NASA has about 0.5 percent of the federal budget. Which sounds pathetic, but then the US is the world's biggest economy and is therefore huge. Like $17 billion dollar huge. Thats more than half of the world's countries GDP.

There are some major problems on this planet, however it is a pretty much cast iron accepted fact that if humanity is going to survive the next millenia or even couple of hundred years it will have to travel to other worlds and colonise them. Earth is in a precarious position, and I don't mean piffling little things such as environment issues- huge things like extinction level events.

Now of course you could argue this is not an immediately pressing problem in comparison to others, but the long term benefits from technologies and research that disseminate from space programmes promises immeasurably greater benefits than throwing $17 billion at one charitable cause a year. Just ask Bill Gates, who has thrown more than that, and the impact is still limited and aid distibution hugely problematic.

In order to help those in poverty and those with problems, we probably need an advancement of technology and science. If we can crack one key scientific area this century (for one example nuclear fusion power) that is the sort of thing that will help dig us out this hole we are in right now. This is what the likes of NASA contribute to, these significant scientific problems.

WAR IN SPACE!!!!!!!!!!!!! GREAT IDEA!!!!!!!!!!

If only the budget was as high as 1%....

What disappoints me isn't the low NASA budget though, but US neglectance to fund science in general. CERN could have been built in USA if it wasn't for congress! Now, instead of the President making a speech about the Higgs Bosson and having the country be inspired by science, we get Tweets from Switzerland.