NASA Budget 2019

Politics and Budgets

If you pay any attention at all to politics, regardless if it is politics at the local, state, or federal level, budgets are always a sticking point and there is always a deep debate on what should and should not be funded. Everyone has an opinion on budgets and it seems as if it is always a struggle to come to a budget agreement.

NASA's Budget

Similar to all budgets, NASA's budget has been hotly debated over the years. Should it increase, should it decrease, and what programs within NASA should receive the greatest increase or decrease in funds? There's a great Wikipedia page that shows the fluctuations in NASA's annual budget over the years, compared to inflation and the overall federal budget

Budget of NASA

NASA's budget, covering inflation, peaked in 1966 and hit a low in 1980, setting aside the very early years of NASA. The last couple of years have been somewhat average over NASA's lifetime. The fiscal year 2019 budget (not yet on this Wikipedia page as of this writing) was increased to $21.5 billion, which is a significant increase over the previous year and good news for NASA's science programs.

So say what you will about the ugliness of politics and budget fighting, but this year NASA came out well.