Budget of NASA
As a federal agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration 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 history to pursue programs in aeronautics research, robotic spaceflight, technology development, and human space exploration programs.
Annual budget
NASA's budget for fiscal year 2026 is $24.4 billion. It represents 0.35% of the $7.0 trillion the United States spent in the previous year.The appropriated FY2026 budget has the largest discrepancy from the White House Request since 1987 at nearly 30%. The request, submitted in May 2025, proposed a 24% cut to NASA's overall budget. In January 2026, Congress passed the final budget, rejecting nearly all of the proposed cuts.
Since its inception, the United States has spent over $1.8 trillion on NASA.
| Fiscal Year | Nominal Dollars | 2024 Dollars | % of U.S. Spending | % of U.S. Discretionary Spending |
| 1959 | 331 | 5,291 | 0.16% | |
| 1960 | 523 | 8,016 | 0.43% | |
| 1961 | 964 | 14,317 | 0.76% | |
| 1962 | 1,825 | 26,066 | 1.18% | 1.70% |
| 1963 | 3,674 | 50,695 | 2.29% | 3.40% |
| 1964 | 5,100 | 67,340 | 3.52% | 5.30% |
| 1965 | 5,250 | 67,037 | 4.31% | 6.50% |
| 1966 | 5,175 | 62,343 | 4.41% | 6.60% |
| 1967 | 4,968 | 57,053 | 3.45% | 5.10% |
| 1968 | 4,589 | 50,001 | 2.65% | 4.00% |
| 1969 | 3,995 | 41,183 | 2.31% | 3.60% |
| 1970 | 3,749 | 36,154 | 1.92% | 3.10% |
| 1971 | 3,313 | 30,049 | 1.61% | 2.80% |
| 1972 | 3,310 | 28,407 | 1.48% | 2.70% |
| 1973 | 3,408 | 27,667 | 1.35% | 2.50% |
| 1974 | 3,040 | 23,023 | 1.21% | 2.40% |
| 1975 | 3,231 | 22,088 | 0.98% | 2.10% |
| 1976 | 3,552 | 22,273 | 0.99% | 2.10% |
| 1977 | 3,819 | 21,620 | 0.98% | 2.00% |
| 1978 | 4,064 | 21,338 | 0.91% | 1.90% |
| 1979 | 4,559 | 21,864 | 0.87% | 1.80% |
| 1980 | 5,243 | 22,714 | 0.84% | 1.80% |
| 1981 | 5,486 | 21,587 | 0.82% | 1.80% |
| 1982 | 6,020 | 21,973 | 0.83% | 1.90% |
| 1983 | 6,838 | 23,460 | 0.85% | 1.90% |
| 1984 | 7,198 | 23,428 | 0.83% | 1.90% |
| 1985 | 7,552 | 23,774 | 0.77% | 1.70% |
| 1986 | 7,656 | 23,397 | 0.75% | 1.70% |
| 1987 | 10,434 | 30,634 | 0.76% | 1.70% |
| 1988 | 8,956 | 24,971 | 0.85% | 2.00% |
| 1989 | 10,791 | 28,704 | 0.96% | 2.30% |
| 1990 | 12,297 | 31,307 | 0.99% | 2.50% |
| 1991 | 14,016 | 34,437 | 1.05% | 2.60% |
| 1992 | 14,317 | 33,445 | 1.01% | 2.60% |
| 1993 | 14,310 | 32,083 | 1.01% | 2.70% |
| 1994 | 14,570 | 31,675 | 0.94% | 2.50% |
| 1995 | 13,854 | 29,357 | 0.88% | 2.50% |
| 1996 | 13,886 | 28,702 | 0.89% | 2.60% |
| 1997 | 13,711 | 27,957 | 0.90% | 2.60% |
| 1998 | 13,637 | 27,124 | 0.86% | 2.60% |
| 1999 | 13,627 | 26,464 | 0.80% | 2.40% |
| 2000 | 13,588 | 25,369 | 0.75% | 2.20% |
| 2001 | 14,254 | 25,671 | 0.76% | 2.20% |
| 2002 | 14,868 | 26,049 | 0.72% | 2.00% |
| 2003 | 15,449 | 26,495 | 0.68% | 1.80% |
| 2004 | 15,342 | 25,437 | 0.66% | 1.70% |
| 2005 | 16,187 | 26,029 | 0.63% | 1.60% |
| 2006 | 16,570 | 25,833 | 0.57% | 1.50% |
| 2007 | 16,285 | 24,444 | 0.58% | 1.50% |
| 2008 | 17,309 | 25,099 | 0.60% | 1.60% |
| 2009 | 18,784 | 26,711 | 0.54% | 1.50% |
| 2010 | 18,719 | 26,263 | 0.55% | 1.40% |
| 2011 | 18,432 | 25,455 | 0.49% | 1.30% |
| 2012 | 17,773 | 24,278 | 0.49% | 1.30% |
| 2013 | 16,865 | 22,700 | 0.49% | 1.40% |
| 2014 | 17,646 | 23,293 | 0.49% | 1.50% |
| 2015 | 18,010 | 23,305 | 0.50% | 1.60% |
| 2016 | 19,285 | 24,666 | 0.49% | 1.60% |
| 2017 | 19,653 | 24,606 | 0.47% | 1.60% |
| 2018 | 20,736 | 25,339 | 0.48% | 1.60% |
| 2019 | 21,500 | 25,779 | 0.48% | 1.60% |
| 2020 | 22,629 | 26,566 | 0.35% | 1.40% |
| 2021 | 23,271 | 26,343 | 0.33% | 1.40% |
| 2022 | 24,041 | 25,796 | 0.38% | 1.40% |
| 2023 | 25,384 | 26,247 | 0.41% | 1.50% |
| 2024 | 24,875 | 24,875 | 0.36% | 1.30% |
| 2025 | 24,875 | 24,875 | 0.35% | 1.30% |
| 2026 | 24,438 | 24,438 | 0.35% | 1.30% |
Notes
- The budget dollar values refer to the specific appropriations provided by congress to NASA. It may differ slightly to the total outlay of funds allocated to NASA.
- Data for this table collected by The Planetary Society.
Cost of Apollo program
In 1973, NASA submitted congressional testimony reporting the total cost of Project Apollo as $25.4 billion.
Economic impact of NASA funding
A November 1971 study of NASA released by MRIGlobal 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 billion through 1971 – and will continue to produce payoffs 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."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 and found more than:
- $21.6 billion in sales and benefits
- 352,000 jobs created or saved
- $355 million in federal corporate income taxes
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 and Small Business Technology Transfer 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. But the apparent 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 human 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 0.5% 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."
In 2018, Business Insider surveyed approximately 1,000 US residents to determine what they believed was the annual NASA budget. The average respondent estimated that NASA's budget was 6.4% of annual federal spending, when it was actually 0.5%. In a follow-up question, 85% of respondents stated that NASA funding should be increased, despite the majority of responses overestimating NASA's actual budget.
NASA's cost overruns and time delays have been blamed by some on NASA's usage of cost-plus contracts and avoidance of fixed-price contracts.