Budget of NASA

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA insignia
Agency overview
Formed	July 29, 1958 (1958-07-29)
Annual budget	$18.724 billion (Fiscal Year 2011, about 0.5% of total budget at about $3 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 fifty-year history (1958–2009) to operate aeronautics research, unmanned and manned space exploration programs.

Annual budget, 1958-2012

Seen in the Marcia haar the year-by-year breakdown listed below, the total amounts (in nominal dollars) that NASA has been budgeted from 1958 to 2011 amounts to $526.18 billion—an average of $9.928 billion per year. By way of comparison, total spending over this period by the National Science Foundation was roughly one-fourth of NASA's expenditures: $101.5 billion, or $2 billion a year. NASA's FY 2011 budget of $18.4 billion represented about 0.5% of the $3.4 trillion United States federal budget during that 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 per year over its fifty-year history.

NASA's budget as percentage of federal total, from 1962 to 2014 (projected)

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

Calendar Year NASA budget Millions of Nominal Dollars % of Fed Budget Millions of 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 1987 7,591 0.76% 13,735

Calendar Year NASA budget Millions of Nominal Dollars % of Fed Budget Millions of 2007 Constant Dollars 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 0.57% 17,186 2010 18,724 0.52% 17,804 2011 18,448 0.53% 17,005 2012 17,770 0.48% 16,014 2013 (proj.) 17,893.4 2014 (proj.) 17,715.4 2015 (proj.) 17,715.4

Notes for table: Sources: 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: [1] [2] [3]

NASA employment

Year	Total	NASA (In-House) Employees		Contractor (Out-of-house) Employees
		#	%	#	%
1960	46,700	~13,500	~29%	~33,200	~71%
1961	75,000	~17,300	~23%	~57,800	~77%
1962	139,200	~22,300	~16%	~117,000	~84%
1963	284,300	~37,000	~13%	~247,300	~87%
1964	379,600	~38,000	~10%	~341,600	~90%
1965	411,000 Peak	~41,100	~10%	~369,900	~90%
1966	396,000	~31,700	~8%	~364,300	~92%
1967	309,100	~37,100	~12%	~272,000	~88%
1968	246,200	~29,500	~12%	~216,700	~88%
1969	Unknown	34,197		Unknown
1970	Unknown	32,779		Unknown
1971	Unknown	30,678		Unknown
1972	Unknown	28,501		Unknown
1973	Unknown	26,855		Unknown
1974	Unknown	26,068		Unknown

Year	Total	NASA (In-House) Employees		Contractor (Out-of-house) Employees
		#	%	#	%
1975	Unknown	25,683		Unknown
1976	Unknown	25,482		Unknown
1977	Unknown	24,241		Unknown
1978	Unknown	23,850		Unknown
1979	43,312	23,360	~54%	19,952	~46%
1980	43,764	22,470	~51%	20,294	~49%
1981	44,436	22,736	~51%	21,700	~49%
1982 Lowest	42,399	22,310	~53%	20,089	~47%
1983	43,196	22,534	~52%	20,662	~48%
1984	44,735	21,870	~49%	22,865	~51%
1985	46,784	22,316	~48%	21,423	~52%
1986	45,647	21,960	~48%	23,687	~52%
1987	44,379	22,646	~51%	21,733	~49%
1988	52,224	22,823	~44%	29,401	~56%
...
2012	~79,000	~19,000	~24%	~60,000	~76%

Reference:

• Years 1960-1968
• Years 1969-1978
• Years 1979-1988
• Year 2012

Cost of Apollo program

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

NASA's budget peaked in the period 1964-1966, during the height of construction efforts leading up to the first moon landing under Apollo program which involved more than 34,000 NASA employees and 375,000 employees of industrial and university 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 (approximately $136 billion in 2007 dollars). The costs associated with the Apollo spacecraft 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 I, Saturn IB, Saturn V costs about $46 billion in 2005 dollars).

Economic impact of NASA funding

A November 1971 study of NASA released by the Midwest Research Institute of Kansas City, Missouri ("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 map from NASA's web site illustrating its economic impact on the U.S. states (as of FY2003)

A 1992 article in the British science journal Nature 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 Administration, March 2004).

Public perception

According to the United States Constitution, the funding of all federal public works, including those of NASA, is determined by the Congress, and thus is subject to the will of the people, who elect the Congress. As Abraham Lincoln observed, "With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed." As such, NASA depends on the good will of the American public. The Apollo program (1961–72), motivated by a perceived national security threat posed by early Soviet leads in spaceflight, generated the highest budget levels that NASA has ever seen, both in real inflation-adjusted dollars and in percentage of total federal budget, sharply peaking at 4.41% in 1966 and then descending. After the US won the Space Race by achieving the goal of landing men on the Moon, the perceived threat was gone, 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 shallowly declined to 0.75% in 1986. Despite a brief rally to 1.01% in 1992, it then repeated the steady decline to approximately 0.5% in 2012, the last year for which data is available.

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. 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."

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
• 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 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)