
's Air Force Magazine 2007 Space Almanac
Secondary references: http://www.richardb.us/nasa.html#graph http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2010/assets/hist04z1.xls http://www.seattle.gov/financedepartment/cpi/docs/US_CPI_History_--_Annual.xls
|
Cost of project Apollo
NASA's budget peaked in the period 1964-1966, during the height of construction efforts leading up to the first moon landing under
Project ApolloThe Apollo program was the spaceflight effort carried out by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration , that landed the first humans on Earth's Moon. Conceived during the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Apollo began in earnest after President John F...
which involved more than 34,000 NASA employees and 375,000 employees of
industrialIndustry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...
and
universityA university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
contractors. Roughly 4% of the total federal budget was being devoted to the space program.
In March 1966, NASA officials briefing Congressional members stated the "run-out cost" of the Apollo program, aimed at achieving a manned lunar landing, would be an estimated $22.718 billion for the 13-year program, which had begun in 1959. According to Steve Garber, the NASA History website curator, the final cost of project Apollo was between $20 and $25.4 billion in 1969 Dollars (or approximately $136 billion in 2007 Dollars). The costs associated with the
Apollo spacecraftThe Apollo spacecraft was composed of five combined parts designed to accomplish the American Apollo program's goal of landing astronauts on the Moon by the end of the 1960s and returning them safely to Earth...
and Saturn rockets amounted to about $83-billion in 2005 Dollars (Apollo spacecraft cost $28-billion (Command/Service Module $17-billion; Lunar Module $11-billion),
Saturn IThe Saturn I was the United States' first heavy-lift dedicated space launcher, a rocket designed specifically to launch large payloads into low Earth orbit. Most of the rocket's power came from a clustered lower stage consisting of tanks taken from older rocket designs and strapped together to make...
,
Saturn IBThe Saturn IB was an American launch vehicle commissioned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for use in the Apollo program...
,
Saturn VThe Saturn V was an American human-rated expendable rocket used by NASA's Apollo and Skylab programs from 1967 until 1973. A multistage liquid-fueled launch vehicle, NASA launched 13 Saturn Vs from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida with no loss of crew or payload...
costs about $ 46-billion 2005 dollars).
Economic impact of NASA funding
A November 1971 study of NASA released by the
Midwest Research InstituteMRIGlobal is an independent, not-for-profit, contract research organization based in Kansas City, Missouri....
of
Kansas CityKansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
,
MissouriMissouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
("
Technological Progress and Commercialization of Communications Satellites." In: "
Economic Impact of Stimulated Technological Activity") concluded that “
the $25 billion in 1958 dollars spent on civilian space R & D during the 1958-1969 period has returned $52 billion through 1971 -- and will continue to produce pay offs through 1987, at which time the total pay off will have been $181 billion. The discounted rate of return for this investment will have been 33 percent.”
A 1992 article in the British science journal
NatureNature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
reported:
"The economic benefits of NASA's programs are greater than generally realized. The main beneficiaries (the American public) may not even realize the source of their good fortune. . ."
Other statistics on NASA's economic impact may be found in the 1976 Chase Econometrics Associates, Inc. reports ("
The Economic Impact of NASA R&D Spending: Preliminary Executive Summary.", April 1975. Also: "
Relative Impact of NASA Expenditure on the Economy.", March 18, 1975) 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,and;
— $355 million in federal corporate income taxes
According to the "
Nature" article, these 259 applications represent "
. . .only 1% of an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 Space program spin-offs."
In 2002, the aerospace industry accounted for $95 billion of economic activity in the United States, including $23.5 billion in employee earnings dispersed among some 576,000 employees (source:
Federal Aviation AdministrationThe Federal Aviation Administration is the national aviation authority of the United States. An agency of the United States Department of Transportation, it has authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of civil aviation in the U.S...
, March 2004).
Public perception
The American public perceives the NASA budget as commanding a much larger share of the federal budget than it in fact 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.
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
See also
- Space policy of the United States
The Space policy of the United States includes both the making of space policy through the legislative process, and the execution of that policy by both civilian and military space programs and by regulatory agencies. The early history of United States space policy is linked to the US–Soviet...
- Federal budget (United States)
- Budget
A budget is a financial plan and a list of all planned expenses and revenues. It is a plan for saving, borrowing and spending. A budget is an important concept in microeconomics, which uses a budget line to illustrate the trade-offs between two or more goods...
- Space exploration
Space exploration is the use of space technology to explore outer space. Physical exploration of space is conducted both by human spaceflights and by robotic spacecraft....
- Vision for Space Exploration
The Vision for Space Exploration is the United States space policy which was announced on January 14, 2004 by President George W. Bush. It is seen as a response to the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, the state of human spaceflight at NASA, and a way to regain public enthusiasm for space...
External links