Quote from: Steven Pietrobon on 03/17/2017 07:45 amNASA's budget is 0.5% of the Federal budget.OK, that number is from FY2014 (for some reason Wikipedia has not updated the numbers since then). This years budget is $3760B. That means NASA's budget of $19.1B is 0.508%, so still holding steady.http://federal-budget.insidegov.com/l/121/2018-Estimate
NASA's budget is 0.5% of the Federal budget.
Mandatory spending programs like Social Security and Medicare, the biggest mandatory spending categories, are funded separately with separate revenue sources. Doesn't make sense to include them in this discussion.
What do you think would result in NASA's cancellation?
Quote from: Steven Pietrobon on 03/19/2017 07:15 amQuote from: Steven Pietrobon on 03/17/2017 07:45 amNASA's budget is 0.5% of the Federal budget.OK, that number is from FY2014 (for some reason Wikipedia has not updated the numbers since then). This years budget is $3760B. That means NASA's budget of $19.1B is 0.508%, so still holding steady.http://federal-budget.insidegov.com/l/121/2018-EstimateYou're looking at the total Federal budget. Most of the budget is mandatory spending and the budget process is fighting for what's left over.Mandatory spending is about 70% of the budget, leaving only 30% for discretionary spending (defense, education, NASA, etc.). Subtract out nearly 57% of discretionary spending for defense and that leaves only around 13% of the total budget for everything else. Of that small slice of the pie, NASA gets about 3.9%. That's a pretty high commitment, indicating Congress isn't going to get rid of NASA as long as the money keeps coming in.