"Public opinion polls show that Americans believe that NASA takes up about 20% of the national budget. However, the overall annual NASA budget is only about 0.5% of U.S. Government spending. That's half a penny of every tax dollar. By comparison, in 2012, the government spent the same amount of money on Farm Subsidies (0.4%) and Agricultural Research (0.1%) as it did on NASA. And these numbers pale in comparison to the real big ticket items -- Defense (24.8%) Social Security (22%), and Healthcare (22.7%). This is not to downplay the significance and priority of these other programs, nor is it to imply that NASA is cheap. Rather it provides perspective: even if we were to delete the space program altogether, it would hardly make a dent in our budgetary problems." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-lyons/misconceptions-nasa_b_3561205.html

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