Are such comments warranted? Is NASA really a money sinkhole? A study by The Space Review in 2007 found that Americans believe that NASA uses almost a quarter of the national budget. NASA’s missions are now few and far in between, especially with the end of the space shuttle program. It looks as if money is simply disappearing into thin air at NASA. Yet, I wonder why there are cynical voices.
 
How much does NASA really cost? In 2011, NASA cost an estimated $18.7 billion in 2011 — a trivial 0.53 percent of the $3.5 trillion that the federal government spent in total. This sum is so miserably insignificant that it does not even show up in the pie chart on Wikipedia. Curiosity totaled only $2.5 billion across nearly a decade of development.
 
On the other hand, $928 billion went to defense and the military last year —the quarter of the budget that everyone thinks is going to NASA. More than the entire NASA Budget, $20 billion, went to air-conditioning the tents in Afghanistan.