On: NASA's Perseverance rover will attempt to land on ...

[mullingitover]

It's 0.0471% of the 2020 federal budget, which was 4.79 trillion dollars. That's a pretty puny share of the budget. For comparison, the government gave 45 billion to farmers in 2020[1].

[1] https://www.npr.org/2020/12/30/949329557/farmers-got-a-gover...

[chordalkeyboard → mullingitover]

> It's 0.0471% of the 2020 federal budget, which was 4.79 trillion dollars

Its just under 1/200, not 1/2000. That is 0.47%. But almost 2/3 of the federal budget is non-discretionary, NASA claims 1.1% of the federal discretionary budget while having 0.8% of the employees. But you’re right, one man’s puny is another man’s puissant and its entirely possible for people to think 20 billion dollars a year is a piddling sum.

[mullingitover → chordalkeyboard]

There's also a good argument to be made that the research NASA is doing is valuable and reaps generous economic dividends down the road.